Copy, Gold Leader. I’m already on my way out.

"Copy, Gold Leader. I’m already on my way out."

The time has come to update you all on our SWTOR status.  I wish I had good or surprising news, but it appears my suspicions were correct: SWTOR is a tide-me-over game.  SWTOR falls into the category that I call “The 3 monther,” but it’s actually lasting under two months for us.  SWTOR is a tide-me-over or a game to play when you don’t have a more engaging or long-term MMO.

I bought the game to enjoy it as a Bioware RPG with multiplayer.  In reality, it’s a stereotypical themepark MMO with Bioware RPG elements tacked on.  The overall experience was still fun, and I do not regret my purchase.  I feel like I got my money’s worth economically, but perhaps was shorted on my expectations.  DCUO fell into this category for me.  I had an absolute blast for one month and loved it, but the game comes a screeching halt.  SWTOR is the same way, since I do not enjoy their end-game activities  enough to continue playing on a treadmill.

I’d like to just point out a few of my biggest issues with the game.

Questing

  • Too repetitive
  • At first the story disguises the grind, but when you’ve reached the 5th planet giving you the same cliche story arcs, it’s hard to suspend disbelief.  The writing for a lot of the quests was bad.
  • Too boring, maintaining a very generic feel.

Replayability

  • I have no desire to make alts.  Maybe this falls under questing.  I can’t do it again.
  • Only a few of the classes felt fun or interesting, and the mirrors were a little too obvious.  I can’t, for example, go play a Juggernaut after playing a Guardian.  They are the same thing.

Crafting

  • In many ways, pointless.  Only Biochem and maybe Cybertech are useful.
  •  No meaningful connection between players.  Crafting is pretty much a solo experience.

Dungeons

  • All but the first dungeon felt very boring to me.  I couldn’t bring myself to do them more than once.
  • They didn’t have that replayability factor that WoW dungeons had — I could run Scholomance a dozen times but I cringe thinking about running a SWTOR dungeon.

End-game PvE and PvP

  • Gear treadmills aren’t fun for me.
  • I don’t like the Expertise stat at all.

How the game feels

  • Combat feels off for me as a Jedi Knight.  There’s a disconnect somewhere.  Maybe a delay, maybe a GCD issue, maybe the animations.
  • It’s not quite “WoW in space” because I think SWTOR falls short of what WoW achieved in the ‘feel’ department.  For what it is, WoW has a lot of depth (which might sound like an oxymoron because themeparks do not have a lot of depth) and SWTOR did not capture the player in any sense of “world”.  The game actually felt closer to Warhammer Online’s truncated questing hubs.

Community

  • There isn’t a community at all.  This feels like a single-player game.  I rarely saw another player while leveling.  People are just crammed into the station.
  • No one needs to communicate with or interact with other players on any level.
  • Players do not have to rely on each other.
  • Essentially there is no “massively multiplayer” feel.

It’s okay to walk away from a game saying, “I had fun while it lasted.  I’m done for now.”   I asked the same question when I stopped playing DCUO, “Can this really count as a MMORPG if it only lasts a month?” I think most people are just shocked when a MMO only lasts a month and think it a failure if it can’t hold people for years.  What do you think?  Can we classify SWTOR as “successful” or even broader “a good MMO”?

Graev and I both agree that we liked SWTOR enough, and had high enough hopes for the game, that we are willing to resubscribe later down the road when more content is added or changes are made. For now, we’re once again on the prowl.

P.S. Many Bothans died to bring us this information.

  • I agree with all of this. It is why it died for me. I am a PVPer and a Raider, and neither of those could hold me in SWTOR. I have more fun doing Deathwing over and over again in WoW than I did any of the SWTOR raids. And leveling an alt was a no go. I tried twice, couldn’t handle the repeats. I got a Operative to 30 as an alt, but i leveled him 90% through PVP. My 50 assassin, was great, but after weeks of Huttball, I had enough, and Ilum is broken.

    I agree I would go back if they made sweeping changes, but as it is now, it can’t hold me.

    So I am on the prowl for an MMO also, I have been looking, but nothing good as of yet. I had a friend in C9 (continent of the nineth) that says its fun, but it was a closed VIP beta so I can’t actually play it.

    Hopefully you guys introduce me to something good if I don’t find anything before GW2 to pass my time.

  • I share similar feelings about the game. Overall I am disappointed. My main interest is PvP. I’m continuing to play because I have friends playing and we have fun in 10 – 49 PvP. That’s the only thing that keeps me logging-in at this point.

  • Well, I guess the question comes down to whether you play MMOs to be with other people, or if you play them for their inherent enjoyability. No matter how much WoW got right, I didn’t play it for 4 years because it had 4 years worth of entertaining features; I played because I made friends in-game, and they played for 4 years. Gear grinds are never fun for me, but I don’t mind them if they represent a benefit to the group later on in raids (etc), for example.

    I mean, honestly, what MMO is a good solo game you’ll play for months and months? (LFD/LFR don’t count.)

  • I described it as a single/coop RPG with theme park MMO elements tacked on. I agree with all of your points; additionally:

    They didn’t live up to the notion of creating a unique player experience through dialogue choices as the vast majority of story arcs had the same outcome regardless of reply selection. Including a token economy was not a viable substitute for actual storyline immersion.

    PvP problems are almost to many to list. It was far too gear-centric for my tastes. I felt that PvP skills were overshadowed by item bonuses. PvP felt like an afterthought. My favorite BioWare quote in this regard: “We’ve been pleasantly surprised at how popular PvP is in The Old Republic” (http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-10th-2012). There were too many consecutive cc’s (immobilizations/stuns/slows); if there was a DR mechanism in place it felt inadequate. Faction imbalances ruined Ilum open world PvP, which I felt was broken in any case. PUG’s needed their own randomized warzone queue. I’ll stop here.

    The bugs were crippling for me with constant Error 9000 dc’s in general, and unforgivably low frame rates specifically in warzones and crowded open world PvP (the latter which was a major reason why I left Warhammer).

    Exploits seem to have grown out of control.

    One thing that I only have heard people broach tangentially is the potential heavy handed control of server populations; by this I mean that I really only saw crowds of people in Ilum. Occasionally I would run into groups of people from my own faction during leveling, but rarely of the opposing one. I have to wonder if they suspected the instability of their gaming engine from beta feedback and tried limiting server populations as a result. Staggered Early Access entrance would be consistent with such an approach.

    I grew tired of being in a mass of cloned Sith Lords who all sat on the Dark Council, with the same companions, running around fleet trying to sell blue goo on the GTN. Story designers should just stop trying to make you feel like you are the most powerful character in the game; being competent is a more realistic goal.

    The GTN was a mess; the filters never seemed to work.

    There are many more specific details that just didn’t work well or were outright broken, but at this point I can’t be brought to bother discussing any further (reference the CS threads for exhaustive lists).

    The community was extremely ugly as evidenced by the forums, but much of this likely grew out of massive frustration with the game.

    Many of these things I would be willing to wait for BioWare to patch, but I did not find it interesting enough to invest any more money or time.

    I went into the experience wondering how BioWare was going to pull off asking for a sub for a single player RPG. My pre-launch response was that a company with BioWare’s reputation would find a way to pull off the content. I have instead come to believe that BioWare now only exists in name only, supplanted by EA’s subpar reputation.

  • I really enjoy the scope of TOR…the game is absolutely huge and honestly just that one fact keeps bringing me back. That and the sound/music of the game…best ever imho.

    Is TOR a mmorpg though? Technically yes. But Rift and WoW still do multiplayer sooooo much better than anyone else. Hell, W:AoR still does multiplayer better than TOR.

    But…it’s Star Wars. lol, I could only imagine what the Rift team could’ve done with the SW ip and $150mil instead of $50mil and a sock drawer. I digress. TOR has such scope and really the best quests. I’ll play off and on for as long as they’re sub based.

    WoW, Rift, and TOR. Those are my games now. I’ll switch ’em in and out like batteries 🙂

  • Heres my thing and not to start a war , last game I bought was Warhammer online. Never tried Aion, DCUO (spelling? ) ,Rift and even this Star wars and whatever else was released .
    Theres a reason for this, I learn from the first time around and will not give any money to developers who just make the same ol same ol . Alot of you beta these games and you know your going to be done with it in 3 months or a lot less and yet you continue to shell out money because its the new and shiny thing .

    When you do this, you tell the developers its ok to make these games, please continue , your doing great. You buy the box and sub a month or 2 and thats all thats needed for dev’s and investors to keep that train running, again and again……and again .So not to start a war but you gotta draw the line somewhere and say enough is enough.

  • I agree on principle Rumbarr. Things would likely have been different for me if other games such as GW2 or Dominus launched around the same time. Still I never leveled to 50 in the beta, and I had high hopes that BioWare would make endgame PvP worthwhile. I was of course mistaken…

  • I wrote this same thing today on my blog, except you stated it much more smartfully. There’s just nothing to do anymore, and SWTOR’s warzones make me so ragey. :/

  • I was hoping to read great things about this game and maybe buy it this month. I am sad to read so little good about it.

  • I’m in a similar situation. I have really tried to enjoy the game and always looked forward to rolling alts, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. My friends list is inactive, no one logs back on anymore. The guild functionality is poor and there seems to be no community. It’s usually speeding around completing boring badly written side quests I really do not care for, while thinking about how much better it is to do a similar thing in playing Kingdoms of Amalur in every aspect.

    Unfortunately the day I had this realisation I had my card charged for a 3mth sub.
    So I have had the mentality of *well… I’ve paid for it, I guess I should use it*… I still can’t do it.

    I had a great time for a month, I just wish I had cancelled the sub at that stage so I may return in several months time.

    I wasn’t at all interested in SWTOR, but I allowed myself to get sucked into that dangerous hype machine. Very underwhelming.

  • I played in July then September plus the various betas. So I could enjoy for free most of the stories. I bought it, spent one month raising my sorcerer to 50, and…nothing. So I left just before the one month period was over.

    I don’t regret my money, but honestly I have more fun in Skyrim and now KOA:R.

    I won’t do it with GW2. No beta, and wait some weeks for feedbacks. I’m a little tired of those “next gen” stuff.

  • Have to agree with most of these points. I just can’t see at the moment (lvl36) how the game will hold me come end game. I’m enjoying the experience but as you would a single player game.

    – Server pop: Where the hell are they all? Every area I’m in has no more than 30-40 people including fleet!? Worlds just seem empty

    – Someone mentioned that the game world is huge. Really? Just doesnt feel that huge to me. Its all smoke and mirrors. Just lots of corridors and large ‘rooms’ More importantly no empty spaces – no real need to return anywhere.

    Shame I really wanted it to be next long term mmo for me.

  • It would be interesting to see a comparative on how long each MMO has lasted until you switched.

    My own would be..

    WOW 1 year
    EvE 2 years
    War 2 years
    Rift 3 months
    AoC 9 months

  • Rumbarr has a point but I have a certain generic addiction to MMOs which means I’m always waiting for “the next good one” to appear: I am still very selective about which ones I will actually try though.

    Here’s my list from memory, no doubt forgetting some games:

    Neocron: Felt like a long time, not even sure if this had a sub.
    Planetside: about a year
    Star Wars Galaxies: 3 hours then sold it to a friend, I hated it before it arrived on seeing a mate “playing” it. Worst game ever.
    WoW: 6 years. Whoops.
    Conan: Level 70ish – however long that took 😛
    LOTRO: many months but left at the FTP transition.
    Aion: maybe a week or two of pure grind.
    WAR: few months, this was a good game but endgame PvP was just broken beyond repair.
    Rift: 3 months, loved it but had just did not want to carry on once I hit 50
    City of Heroes: <2 weeks, once I could fly I had no motivation to continue.
    DCUO: <1 month. Went into it intending only to play for the free time and did so.
    Star Wars TOR: 2 weeks, boring SP and the worst PvP ever. I believe the same class designer who broke WAR's classes was involved and he did the same again but this time you had to play against broken Classes in the torture that was Huttball.
    Various others: played a demo only or can't even remember the games.

    So looks like "A 3-Monther" is actually a long time for me! I get my monies worth but I'm loathe to subscribe now.

    Still playing:

    World of Tanks: over a year now

    Lining up for more:

    GW2
    Planetside 2
    MechWarrior Online

    Game I wish I had played:

    DAOC

  • I agree that SWTOR has been a disappointment. This would have been a great game, back in 2007. But they are so far behind the technology and design curve. I don’t think this game has the legs, nor BioWare the ability, to keep up with the demands of a modern MMO.

    I’ll get GW2 just because it doesn’t have a subscription, even though not a fan of the series and tired of fantasy content.
    TSW is interesting, but I have little faith in FunCom.

    The MMO market is just lacking that next big thing. I just don’t see it happening for the next few years.

  • I pre-ordered and quit after one day. It was a waste of money, but I was still into Skyrim and nothing about TOR grabbed me. I got to level 10 and I hated it. I’m watching from the outside now as my guild struggles to keep interest up.

    Here’s my stints with MMOs:
    WoW – 5 years off an on. 3 years as a raider and the last 2 I did nothing but arena and pvp, so it wasn’t an MMO by then.
    Guild Wars – 1 month
    AoC – 2 months (after following it through production for 2 or 3 years)
    WAR – 4 months
    Fallen Earth – 2 months (I kind of liked this game)
    Mortal Online – 1 hellish day
    Aion – 3 weeks
    TOR – 1 day

    TBH, I’ve been playing a lot of single player games lately. MMOs are turning into single player games only not as good, so why not just get the real McCoy and wait for a quality MMO to come out.

  • I really do not know why they did not vary up the questing more. There are so many retard quests related to military crap it get so damn redundant. For a game all about story they sure picked some odd ways to limit themselves.

    also people always talk about how casual WoW has made its game. But thats not the full truth, they hit a very good sweet spot between casual and hard that keeps the majority of people entertained.

    Good example of this is there zones. They are small enough to be traveled easily but big enough to hide the funneling. This is something swtor, rift, war failed to do.

  • @Pressie: I can’t remember the exact time frames for some. Some games lasted less than a month, and I won’t list those. I’ll just list the major players (even then I may forget some).

    The Realm – 2 years
    UO – 4-6 months (I didn’t own it, so I borrowed)
    EverQuest – 2+ years (more if you count on and off time)
    DAOC – 3+ years
    SWG – Counting on and off time, 1.5 years or so.
    Planetside – couple months
    WoW – Many breaks, but a combined 3-4 years easily.
    Vanguard – 2 months
    LotRO – 1.5 years
    Pirates of the Burning Sea – 6 months
    WAR – 3 months
    Darkfall – 3 months
    Aion – 1 month
    Rift – 2 months
    SWTOR – <2 months

  • Put briefly, I see a lot of folks’ complaints regarding repetitive quests and alt paths…but I’m still having a lot of fun playing my Commando and my Marauder. I’m still leveling my main (level 39, hoping to get a group for the plot-heavy Maelstrom flashpoint–Keen, did you really not enjoy any of them after the first?)

    I’m fearful that I’ll run into the same sort of burnout as you folks. As someone said, it’s the community that keeps people playing.

    But I guess I’ll be happy if I keep entertained until I get my hands on Mass Effect 3 and The Secret World.

  • @wufiaveli: I agree that WoW hides it’s funneling better than other theme-park MMOs, but I did not like the direction they took Cataclysm with all of the phased areas and cut-scenes. It was the final nail in the coffin for group questing. IMO, the shift toward “solo-gamer” has ruined what made MMOs great – the social aspect. Now we get a list of quests that we have to do and we rush through them. Gone are the impromptu adventures that occurred when you joined a group in the open world and the socializing that happened in the downtime.

    I’m looking forward to Pathfinder Online and Dominus, because I think they realize the current theme-park model is played out. I believe our only hope for MMOs is going to come from an indie company at this point. These may bite the dust, but at least they are the right direction.

    @Keen: Have you been keeping up with the CCP game in development, World of Darkness? Even though I didn’t play EVE, I did respect their game model and hope that this will have success.

  • Here are mine:

    UO 1.5yrs, 1998 to 2000

    AC 1.5yrs, 2000 to 2001

    DAoC 3-4yrs, Played on an off again from 2001 to 2009. I’d be playing DAoC now if it wasn’t for the fact that there are no more non-ToA servers.

    Shadowbane, 2 months, 2003. Just to many flaws in this game to keep playing it. Oddly it probably had some of the best classes I’ve played in an MMO along with Vanguard.

    WoW 3yrs, Played on and off again. I found the main reason I was coming back were friends were playing it. I hate the game but it’s nice to play with friends.

    Vanguard, 2 months. Again just like Shadowbane, to many bugs to keep playing. Loved the game but even on a brand new computer it ran like shit.

    AoC, 2 months. I like PvP and when this was introduced, PvP was a joke. Plus the game was incredibly broken.

    WAR, 6+ months. God I wanted this game to be good and I kept playing it hoping it would be but they couldn’t fix the big pile of shit it was.

    Darkfall, 3+ months, currently playing it as it’s probably the best Sandbox out there for me.

    Aion, 2 months

    DCUO, 1 month

    Rift, 3 weeks

    SWTOR, 1.5 months

    Honestly, I’m tired of theme park MMO’s and I won’t be playing them again ever. I played Aion, DCUO, RIFT and SWTOR because this community was playing them and actually because it’s fun to play with people but the current crop of MMO’s have become so single player that the only interaction I’m having with people these days are on vent and NOT in my MMO. I hate that. Which is why I’m playing Darkfall again. In the past week I’ve been playing I’ve done more actually playing with others than I did in Rift and SWTOR combined.

    As I said in vent the other day, I’ve found that MMO’s need people to be reliant on others in some way. This whole Single Player MMO is just crap for me. In the past three years that I’ve played with the K&G Community, my best memories are of playing Darkfall when I first became part of it. Why, because we were reliant on each other, worked together for a goal and did everything together.

    In Pen and Paper D&D you didn’t just run around solo killing everything in sight, you played with others, worked together with others etc. That is what I want in an MMO and sadly I doubt that will ever happen again because today’s Dev’s are all about making a game that is single player until “end game” and then make you gear grind. Retarded in my opinion. Give me a world to playing where my goal is to further my character in ways, not just grind gear.

  • Can we go back to darkfall now =P For some reason playing swtor makes me miss darkfall all the time.

  • TOR turned out better than I had pictured & I did have fun in my short 1.5 months with the game. For me, I just can’t justify paying $15 a month for something that plays very much like a single-player game.

  • Yeah, I was the biggest defender of SWTOR when it came out, but just last week I was away from my computer for a couple days, and realized that I didn’t miss the game.

    I’ve gone back to Rift of all games and am enjoying myself quite a bit, they’ve added a lot to it.

  • I am amused by your community wanting to go back Darkfall (which while not being updated much now, is in vastly better shape today than when you guys moved away from it).

    Also interesting to see EVE not on peoples lists of MMOs they have played. Not sure what that means, but its interesting.

    As for your questions Keen, you can’t have an MMO with a decent community if the playerbase changes ever 1-3 months. Just impossible, especially if during that 1-3 months people are able to do almost everything solo.

    From a “do your part for the genre” perspective, I don’t get why people did not wait 6 months or so with SW:TOR. Pick it up for $5 and experience the solo adventure, while not rewarding/encouraging more of this crap to be made and called an MMO. Sure quitting after a month also sends a message, but not as much as waiting would.

  • Here are mine:

    UO 3.5 yrs, 1997 to 2000, plus about 6 months on IPY free shard (which was a blast)

    EQ 4 months, mob grinding never did it for me after UO’s gameplay.

    DAoC 4 months, college interfered and wish I had played more.

    Shadowbane, 2 months. The original hyped game which never remotely matched it.

    WoW 3yrs, with 2 significant breaks. Friends were the main draw. PvP was enjoyable for the 1st month then it got very repeative. Hate pvp grinding for gear as the main reward. Raiding was fun until it started to feel like a job after 2 months.

    AoC 4 months, liked the pvp action initially, but pops died and game was released to early.

    WAR, 3 months. I liked the game’s idea but the pop declined killed it for me. Went to show that public quests, pvp zone objectives, etc only attract attention in the beginning and die very fast. I learned from this that pvp cannot be artificiality created through zone designation.

    Aion, 3 months, graphics were great, grind almost killed me. Promise of end-game pvp and future updates kept me going. Only to be completely and utterly disappointed.

    SWTOR, 1.5 months, same thoughts as Keen and many others.

    Games I wished I played: AC and Eve.

    Refuse to play any more theme park MMOs. They are dead to me. Honestly, don’t think I’ll touch another MMO without complex crafting, player-centric crafted economies, and some form of housing.

    Crazy to think that the best MMO experiences I’ve had in the last year were UO classic shard, IPY, and EQ progression server.

    BTW, I predict within 3 years EA will be owned by Activision. The EA brand will be retired, except for EA sports.

  • My subscription runs out in 3 days and I just dont know if I can stick it out, everyone of my friends have quit and gone back to WoW. I myself tried going back to Rift (which I havnt played in a year) but I felt so lost and honestly I didnt get that “must-play” feeling I usually do when I choose.

    Looks like I’ll prolly go back to AC but I’ll prolly be castigated by my old guild there for leaving in the first place lol. I dunno maybe I’ll continue to stick it out in SWTRO in hopes some fixes are implemented and Ilum is fixed.

  • I really wanted to like this game, but by the time I got to level 13 I almost lost my mind. (I actually had a moment where I just placed my head on the keyboard!) I knew it was going be kinda like WoW, but I found the combat exactly like WoW. No WAR morale system, no Aion wings…nothing new (maybe I missed it). It did have a lot of neat stuff added to the game, but when combat is 90% of it, I wanted something a bit different and/or better then WoW. All this game did was make me realize how good WoW’s combat can be. I actually enjoy WoW more now then I did before playing SWTOR! (I can’t figure that out.)

    As for @Rumbarr’s point. I agree with it the most part, but I would rather have companies make games then not. If it wasn’t profitable at all I think the number of games to choose from would drop off. I don’t know if that’s a good thing either.

    And with each new game does come some good ideas, I think that is also a positive.

    I also think it says a lot to buy the game, and unsub 1 week later. It says, “I tried it and I hated it”. Companies talk a lot about starting sales then get quiet when they drop off. I’m not sure how SWTOR is doing, but I hope it does well enough to keep going. I think competition is good. Games that come and shut down don’t bring anything to the table.

    We do need some company to think outside the box and do it well. That should push other companies also. But to be fair, these aren’t iOS games, there is a lot riding on decisions made.

  • The final straw was the last interview they published on their website…what is next for PVP…more warzones…no mention of open PVP…but the kicker was when someone asked when we can pick which warzone we want to sign up for and the answer: not until we have cross server warzones…they felt like they need these to give this option. No PvP vision…no sense…

    It was a fun experience for the short time and I enjoyed myself but long term…there is no point to it.

    Luckily I found a new distraction for in between failed MMO attempts: Boardgames!!! Yeah baby!!!

  • @Skuishe, I don’t know how long the community will be playing DF Online but right now we have these people playing:

    Damage (me)
    Bartlebe
    Phandy
    Keen
    Eternity (possibly but he’s fickle)

    We joined a guild that still had 3 of the old EU community playing.

    Beleg
    Owyn
    Skryer

    I would have to agree thought with what Keen said when we were talking on vent this morning. We would both much rather be playing UO but most of our community doesn’t want to be bothered with a 15yr old MMO. UO, for both Keen and I, still has a much more real world feel. The problem is the UO Second Age shard is all about UO circa 1999 and OH MY GOD, the macroing you have to do there is just as bad as it was in 1999.

    So it’s DF Online for now.

    Here’s hoping they do a wipe for 2.0 and we get another 5+ to return to play.

  • WOW: 3 years; got burnt out on the repetitive gear raiding.
    EvE: 2 months; I loved the ship customization, but disliked that I usually was fighting red “X”s, as well as the realization that it would take years to reach levels that I could compete with the old timers.
    Warhammer: 5 months; I liked the game, but the frame rates were too low in open world PvP.
    TR: 5 months; I really liked this game, but it was broken, and never was fixed.
    AoC 3 months; there should be a meme associated with “It was great for the first 20 levels…” There was no endgame at the point I hit cap, only gank gangs that camped the rez points constantly. The customer support was also non-existent, and they didn’t live up to initial promises to the fan base; one of the most annoying lies was that they were committed to a firm RP rule set where “Playing a homicidal maniac would not be accepted as an excuse for griefing”, yep…

    I still wonder how I had so much fun in WoW for over 3 years and yet games that are WoW clones (even with light sabers) are immediately dull upon hitting cap. I do think part of the reason is the accelerated progression curves nowadays. Unless my memory betrays me, I feel like it took a long time for me to hit cap back in the vanilla era, and it also was a big deal to finally accumulate 1 gold piece. Prior to SWTOR launch I signed up for the free play until level 20 option for WoW and hit that on the first day of play and had tons of gold; maybe not coincidentally I found it to be boring.

    Allods had real potential for me and felt like a WoW clone done right up until I hit a level where the cash shop was necessary to remain competitive, and more to the point to feel non-punished; they threw away a game that could have been very successful over their short term greed motivation.

  • As a PvE soloist, I’ve enjoyed the game as KOTOR3. I got to my usual mark on the GTM breaking 1 million credits in no time flat. Exploring is semi fun, but could use a lot more work.

    What kills the game for me, and what makes me feel like I’m going to quit soon, is the geometric progression of Kill X quests. From 1-20 or so the quests were interesting, and often involved dialog choices for completion. Past 20, it seems that Kill X quests go up from maybe 40% of the quests to 60%, then past 30 it’s 80% or more and now at 40+ almost every quest is “go kill 50 enemies.”

    I started out feeling like I was playing KOTOR, and now I feel like I’m playing a Korean grindfest MMO. Even WoW was never this bad.

    I’ll make it to 50 and see what’s what, but I don’t think I’m going to stick around past that.

  • Oh hey it’s the MMO bittervet measuring stick. Here’s mine!

    EQ : 1998 – 2004 (Shortly after Omens of War
    WoW: 2004 – 2007 (When the game turned away from it’s Vanilla roots)
    EVE: 2004 – Present day (One 8 month break in late 2004, another break from summer 2011 – late fall)

    DAoC fell somewhere on that list, I played it solid till the abhorrent ToA shipped. TOR as a MMO is a complete failure, it should have stayed KOTOR3.

  • Missed this one:

    @MMOkay: World of Darkness has been shelved for at least a year while CCP stop being retarded with EVE and actually put money back into the golden goose. Most of the EVE players could care less about WoD, especially after seeing the impact of developing vampire barbie tech did to EVE.

    Most don’t mention EVE because you have to be a certain kind of sadist to enjoy full non-consensual PVP where you can literally destroy everything that took someone months to require in a minute. Those are the same kinds of people that enjoy Darkfall though 😉

  • I feel the same way, leveling alts is just not a fun experience, the amount of travel time/combined with time to kill in later levels just makes it a tedious experience. And not having any real options other than raiding/pvp at endgame doesn’t give much incentive to keep playing and paying a monthly sub. It also felt like a lot more playtesting and attention to detail went into the 1-30 experience and 30+ felt like it wasn’t give the final polish passes.

    I’ll probably give it another try in 6 months or so depending on what changes they’ve made and what else is out. Unfortunately for SWTOR the first two months in an MMO lifecycle are critical and I don’t know how many people they will get to return.

    AOC and WAR were both much better games 6 months after launch but they are both on life support now, maybe the Star Wars brand will be strong enough to carry them through.

    My mmo experience
    DAOC – off and on about 2 years
    AC2 – 3 months till they started changing everything
    WoW – off and on but probably 3-4 years total
    LOTRO – off and on about 3 years total
    AOC – 2 months at launch, quit cause I kept find quests there weren’t able to be completed due to bugs, came back later and played for about 9 months and enjoyed my time leveling
    WAR – 1 month at launch, hated the game but gave it another chance about a year later, was much improved but still had serious issues and the RvR was more RvE and roaming around the lakes in a big zerg capturing undefended keeps got boring fast
    CoH – about 2 years total 3-4 months at a time
    CO- 2 months, shallow gameplay didn’t keep me interested long
    Rift – 5 months and currently playing this and LOTRO, have some issues with Rift but I think Trion is one of the best developers out there from a customer service standpoint and the game is still enjoyable overall.
    SWTOR – 1.5 months, might have lasted longer if I had chosen another class as my main, got bored with Powertech quickly but Assassin and Sentinel were fun enough, just couldn’t handle leveling again and burnt out when my alts were around 30.

  • I was in the beta for TOR and I’m having a hard time levelling some of my characters. I think my highest level character is something like 25(?), I dunno. Hard to do some of the questing, as the side quests just bore me now, and it’s far easier to get good gear at lvl 20 via PvP. It’s slower to level, but at least it’s more interesting, IMO.

    Overall, I’m not a fan of themepark MMO design, but I enjoy the story aspect of SWTOR, and I love Star Wars. I’ve never been much of a fantasy fan, so maybe that’s why I’m not as burnt out as others.

    As for previous MMOs, I’ve noticed that a lot of the replies are folks who’ve played WoW for 3+ years. Maybe that’s the reason they aren’t sticking with SWTOR? Going from a polished, content rich themepark to a themepark still in development doesn’t sound like a recipe for player retention. Another factor could also be that everyone has been mentioning they were soloing. Community retains players. Probably why most of the people replying stuck with WoW for 3+ years. It’s the only reason I played CoH/V for as long as I did.

    As for my MMO history, I’ve had a different path than the rest of you:
    SWG – 8 months
    CoH/V – 2+ years (break in the middle for WoW)
    WoW – 5 months
    LotRO – about 3 months, all split up
    EVE – 2+ years, with numerous breaks (currently playing again)
    WAR – 5 months
    Aion – 3 months
    FFXIV – 2 months
    Rift – 5 months

    Personally, the only thing that has kept me playing themepark MMOs is PvP. Perhaps that’s why I never stick with them past a certain point (about 5 months). I’m sure SWTOR will end up like the rest of them, but for now I’m having fun.

  • I really don’t agree with you on this because personally its just the way i like to play a MMO … But you and me have different tastes and play styles and i respect your opinion on SWTOR and why your leaving … maybe GW2 will be your type of thing..

  • I’ll get on board the nostalgia train:
    GW: 4 months
    WoW: 2-3 years
    TR: 3 months
    LotRO: 2 years
    AoC: 6-8 months
    W:AoR: 6-8 months
    Rift: 10 months and still going strong…i’m shocked by this one
    SW:TOR: 1.5 months. Sure, I wish it was better but this one is on a slow burn for me. I’ll play whenever I have an extra $30 for a game card.

    I’m excited for TSW this year and Wildstar next…I’m concerned that GW2 money grab with consoles and microtransactions will result in disappointment.

    I’m strangely optimistic about MoP…Blizz might go back to the vanilla WoW rulebook for this one.

    There’s my past, present and future. Great reading everyone elses and very cool what this thread evolved into. Awesome community here 🙂

  • I’m a PvPer, and SWToR seems to have managed to fail so hard at PvP by making it a frustrating gear grind at 50, that I prefer PvE to PvP and would rather go raid. I wish I could lock my level at 49 and get some level of enjoyment from the game…

    Asherons Call: 3 Years (Many aspects of this game, I’d love to see again, amazing open world)
    AC2: 1 Month (omg fail)
    DAoC: 5-6 years? More? I left about 3-ish months after ToA ruined the game
    Shadowbane: Beta, 1month, got scared off by issues, yet I have friend who had some really amazing experiences in this game)
    WoW: 1 Year (shit pvp, I hate raiding)

    WAR: 3 Months (pvp issues)
    AoC: 2 Months (friends left)
    Aion: 1 Month (grind grind grind grind grind)
    Rift: 3 Months (gear grind)

    I actually really enjoyed a free trial I played of Asherons Call, they’ve improved a lot, but not having my group of friends playing it makes it barely worthwhile. And I’ve played a smattering of free trials for most of the other major MMO players.

    I might need to consider joining you Darkfall guys…

  • Comparing my MMO history to others on K&G I have a below-average tolerance to MMOs in general but had an extreme tolerance for WoW.
    But I could have predicted it because at the point I pulled the plug on WoW I was playing it 4-5 nights a week and then practically all weekend. I don’t miss it because thankfully MMO addiction has no “Cold Turkey” stage and once you stop playing it just fades fast.

    Daily Quests are the thing I miss the least: I hate the invention of something that appeals to the OCD element like that. I’m happy to have a huge list of things to complete but not a list of things that need re-doing on a daily basis.

  • SWTOR was the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I never even finished the ‘free’ month.

    Biggest gripes:

    * Linear world.
    Basically every planet is one huge corridor with point A & B, littered with repetitive packs of mobs.

    * Linear questing & gameplay.
    Basically every planet and quest hub is the same. Groups of bad guys, you being the hero of the universe. Everyone loves the amazing you.

    * Shallow world.
    The class storyline is interesting at first, but gets old really really fast. At very few points did the world around me feel like a living vibrating world, waiting to be explored.

    * Community.
    Non existent.

    * Leveling.
    Is so bland. Quests are repetitive beyond imagination. No way leveling an alt is going to be fun.

    * The look and feel of the game disappoints. Character movement is like watching a bunch of robots run around all the time.

    * Space combat (on rails) is an insult to everyone that ever played SWG. It made me wonder if SWTOR wasn’t a flash based game.

    In overall, maybe my expectations were way to high, but SWTOR didn’t delivery. Not even closely. If this game wasn’t based on the Star Wars IP, Bioware would be in serious trouble.

    This game was hyped up to be the next big thing. Bioware this, Bioware that.
    What it turns out to be is a MMO developed by a company with too little experience in producing MMO’s. The game is shallow, lacks polish (yes polish, you’re not supposed to polish your game after release, you’re supposed to update the content and fix bugs … (( bugs /= polish )).

    The audio content was their biggest mistake.

    Ask yourself, if it wasn’t the Star Wars universe, but instead was some random space thingy, would you have bought the game, or would you still be playing?

  • Great post Beetle!!!! Like most people I too only played one month and it was only because I was dedicated to the guild that I played that long. I logged into vent yesterday to discover that the guild that was 100 strong at launch is down to twenty part time players. This was a guld that had five raid groups going all the time.

    I am more upset with myself then anything else. I always know a stinker when I see one. I was just blinded by Star Wars. No more theme park games for me ever!!!

    I hope Dominus will fill the void for me in the future.

  • Speaking about DF 2.0, any new details on when it will be released? I’d def be interested in playing if there was a wipe.

  • I feel like maybe there is something wrong with me as so many of you don’t like this game, but I like it a lot and I’m having fun. It may be that since I never played WoW and a great majority of you who don’t like this game played WoW for several years. So to you it’s more of the same, but to me it’s a new experience.

    I’m excited by the features they are promising to bring in 1.2, but I have no illusions that it will fix everything in the game that there are problems with. Namely Ilum. I have a great time in PvP even though I sometimes get totally stomped by people with better gear, I feel that in most cases the teamwork me and my guildies have balances some of that out.

    So sorry you guys didn’t find a home here. I feel like you are nomads constantly seeking a home that does not exist anymore. I hope you find what your looking for nonetheless.

  • this is exactly the way i feel, my sub is about to run out, but i havent logged in for a week now, prior to that i could barely log on for more then 5minutes before sighing and asking myself why im even trying.

    i think i just got burnt out after grinding out battlemaster

    i will also resub down the road, perhaps when/if they add server transfers and more pvp content.

    GW2 looks really good right about now…

  • An interesting quote from the second SWTOR Q&A session:

    “We actually had chat bubbles in beta, but there was unfortunately some serious performance issues that our implementation caused that, for example, made things really suck in warzones and the fleet. ”

    I see this pointing to the incomplete optimization of their modified Hero engine, which is likely responsible for current low frame rate issues in warzones and fleet, as well as Ilum, when multiple player characters need to be rendered. Older games run chat bubbles with no significant frame rate issues.

    http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-17th-2012

  • “Can we classify SWTOR as “successful” or even broader “a good MMO”?”

    I can answer to this.

    Successful doesn’t depend on if Keen or Merovingian play it. Successful depends on how many people keep on playing it.

    Even though I may stop playing in sometimes in the quite near future, I think this game will stay around with a healthy player base for quite a long time, even if it’s not our kind of game on the long term.

  • To a certain degree, you are correct; however, there comes a time when I believe one can state whether a game is a success, despite people still playing.

    The idea of profitability is not a metric that I personally use for measuring MMO success post-launch.

    For example: People still play Vanguard. At launch, Vanguard had a healthy population. One to two months later it was all but fizzled out. Was Vanguard a success? I would say no, because they could not hold onto a majority of subscribers beyond the free month, the game was not finished beyond level 35, and several technical issues plagued the game for a long time.

    Games like UO, EQ, and DAOC were popular for YEARS at a time, not just months, and have held loyal players for over a decade. WoW is the contemporary example.

    Successful doesn’t depend on if I play it or not, but if I stop playing for major issues affecting the game’s ability to last long-term, then the question of whether or not a game is “a good MMO” is worth looking over the coming months.

  • That’s what I meant, Keen. Enough people to make the game viable. Not a Vanguard style fiasco barely kept alive.
    I think SW:TOR will keep a viable amount of population over the next years.

  • “I think SW:TOR will keep a viable amount of population over the next years.”

    I believe that this will only be attainable by a F2P model. The game felt like a single player, or at most coop, experience until cap. Most worlds were fairly devoid of other players while leveling during the 1st month; this will only get worse as time goes on.

    As an analogy, would I reload my RPG Dragon’s Age again and try another class and story line if new content came out that allowed me to fight other players in warzones? Actually, yes I think that would be pretty cool (assuming I didn’t get constant Error 9000 dc’s and low frame rates), but only if they charged a set price for an expac; no way would I pay $15 a month for these added theme park elements.

    SWTOR is like a RPG Mr. Potato Head; you can make him temporarily more interesting by sticking on different hats (warzones), ears (raids), and moustaches (space combat), but in the end it is still a mishmash of poorly connected accoutrement covering a plastic tuber (http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/active-adventures-mr-potato-head1.jpg).

    I think BioWare pushed for accessibility to the large casual crowd by making the game very easy in virtually all aspects. People with short attention spans received frequent positive reinforcement and leveled rapidly. The problem is that “hard core” players are not challenged, and the casuals lose interest at cap unless constantly supplied with new content, which is slow to create if it requires extensive voice acting.

    SWTOR will always be compared to WoW, and understandably so, as it is hardly revolutionary in the MMO field. People will say that it isn’t fair to compare a game that has been out for a month to one that has been refined over years, and they are correct; but when is fairness a concern in the commercial success of a product?

    WoW was able to build over years due to their original “hardcore” gamer base keeping them afloat. In the beginning it was not considered mainstream to be playing a MMO like WoW; you were part of an ostracized nerd minority and I am doubtful that it turned many investors heads in the first few years of development (please correct me if I am wrong as this is speculation). It was the nerd early adopters that allowed for WoW to grow to a point where they were able to insidiously change the game to appeal to the larger casual crowd, and ultimately leave them behind.

    The big problem with SWTOR is that they wanted to be WoW right up front with a large casual player base. Unfortunately the casual crowd is just that and likely doesn’t share the same rabid fanboy dedication or loyalty that a hardcore player will when they commit to rolling their 1st new toon in a game. Why should a casual player keep paying a monthly sub for a game that is not nearly as large or refined as one that has Mr. T, Chuck Norris, and Kung-Fu Pandas? It isn’t fair, but that fact won’t keep SWTOR from going F2P.

  • Unique and refreshing perspective my arse! This is just another “I quit” post. Yawn. Game is great and will be around for many years.

  • Still having fun. When I stop having fun I will stop playing.

    Sandbox fans should avoid SWTOR.
    PVP fans should avoid SWTOR.

    If things do not change I doubt I will still be having fun in 3 months from now when my account expires.

  • I see a common theme here. Many people jumping from game to game and no mention of being a fan of…Star Wars. If you do not like Star Wars, then you should probably play something else. The void that everyone of you is mentioning, the thing that is missing from the game for you is that you are not a loyal and true Star Wars fan. That’s what Bioware, Electronic Arts and Lucasarts are gambling on…get all the Star Wars fans playing one game. I played everquest for 9 years and Eve for about 2 years and actually quit gaming all together. However I am hooked and I am hooked again only because its: STAR WARS. Star Wars will be in the history books with or without the game. Wow will not, everquest will not. Want to be a part of history? It’s really a no brainer.

  • “Sandbox fans should avoid SWTOR.
    PVP fans should avoid SWTOR.”

    Right to the point, I agree.

  • I agree with everything you have said. I suppose in the end this will be an mediocre game that will be played by soccer moms and senior citizen star wars fans. For real gamers though it just fails on too many levels.

  • I loled with many of the pple MMORPG experiences because are really fun.

    I’m a Star Wars Galaxies player, 8 years,from day 1 to the last second they kicked us out from the servers. In 8 years I /ragequit once, during “2005 NGE debacle” for 4 or 5 months, not sure.

    Of course I’ve played many other games, those called MMOS, like Wow, WAR, EQ, AoC, DCUo, Rift, DDO or STO. I get bored of them pretty fast and run back to my beloved galaxies.

    The mmorgs are like that first love, you have many “girls” in your life, but none will be like the first. Maybe many of your colleagues call it ugly or old, do not understand her because she is too complicate… They can even call you stupid to continue loving her after “she” does you an evil move like the NGE… But was not her fault, she just wanted to like you, because everyone was talking about the new hottie in the neighbour (WOW) .
    But trust me, what gives you a first love, the others may only can imitate.
    SWTOR is for the real galaxies players as a whore to a princess. You can dress her as Princess Leia in slave outfit, but will continue stinking to WoW bitch.

    What Im trying to say is: games are a lot and everyone will love one for his own reasons. But as you’ll have the opportunity to return to your beloved one, we “the real players of galaxies”, we have taken to see “her” die and we have nowhere to return.

    SWTOR is 20 times more disappointing for us than for any other.

    I miss my Galaxies and I can not do anything but see my FRAPs videos ad cry.

  • Go look up all my posts on the forums and look at the dates. I warned you guys over a year ago of everything you just described in detail and took a beating for it by the fanbois who are now screaming the exact same things. That game has been built from the ground up wrong in all aspects. It didnt take a gaming engineer to see way before release that this game was destined to be a care bear nightmare with no depth at all. I wanted a good game come out of it but all SWTOR seemed to do is boast SWG Emu into all time high numbers. Yeah, people want a SW MMO but not this peice of garbage thats about as interesting as Wizard 101 and I am probably insulting Wizard 101 mainly because those guys understood their market.

  • Really enjoyable read. Its quite refreshing to see so many people, in one space, who can manage to type in a coherent manner and discuss the game without resorting to flaming. I’m not sure how long it will last given that this review has been linked on the SWTOR general forums – which accounts for the most recent posters above. Baton down the hatches!

    Anyway, I agree with many of the viewpoints here.

    My MMO past is:

    WOW – 6 years (until 6 months ago)
    Aion – less than a month
    Rift – less than a month
    Warhammer – less than a month
    Age of Conan – less than a month (I returned a year later and lasted less than 10 minutes)
    Eve – a few months. This game is the first game to cause me to cry in real life. Got suckered into a scrap with someone and got toasted. Awful… but great.
    SWTOR – sub ran out yesterday and I wont be going back.

    I loved the game initially and was convinced over the first month that it would replace WOW for me. Sadly, the issues that were preventing me from *loving* the game were just never addressed during the time since release until now. I still get awful FPS in any PVP environment despite getting perfect FPS everywhere else. I just can’t handle it when a game doesn’t feel smooth particularly in PVP and this issue scuppered all those games in the *less than a month* section above. I made it past a month in SWTOR which says something in itself, but being used to the perfect control of WOW – particularly in PVP, its just impossible for me to truly enjoy a game that just feels inferior in that most crucial area – gameplay.

    WOW is so successful because the ultimate hook is the combat itself. Fighting other players is fun, competitive, skillful and therefore exciting. Killing mobs is even fun. Its all perfectly smooth, fluid and responsive and SWTOR is “clunky” whatever the hell that means.

    So, at present I’m MMO-less and at the point where I’m just exasperated hearing people indulge in the hype for the next great MMO. I have repeately bought into it but no more.

  • @Larlar: Ahhh, thanks for the heads up. I was wondering where people like Mark spawned from, naturally the most mean-spirited and frustrated forums in MMO history, SWTOR…

    “Blah, blah, blah, internetz.., blah, blah, gotacha..”

  • I hit burn out earlier than just about any MMO I’ve ever played. My mmo experience:

    Ultima Online — Not very long. I played during open-world PvP (no-PvP flags). I got real burned out on the ‘quakers,’ as we used to call the gankers back in the day, constantly stealing my stuff/killing me.

    EverQuest2 — Played in early and for a few months. But had too many things going on so I backed off. Then played a bit. Then backed off. Cycle. Cycle. Cycle. Have also played a bit under the F2P model.

    Eve Online — About a year. Had two accounts.

    Mabinogi — About two years. Overlapped with Eve Online.

    Fallen Earth — Six months (until the 1.5 patch was released). Overlapped my leaving Mabinogi by three months.

    LOTRO — Somewhere around two years. Probably a little less, but I still play a bit.

    SWTOR, STO, Rift, AoC, a few others… All about two-weeks to a month each. Often simultaneously while looking for what I’m looking for…

    Also:

    Dungeons and Dragons Online — I’ve played on-and-off for years. Overlapped many other MMOs and I still play on ocassion.
    Guild Wars — I played that on-and-off for years. Finally gave it up two years when the old computer caught on fire…

  • I see the people are following the link from the BioWare forums… Funny how they all act like they’re above it and anyone that criticizes their game is stupid/immature/etc.

    And yet, evidence indicates, barring fanboys trolling, people can have quite the mature discussion about this failure of a game…

  • I agree mostly with what was written and don’t think an MMO is in any way an MMO if it fails to facilitate and encourage players to play together. Don’t misunderstand me players should be able to enjoy themselves without being completely dependent upon other customers for that enjoyment but in an MMO you should have easy and seemingly natural means to getting together. It then NEEDS to provide content and a reason for them to continue playing for ‘a long time’ I’d say at minimum that should be 6 months but really it should be longer.

    If you are open to exploring the world in an MMO you should really never be in the situation that there isn’t ‘anything to do’ or you are stuck doing the same things over and over. SWTOR falls into the latter category relying on the very repetitious alts system, expecting you to play several characters to experience your entertainment over time and the stories are too identical on the same faction side to be truly engaging. Even crossing factions only gets you so much ‘fun’ starting over and grinding all the way to 50 for what to enjoy what you just spend X weeks working towards?

    A good MMO has several months 3+ of actual content that you kind of ‘need’ to do but isn’t just something they force on you so you can’t do ‘anything’ until you complete it. Nor should that content/experience but artificially drawn out to make too little content seem longer. I think TOR has decent gameplay for your class story and playing ONE more class isn’t terrible but should not in any way be considered part of that gameplay that ‘keeps’ you playing longer. Extra characters/alts should be a BONUS and BW treat it as actual content that should ‘sustain’ you.

    As far as being and MMO it is mediocre at best, I’d say it is worse as you point out you don’t need or really end up interacting with other players. The problem I see is there just aren’t enough other people AND there aren’t mechanics to facilitate it. Flash points/ops/raids are fine but only if you like that kind of gameplay and then you need to ‘wait’ on other people. Group heroics are ever present but they just distract you from what BW has championed, your class story, so why take the side tracked group heroic where you have to group up with some random people? If it was much more engaging story wise or just easier to grab someone (like lots of people and convenient) then it might be beneficial. Even then that is just one way to get people playing together and BW misses on so many other points like any kind of way to find or join a guild in game. You are expected to run to the game forums to find out about guilds on your own server, you can’t do it in game except if you want to ‘spam’ chat begging to join whatever random guild is on when you are playing. There are no social games or methods in the game to get random strangers interacting together. You can’t play any SW games, no swoop racing no pazaak, the only thing you can do is let your character ‘dance’ in game and you don’t even dance with other characters. A good Looking for Group tool, cross server, would help as would a guild tool and of course some actual social activities with some point like fun but they don’t exist.

    I say the game on a whole is below average because it is an MMO, the single player aspect is average to good depending on the class and how strong the story is but the MMO aspect is weak. The non-interactive game world also hurts the game, you can’t use/click/talk to virtually anything or one unless they are part of your current mission. You see ships/vehicles/wrecks/computer terminals/droids/npcs etc and they are all ‘dead’ to you way to make SW feel small and pointless.

    As far as being successful I say it can based on getting people to buy it and pay for 1-2 months ‘extra’. I think most will be ‘satisfied’ with a total game experience of less than 3 months. Even a casual players should have gotten through the game(one character to 50) in 3 months and then see what they can and more importantly can’t do after their characters’ story ends. From there either they enjoy what is left or they don’t. IF they enjoy it I can’t understand how that remaining gameplay is ‘fun’ for more than a couple more months.

    Based on the SW IP they have ‘succeeded’ in creating something many will play for a while (few months) then leave. Without real, significant content and a change in direction from what BW appear to have wanted or settled to make that will be it for the vast majority of players, no reason to come back. MMO junkies and self described wow ‘vets’ may stick with it to escape more fantasy settings which seem near fused to any MMO but I can’t fathom how they’d have fun with the limitations of SWTOR.

    I don’t see a problem for BW to maintain several hundred thousand subscriptions which should be more than profitable for them to keep SWTOR running for many years without understanding they’ve made a mediocre MMO at best. There are at least that many people who will think that the game will get better or that the sub isn’t that expensive to enjoy the game a few hours a week. Sadly that is exactly what BW doesn’t need, people thinking that the game is ‘good’ as it is. There is much promise but the game is too limited and more importantly BW doesn’t know what they are doing as evident by how they left pvp exploits in game for more than 2 months before addressing them. Or how incompetent their technical support is, they don’t get that they are providing sub par service for a sub par product.

  • You nailed it on the head for me. A friend and I beta’d and then quested the first month. Actually, I shouldn’t have beta’d, that took away a class I didn’t want to play again once it launched.

    My feelings exactly though, I couldn’t bring myself to play. I would say if a game does that, then for me it’s failed. It just feels very lifeless. The only two things I really liked were the Jedi Knight’s leap and the Sage’s ability to crowd control.

    My own MMO life:
    EQ – 1 year but had to quit due to hardware issues, switched to…
    DAOC – 2 years, loved this game only quit because everyone went to…
    WoW – I’m a lifer so far, 7+ yrs, do take breaks though
    COH – free month upon release, free month a few years ago.
    SWG – tried trial twice, couldn’t make it past two days either time
    LOTRO – beta’d, bought lifetime membership and played total maybe eight months. I loved the potential here but.
    D&D Online – logged in, exactly like LOTRO, logged out.
    Rift – not even a week, quit when went to main capital and it looked like LOTRO elf areas.
    SW:TOR – month total

    Right now I’m looking forward to GW2, that looks very very interesting.

  • BTW, DAOC launched Oct 2001 and ToA released in Oct 2003 so if you quit then, that’s 3 yrs. I played Feb 2002 – Sept 2004.

    I had a great time with it but was on the carebear server where we had big weekend parties doing the levels. Fun fun times! 300 people in a raid. Now that was MMO!

  • We MMO guys are funny people, always looking for the next big thing after that initial .. well … big thing that was our first or even 2nd MMO. As I can see for most of us that has been some version of EQ, UO, DAOC or WoW.

    Those games were truly bright stars on the MMO horizon. Seldom did u feel such vast possibilities, be it with the super large scale pvp of DAOC, the grouping and crafting and exploring of EQ, the .. well .. astounding endless possibilities UO offers. And seldom did one game cram it altogether in one – WoW – and did it right (well upto Cataclysm anyway).

    I honestly do not think any game will ever succeed in captivating me that much as did any of those games, especially WoW. It really has it all but most importantly, it FEELS right because the combat system feels so natural, smooth and polished and most importantly: fun and engaging with tremendous depth (most people that played WoW and then other games will know what I mean by that).

    SWTOR is lacking in ALL of those areas that made those past games fun and worthwhile to play. Right now its ONLY asset is the Star Wars license and the corresponding influx of Star Wars enthousiasts. Without its SW license the game is AT BEST below average when compared to contemporary MMO’s.

    I’ve been waiting for years for SWTOR to be released. I’ve NEVER EVER been so hugely disappointed in my gamer life as with SWTOR. I thought to myself: a fully voice-overed WoW-Clone in a Star Wars setting? This will be heaven on Earth! Dudes, it’s even worse than WoW back in 2005. I know, I’ve been there and played it back then.
    It’s like they really did not want to incorporate ANYTHING a modern MMO is expected to have.

    Unfortunately, because of its inheritent flaws, the game will never ever crawl out of its grave it has dug itself. You just can’t fix core problems with patches. (What those core problems are has been enumerated multiple times in this blog and its replies.)

    I’ve sworn myself never to return to WoW, but after playing SWTOR I really miss WoW and really only now understand what it is that kept me playing for nearly 7 years.

    MMO’s played:

    Anarchy Online – 2 years with breaks
    UO – about 2 years
    EQ – 1 1/2 year
    DAOC – from beginning till 3 months into ToA
    EQ 2 – 3 months
    AoC – 6 month sub (played 3 of those)
    LotRO – 1 month (WoW just kept me too busy and hooked) (later on 3 more months)
    WAR – 2 weeks
    WoW – 2005 till mid 2011 (with small breaks)
    Rift – 3 weeks
    SWTOR – 2 months, sub canceled and will not re-sub

    and a multitude of f2p mmo’s.

    Damn, its been a long time already…

  • It’s a terrible game, what else can you say? I dont think it has 3 months of life but rather a year. When all this years releases (diablo 3, GW2, Tera, Pandas) I think the game will be closer to doom.

  • Agree, shortest mmo I have ever played… Pvp is a joke and the endgame treadmill is very poorly disguised. Just terrible end game…

  • Hitting the nail on the head !

    Yes the are adding new feature’s (cross LFG) in +1.2 etc
    (but will be to late for most players)

    UI in general&performance issues&skill delay execution.
    ON Rails PVE Space missions (stopped at second run)
    Low texture’s on max.
    End gear looks indentical.
    Planets feels satic and dull (lifeless)

    All the above issues, makes WZ/open pvp not fun !

    /Swtor should have released 2012 or later TBH.

  • Ouch. I always hate being linked to official forums. I never expect good things from a forum that requires its posters to be subscribers. Thanks to the majority for keeping it civil. To the haters, I’m not sorry that we disagree. I am, however, sorry if you take offense to what I have written.

    I tried to be fair and even-handed with what I wrote. This was not an “I quit” post. I liked SWTOR. I simply see no reason to continue for the reasons I gave. I’m open to returning in the future and have no remorse for having purchased and played SWTOR for 1.5 months.

  • Don’t take it personally Keen. I truly feel that many of the SWTOR forum posters are very frustrated at the failings of their game and lash out at everyone; it is the most ill-willed forums I have experienced. There were plenty of people who commented about the mature and balanced discussions in your blog; the flamers are clearly out of their element.

    Reading the SWTOR forums these days makes my head hurt. It seethes with unfocused vitriol, always confrontational, and rarely thoughtful. Even when I disagree with your POV, I respect the time, effort, and critical deliberation that you put into each piece. Keep it up man!

  • Ultima online 1997 – 2000 and for a few months last year on the ftp shard

    EQ – about 2 days felt fake compared to UO ..atleast to me
    Ragnarok Online – 3yrs loved it. anime style, no questing, “grinding” was very enjoyable, leveling req. teaming up with people and the people were friendly and there was always something going on. If you thought it was too quiet in a town or city get a group to summon an mvp aka boss in town or farm dead branches and use them in town to summon monsters.

    Planetside – 6yrs..this is my game. Sony made bad decisions with a great game. Even with dated graphics theres so much more going on here than SWTOR. All they had to do is fix some exploits, make it F2P ..they had already stuck ads in the game even though it had a sub..which was stupid. They merged servers which was a good idea for an old game. Rift and UO are the only other MMO’s ive played with the constant massive play similar to this game. Was nothing in the old days to get a population lock of 300 folks on one planet battling it out. This game should be made F2P now and smoothed out some as a way to get peoples attn that PS2 is coming.

    Guild Wars – a few hrs. game was instanced. i had no idea what was going on or what instanced meant 🙂 coming from games like UO and PS. I didnt get it and didnt want to. made no sense

    world of warcraft – 6.5yrs ,took a while to get to 60 was enjoyable the whole time. made friends that i still keep in touch with to this day. TBC was really fun. Wotlk felt more like work to me because of the going for realm first raiding guild i was in. Only thing that kept me playing were RL friends who still played. When they bailed i did too.

    City of heroes – a few hrs.

    Eve Online – a month, felt like original UO in space 🙂

    Lineage / Lineage 2 – a few months

    Rift – played on day of release..lasted 2 days. i didnt get it at the time, but i can say it got way better. OR the bad taste in my mouth from SWTOR made me realize how fun Rift really is.

    SWTOR – 6 days early play. Forced my self to get my commando to 50 just to say yeah i atleast finished one character. Made some Imp alts but just cant do that stuff over again. I like the class stories alot. I’d felt less cheated if this game said it was a single player game with co-op than lying and saying its an MMO of any type. I’d like to play all 8 class stories but cant justify paying a subscription for a single player ( you can play this on a console with a controller ) game.

    Rift – again..1 yr older and not what it used to be. Been here 1 month and i have to option of not having to quest to level. After about level 22 or so i decided to do events, rifts and dungeons.

    Waiting for Planetside 2

  • I agree that swtor has had a major flaw in design by not making their game more of an MMO.

    Even the selling point of the game is not good enough to compensate for the lack of quality you expect in an RPG which should be dramatization of the events. The problem was swtor went with ordinary single player elements made it linear at the same time and used the Bioware name to do it.

    However, all swtor has to have is a few additions and their game will be great. Of course they can’t please everyone. However if they put mini games, gambling, a bounty system, open world pvp rivaling sand box mmos, multi pathing quests for story and side quest content, give their characters an actual personality with catch phrases or a certain attitude, crafting upped to meet end game, dynamic bosses with random abilities and not just spells rotation but actually doing different things in different runs, a game that is easier for those with companion and difficult for those without, more warzones, large server population. Also guild tools. After all that then they should make the game have a free trial. And they will come.

    I would also suggest dual spec, and UI customization.

    Swtor still has a lot of potential and there are a lot of customers. They need to just get these things out in time before people won’t give swtor enough attention.

    Also Space combat pvp will save swtor. However if they get out space combat without adding other important feature in their game then either space combat has to be that good or the space combat will flop due to the rest of the game flopping for those interested in a certain standard.

    The people new to the game or the casuals are a different demographic.

     This from a point of view from a MMO and video gamer vet. I think several people will agree with this point of view.

  • Good writeup, and dead-on for most players – even those that aren’t vocalizing it. Even the fanboys are trying to convince themselves that they like the game and that these issues don’t exist.

    It’s more clear than ever that when MMO developers focus on “game” and completely forget about “world” they have a hard time succeeding. There needs to be both. That’s not sandbox/themepark statement either… There’s just no need for a world in TOR, you could simply make the planets zones on a list you could access from a menu screen, treat them as platform levels and you’d end up with as much immersion as you have now in TOR.

    Worlds offer endless opportunity. Games end when objectives are met. Like TOR.

  • You can enjoy a game for a short time period and then really not want to ever touch it again. 2 months is about that time period, where the game is fun superficially but just lacks depth and replay value as a result. When things just are too redundant.

    SWTOR does fall under this, although a lot of games do. Since single player games are a subject of comparison in this entry, I’ll mention Skyrim. Skyrim is by all accounts an amazing world and very impressive in many aspects. Unfortunately, for me, it has next to no replay value due to some of those game mechanics. Since the level up system is skill based and not quest based, I really don’t want to smith another 300 iron daggers or enchant another 300 useless iron daggers. My actual journey won’t change each time I play it, and the combat is to dull to be enjoyable by itself.

    This is in contrast to something like Fallout, where you can go in a different order, try different things, and quests and enemy kills give you experience so you can also try different builds if you want. You won’t have to craft the 300 iron daggers.

    Now a possibly advantage to a game like Skyrim is that it’s conceivable, and rather probable, that a modder will enable people to try a different style and add interest to the game. With an MMO though, you’re reliant on the dev to add content, and it’s unlikely they will take major risks by overhauling the entire game, since everyone would be forced to play the new overhauls at the same time.

  • To be honest it sounds like you are completely burnt out on MMOs. Frankly, I think a lot of people are. Yet, they keep playing more MMOs thinking that somehow the “right” MMO will take them back to when they weren’t burnt out on them.

  • “RandomPasserby says:
    February 25, 2012 at 8:15 am
    To be honest it sounds like you are completely burnt out on MMOs. Frankly, I think a lot of people are. Yet, they keep playing more MMOs thinking that somehow the “right” MMO will take them back to when they weren’t burnt out on them.”

    Man, Im not burned of MMOS. My problem is they closed my MMO!! I want my SWG character back!! Me and my +100 guild were having fun of the game and they closed it. We liked SWG because was a good game, we has good characters with 8 years of work on them, and was Star Wars. Man, you dont know how bad is when you are having real fun and one comes and plugs off it.
    I must be honest. I HATE SWTOR with all my soul.Because it can’t give me not even 1/4 of the fun and pride of my toon, I was having at SWG.

  • The credits should have started to roll at the end of Act 3 on your first character, this game has less replayability than Dragon Age did and the companions have a weaker story than DA companions. Even the gift system is a watered down version of DA.

    I haven’t had the will to log in for two weeks now and have no interest in making more alts and sadly the prospect of making an alt is more appealing than going through the end-game.

    This game is built on a lie, the lie is the process where you level your character up to the end of Act 3. This game just has a radical shift from interesting story to flat-lining after the end of Act 3.

    It is like buying a FPS and it stopping after the first few missions and turned into a RTS game. Almost everything the game had as a strong point had a very narrow window in terms of experience. Anything good about the game was experienced and done to death during the level process.

  • I empathize with some of the points made in the blog, but I think MMO players’ expectations are too high these days. People forget that successful MMOs such as WoW, EVE or EQ were iterated upon for years to reach their current states. It’s not fair to compare a brand new MMO to a game that’s been around for years; what’s fair is to compare SWTOR AT SHIP to, say, WoW AT SHIP.

    Also, and this is crucial, look how many MMOs we’ve played over the years. Isn’t it possible that people are just getting burnt out with MMOs in general? It’s not like we’re still playing those older games that we look back upon so fondly. And why not? They’re still there. So there must be some reason we aren’t playing them anymore. Why is it SWTOR’s fault for being the same/different/trying something new/trying the same old same old? No matter which direction they go, there will be critics.

    I like SWTOR. I’m not blown away by it, but I like it enough to keep subbing. I recognize that it’s not just the MMO genre that’s created the theme park—it’s me. I created it, because I’m not 25 anymore with unlimited time on my hands to level or group or raid. Game developers know this, responded to it, and here we are. What’s next? Hard to say. A little more sandbox-iness would be good, going forward. But not too much. I don’t have all the time in the world to play. And neither do you.

    P.S. By the by, if you expected anything different from what was delivered in SWTOR, then that’s on you, not on BioWare. BioWare told you EXACTLY what they were shipping long before they shipped it—a game that “followed the WoW rules” while adding the “fourth pillar” of [BioWare] story. This was not a bait & switch.

  • I played the game since day 3 after the official launch. Sadly, I knew the game was a failure as an MMO by the end of the 1st month. It just doesn’t have that magic touch that sucks you in and makes you want to keep playing.

    This isn’t even about the game being just 2 months old, lack of features or bugs. Time can only bring content, it can’t fix what is basically a severe design flaw from the start.

    And another thing. The gameworld is based on BOXES! You basically play in a series of boxes that close up when you are done in that area and, not only that, some areas (Corsucant, Nar Shadaa, etc) have content which you can’t even access and it’s only scenery. IN AN MMO WITH SUPPOSEDLY OPEN WORLD ?!? REALLY ?!? This game will never have flying mounts, it’s not even possible with the way the Hero engine made the world.

    The trash quests (non story related) are BOOOOOOORING. On each planet you run the same series of stuff: kill mobs sitting around in groups of 3 or 4 (wtf is it with the groups ????????????) most of the time.

    Even Rift managed to keep me interested in playing for about 5 months and it sure as hell didn’t have a budget of 100 mil $ and professional voice actors.

    I have cancelled my swtor 3 weeks ago and, even while having nothing to play, I don’t feel interested in going back. Can’t wait for Tera Online, which I have been playing the beta btw and was mesmerized how fun that game can be.

    ToRtanic indeed.

  • I think what broke the game for me is that there are just too many mechanics in that make the game not fun. From too many mobs which either stun you or your companion, to the overuse of strong and worse, elite mobs. Throw in an uninspired talent system and abysmal ability system which seems to be built on the premise of how many cool downs can we come up with and even combat becomes a chore. Then load up on the most annoying bugs and missing feature list I have seen in a supposed A+ title and it leads only to failure.

    Bioware should be ashamed of what they released. I don’t care if EA pushed them, the game is horrid. The voice acting only goes so far. We are playing a glorified version of “Choose your own Adventure” books and its not even a fun story at times. The light side and dark side choices are so bad at times you just cringe. Worse, no choice you make truly affects the story. Even in the beginning you could never aggravate NPCs stronger than you to kill you….

    but the final nail in the coffin for the game for me, my character performs awesome feats of strenght only in cut scenes and some of those demostrated abilities are ones I cannot do myself.

  • I found this place linked in the MMORPG.com forum.

    Think i have found a spiritual home, of gamers that are looking for the same thing i am.

    My past is similar to those posted above, starting with PnP D&D in 1983 through to muds and UO.

    My first true love was SWG, i left about a year after NGE, i tried to stick with it but i could never get past how the community got decimated by the NGE, and every time i went through a once thriving player city now deserted a little bit of me died on the inside.

    I never actually played WoW, i knew even that gear grinding is not my thing. Once i had the inclination to try wow out of boredom, i talked myself out of it as i felt i was way behind the gear curve…. looking back i may have underestimated its success lol…. but my point stands, the NGE taught me i hated themeparks sp i dont feel i missed anything.

    Since i dipped my toe into

    Pirates of the burning sea Had its faults but quite probable the best PvP i ever played, so tactical and fun, endgame was shallow though, and i burnt out in closed beta trying to get to endgame then getting wiped frequently.

    WAR: closed beta… got banned from beta forum for suggestion to much CC was killing PvP. I subbed 6 months realised they were not going to fix the core PvP issues.

    Aion < 1 month themepark and grindy….. no thanks.

    Rift, 1 week, themepark wow wannabe…. boring.

    Darkfall 9 ish months loved the game did not love the exploits and hax at launch, walls of pain, afk swimming all killed the immersion. Certain races were certainly more effective at PvP than others. If only they had found a better way to do the skill system instead of AFK macro grinding magic missile.

    AoC 1 week then about a month a year later…. improved but not enough to keep me away from EvE, or left for dead, and other shooters with my friends.

    The only game i keep going back to is EvE, but as a PvPer even large fleet actions burn you out in a real hurry especially when RL commitments means you dont get much sleep.

    Then SWTOR…. exactly the same PvP issues as WAR, exactly the same ignorance of the beta testers the pattern is so similar its alarming. At least wars public quest system was something new and made PUGs easier…. after all we cant always count on having a premade handy all the time.

    SWTOR is not an MMO on any level unless Raids are your only interest.

    I would love to see a sandbox game like darkfall use EvE's zoning system so you have a High sec for the carebears and a place for those that only know themeparks, these are quest hubs.

    LOW sec, medium risk, medium gain… the place where the PKers/gankers can hang out but are equally food for the alliance pvpers.

    Null sec : Free for all red = dead. High risk, high gain. Grouping / alliances are essential, which will breed economies and politics/ metagaming etc.

    Add an SWG style crafting/gathering/ prosepcting system where crafting is a skill in its own right and worthy of respect from pvpers and raiders.

    Spaces where players can build bases/cities that other players can destroy then frankly you are onto a winner in my book. If there is a way to create and manipulate the world around you then the community has a reason to come together. In fact its the community that is lacking in recent MMO's because they are not given the tools to make an impact in the world.

    Even RPers are struggling in SWTOR, and thats saying something as star wars is probably the most fertile area for RP there is next to Lord of the rings.

    I am never ever playing a themepark again, i dont mind themepark aspects as long as i have a sandbox to play in. I like to pvp a lot of the time, i like to RP, i like to raid occasionally, i like helping noobies level, i like community building and interaction between guilds and cross faction. I hate a game that forces me to ignore most of those aspects.

    The truth is SWTOR only caters for

    Solo players who will recycle alts blindly and play all storylines.
    Raiders and PvPErs.

    As it does none of those things any better than other games out there and completely disregards any other gameplay preference then i fail to see how this will be stronger than WAR or RIFT in the long run.

    I might be interested in joining you guys for DARKFALL 2.0 if they do a wipe.

  • Games are worth the effort you are required to put into them. EQ1 up until Luclin required a lot of effort to succeed; it was hard, you *had* to group for the best stuff; camping times were sometimes absurd; corpse runs were tedious and on occasion half the server (it felt like) was required to band together to rescue a failed raid.

    This was the heyday and the golden age of the MMO. Ever since then it has only gotten easier. Now the companies make games to be pablum for people who aren’t willing to earn their stripes.

    If there is no challenge, if every class can solo everything then what is the point? You don’t build community that way, and community is the heart of long term success for a “massively-multiplayer”.

    SWG at the beginning was nearly everything you could ask for in a Star Wars games. It needed work (god it needed work) but it didn’t need dumbing down to the point where your average 12-year old could solo everything.

    Bioware should have made it harder. In addition, they should have made at least 50% of their servers *enforced roleplay* with attention to names, etc. They should have made the basis of questing be 3-4 players, minimum. More attention and variety should have been made to character generation. The mirroring thing on *identical* questlines with different names for republic and sith is not variety. If Coruscant and Dromond Kass are the same planet semantically then there is no difference.

    I love Star Wars, don’t get me wrong. In fact, they’re probably in more trouble with people who love Star Wars than people who really don’t care. I had hoped it would be an upgrade in difficulty and fun than KOTOR I/II. I was willing to have it be very basic in what was available as content if the implementation and design were top notch. LOTRO was successful as long as it focused on the Lore of Lord of the Rings. SW:TOR can only be successful if it focuses on Star Wars stuff.

  • I 100% agree with everything you said. It’s spot on. I am a really big Star Wars fan (I am old enough to remember seeing the first one in the theaters when I was 7 years old), and I loved KOTOR a LOT. But this game….there is nothing to keep me subbed. Grind out PVP on Ilum with horrible FPS just to get gear? Sorry WoW had that and I never got into that game. The problem in this whole mess really is LucasArts and EA. They want a “safe” product. Ever since PukasArts pressured SOE to release the NGE, they have been seeing those WoW numbers in their eyes and have tried at every turn to get those numbers. But as usual, they are playing it safe and making it BORING for everyone. People leaving WoW didn’t lean WoW to get another clone, they wanted something DIFFERENT. But what do they get? WoW-lite with a Star Wars theme and voice acting. Sorry, that aint gonna cut it in 2012.

    And don’t even get me started on the graphics and style of the game. It’s exactly what you would expect if Lucas anal raped Clone Wars and gave birth to SWTOR.

    LucasArts is the whole problem tbh. EA a very close second. Bioware is just the newly acquired bitch that EA is pimping out.

  • The reoccurring theme I seem to run into is that people were disappointed in this game unless they set their expectations low enough. That’s the same as being proud of your under-performing C student because, “At least they didn’t come home with D’s on that report card.” Ridiculousness…this game is just sub par in nearly every facet.

  • Why are people using the “SWTOR is a new game that has’nt had seven years like WoW to smooth out issues and you people expect high expectations” bullshit? NO, SWTOR had four or five years in its development to learn from WoW’s mistakes, but instead bioware decided it was time to “fix” issues that were never broken from the start.

    I stand by my opinion that when pandas, GW2, Diablo 3, Tera and whatever else comes out this year, this game is done for.

    And to some earlier posts about SWTOR forums, I agree 100%. SWTOR forums are tragic, unintelligent troll grounds for gamers. I was so fed up of someone on forums trying to ask a good question about the way PvP works in a game, but instead it was near harrassment, I had to launch a ticket to CS about it caus’ I felt so bad.

    I’m at the point where I think people are purposely and with malice trying to destroy the game at any level they can because they are so fed up.

    The game and the forums are a utter cesspool, I’m glad I quit.

  • I cancelled my subscription a little over a month ago after seeing no light at the end of the tunnel because the tunnel was closed off or not finished. It was a long walk back though the tunnel but I finally made it out and took the road back to WoW.

  • My biggest issue with the game is: here it is, 2 months old and I am *one slot* away from BiS everywhere… 9 months in Rift and not even close… and I don’t want to talk about how freaking long it took me to get to L50 in EQ1…

    1.2 is adding content and normally a 3 month time frame would have been fine but here it is going to be a month late for too many people…

  • Good blog, found it linked on the official SWTOR forums. My history is similar to others who have posted here. Played WoW for 7 years off and on, Rift I’ve been playing off and on for nearly 8 months, LotRO like 3 years for a month here and there, and finally SWTOR, since December 13 (I was actually in the first wave as I had preordered on July 21 bright and early in the morning).

    The game is seriously lacking some basic features that we have become accustomed to, like a combat log or a decent LFG feature (doesn’t even have to be cross server!). In other words, the current state of the game is quite abysmal, as much as I hate to say it, as I was waiting for this game for a couple of years before launch.

    You cannot compare the launch of this to WoW’s launch, as WoW wasn’t developed with nearly the amount of money that SWTOR was developed with. Also, while WoW was being developed, it didn’t really have a major competitor to learn from, like SWTOR now has with the likes of WoW and Rift (possibly others, too?). I must say, I was there for WoW’s launch, and yeah, it was pretty bad at times, however I think SWTOR’s release has been far worse. Like I said, not even a combat log? Who thought of releasing this piece of junk?

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Star Wars fan, watched all the movies at least 10 times. Even read some of the books, like the Darth Bane series, however this game just fails to immerse me into the Star Wars universe like it should. All the mobs are in packs of 4s, almost all the quests are “collect this, kill that” and the ability delay can make your character feel quite subpar. I thought my character was supposed to be a hero in the Star Wars universe? Guess not!

    Anyways, I might resub if some major changes are made, however, I’ve kind of stopped playing since January, and honestly I don’t even miss the game all that much.

  • Joining you guys to play…

    On the Sort of related notes.

    Your MMO Gaming Pattern has conclude for me that I could never play with you guys.

    1) PVP: I’ve never a PVP server players. The frustration levels from Ganking is too much and I want it to be fun..not excercise in anger and revenge

    2) Speed: You Guys enter the game..Level pretty quickly and get to end game.

    This is the 3rd game I’ve consider joining you guys. I even made characters on your server, but with RL works and school, my pace is much slower. My Highest Characters is 36th right now.

    3) QUIT: so by the time I’m hitting Max Level to play with you guys. You’re quiting or already gone. Leaving me w/ characters I made on PVP server that I didn’t want to play in the 1st place.

    so I’m left with sticking with getting GANK with no CoolGuyz friends to help, Make new friends on the server or just start over on non PVP server.

    so Am I going to expect the same experience w/ GW2? It’s not your fault, just from POV of some one who wanted to play with you guys but it won’t happen. I may be in the Minority.

  • ForceUser says:

    I empathize with some of the points made in the blog, but I think MMO players’ expectations are too high these days. People forget that successful MMOs such as WoW, EVE or EQ were iterated upon for years to reach their current states. It’s not fair to compare a brand new MMO to a game that’s been around for years; what’s fair is to compare SWTOR AT SHIP to, say, WoW AT SHIP.

    I think this is one of the more disengenous arguments. MMOs, back in those days, were pretty much sandbox. WoW was primarily a sandbox MMO with some questing added on. It later turned into much more of a themepark MMO.

    HOWEVER, when it was released it was head-and-shoulders above it’s competition in many ways and not inferior to its competition in any significant way. It was, in fact, a very polished game. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an MMO people wanted to play because it was better than every other MMO out there by a long shot.

    So, let’s use a better themepark release comparison. Not WoW, which wasn’t originally a ‘themepark.’

    LOTRO was a themepark MMO, with some sandbox (but not a lot) from the beginning. It was much better on release than SWTOR. Leaps and bounds better. Better main story. Better side quests. Better crafting. Better social functions. Better graphics. Better PvP. Better PvE. More raids. Better end game. Bigger, more open areas.

    And it was done by Turbine who’d released the not-well-received and almost instant-failure of DDO just a year before. Think about it… Turbine was in a bit of financial trouble. They HAD to push LOTRO out before they completed Chapter 1. Having five, if I remember right, books to go… And they surely didn’t have $250 million budget. They probably made that game with about $35 to $50 million.

    So, a better game in everything but lightsabers at a fraction of the cost…

    So, no, I’m not interested in the ‘What WoW failed to do’ argument. It’s bogus. Early WoW wasn’t a themepark game. Early WoW was, however, a massive step forward in the open-world + content paradigm of its day. That it later evolved into more of a themepark than an openworld game… Such is life.

    But SWTOR? THey had as much money in their development as I suspect WoW put in with seven years and three expansion packs. Think about it… Vanilla WoW couldn’t have cost more than $40 million. Each expansion another $50-$80 million…

    That’s about the same money. And SWTOR… 6 years in development? With as much money? And tons of examples from an industry that made a lot of mistakes from which they could have learned…

    And we got this? Are you kidding me?

    Give me $250million and six years and I’ll kick WoW’s butt from here to China and back…

  • Excellent post. I agree with 100% of your points. SWTOR is a strange hybrid between an online and multi-player game. The single-player elements are far better than the online ones, though. I thoroughly enjoyed my first two weeks, but then I hit a wall. It’s hard to describe what really did it for me, but the clunky combat and lack of interaction between players really killed it for me. I’d give the game an 8, but I feel it has no staying power.

    The Star Wars IP alone will keep the game afloat, but I foresee the game going the same way as Warhammer Online and Rift, albeit with a few thousand more subscribers. Everyone I started the game with has already quit, and we have no interest in going back. The game is missing way too many features and it’ll take over a year for them all to make it into the game.

  • I wish I had seen more than one other player on a planet. It’s the loneliest MMO I’ve ever played. That and the godawful travel that consumed 25% of my time online with it.

  • Great post. Just emailed Bioware stating if they don’t do server merges, I’m done. There is no one left on my server, Master Dorak. Friday night, there were 12 people in fleet. Not even an online RPG…

  • My games;

    WoW: 2 weeks, I dd not find this game worth playing. And I cant understand how people still can play it, so outdated.
    I guess it’s the content, losds of dungeons etc.

    Rift: Since it launched, I can’t stop playing this game. I loved it from the start, levling was brilliant, random world event and Rifts kept you going.

    Swtor: I don’t know what to say, the idea of the game was good, im still playing it and hoping for the 1.2 patch to sort some things. But if they keep on failing, Im out.

    Games I will try is Gw2, I even signed up for beta. Lets see eht ArenaNet can come up with.

  • I had a lot of fun in the last Tera closed beta. It was the first game since WoW that really captured my interest. The combat system with its connecting combos feels refreshing in a GCD-heavy environment.

    SWTOR I couldn’t wait to play because it was Star Wars but it didn’t take long to discover it was a cynically developed game – produced to directly get a slice of Blizzard’s money pie. Given the way Lucas has does anything Star Wars since (and including) the prequels, producing a game for business reasons rather than a desire to create a good product makes sense to him and EA. Bioware I’m sure to their credit tried to make a good game out of it but would have been hamstrung by EA/Lucasarts requirements.

    SWTOR is just… boring. And not in a “I’ve played WoW since release and I’m bored of it” way. I had an extended break from all MMOs before SWTOR and coming to it fresh it just felt… boring. The excitement of playing in the Star Wars universe overcomes that feeling only for a while.

    If SWTOR was Free-to-play I think I’d still be playing it just to pass the time. As it is, I’ve got better things on which to spend $15/month.

  • Gregg (up above)

    I am a Star Wars fan. I own 3 different versions of the collections. I went and saw even the prequels in theatres. And I go beyond the movies. I have a book and video game collection of Star Wars.

    I’m still underwhelmed by TOR. And I still think the game was an insult in many ways. The space on rails thing was so insulting to the gaming community. Bioware removed the facade behind the joke. In reality, we were already going wherever we told them to, with just a few window dressings to make it “interesting.” In space, you LITERALLY went wherever they told you, had no freedom of movement, and they thought having your guy say “surrender. NOW!” over and over again would make it feel “thrilling.”

    Perhaps I have too much faith in humanity, but a) not all star wars fans are gamers and b) eventually, there has to be a point where even a star wars fanboi is insulted by a piss poor product.

  • I really enjoyed the story arc up until it became ridicolously overblown and epic while at the same time having laughable (read non-existent) consequences in game world. At that point all the immersion and interest in following further waned. I think SWTOR is good game, its just not good MMO.

    I really liked art and world design. Voice acting is superb. Its nice to explore it for 1-3 months. After that there is nothing really left

  • The Merovingian says:
    February 19, 2012 at 3:25 am

    “Successful doesn’t depend on if Keen or Merovingian play it. Successful depends on how many people keep on playing it.

    Even though I may stop playing in sometimes in the quite near future, I think this game will stay around with a healthy player base for quite a long time, even if it’s not our kind of game on the long term.”

    The only reason the game will be around a long time is because all the SW fans that hung around in SWG till the end have no other place to go.

    I’ve played all the major MMOs since UO and I have never yet played a MMO that was THIS bug/exploit/poor game design infested in all those years.

    I agree with the others that say that Bioware should have just packaged this as KOTOR3 and be done with it. It’s pretty obvious that MMOs is not something they will be successful at.

  • I hit 50 last week with my main character and now it’s really tough for me to continue playing.
    I’ve tried a few alts (some started and leveled while working on my main), and I just can’t get into the game as I did pre-50. I found the story in chapter 3 (trooper) to be ‘meh’ with one noteable exception (if you played it then you know what I mean). The endgame is disappointing and I’ve had enough of Warzones for a while.

    What really makes me feel bad is that, during the beta-weekends, I hyped this game to several friends and work associates, several of whom listened and purchased the game as well. They are now also coming to the same realizatin that this game is just “OK”. Many will be, or have, unsub’d.

    I keep solace that SWTOR was never intended to be my ‘main’ online game, and I look forward to the reease of GW2 (though this time, I will keep my excitment in check until I give it a full shakedown. I will try to not fall to the hype.)

  • I play SWTOR for one reason only: the class stories. Having played through the absolutely fantastic Imperial agent story, I’ve started on sith warrior and jedi knight alts. I have no interest in raiding or pvp, having already done that for years in WoW. So, it will easily take me the next year to play through and enjoy the story of each class. I guess your view of the game depends on what you want from it.

  • I think for me the burnout is the Jedi class – and maybe that is the common theme here. I’m now playing her just to get her to 50 (she’s level 48) so I can go back to my Smuggler and Bounty Hunter. It almost feels like they didn’t put as much effort into the force-wielding classes because they knew people would play them no matter what.

    And then some of the quests. Okay, so I brought peace to these two warring factions but now I have to fight againste one of them in the bonus series? Makes no sense at all!

  • 1.2 better be something REALLY special.

    Someone up their said something to the effect of realizing they “didn’t miss” SWTOR after not playing for a few days- this is exactly the same boat I’m in.

    1.2 better be something special, or, I’m gone.

  • —–PVE—–
    How can you play a game where you feel so confined and led in a direction they want you to go? Thats the way I felt playing this game. MMO’s should not “make” you do this or do that. I couldnt believe how some areas were inaccessible after they were completed. The quests are all the same, kill this, find that, come back, heres your reward, no thought and imagination in this at all.

    —–Spacebar—–
    The story modes are great, but lets face it, when you have to do dailies and run FP’s, it’s mondane that the action has to stop for sometimes minutes to skip cut scenes you viewed one too many times.

    —–No “WOW” factor—–
    Not once during this game did I feel the grand scale of things. I remember when I played WoW and even rift, their were zones, where I would have to stop and take it all in, like how did these devs take the time to do all this?

    —–PvP—–
    The worst. Any game that allows its players to continue in kill trading, dumb luck in gaining gear, and an imbalance of factions that still has not seen to get any better, is simply bad.

    Game is bad.

  • oh yeah. . .

    Why are people using the “SWTOR is a new game that has’nt had seven years like WoW to smooth out issues and you people expect high expectations” bullshit? NO, SWTOR had four or five years in its development to learn from WoW’s mistakes, but instead bioware decided it was time to “fix” issues that were never broken from the start.

  • I really discovered that I couldn’t continue playing the game while leveling an alt. I got my Shadow to 50 in about two weeks and started grinding PVP gear which was a nightmare cause we were horribly outnumbered on our server. You’d get 20 guys and go to Ilum and within 10 minutes they would have literally 50-60 there. So Ilum PVP was out… now onto warzones. Oh look, the empire has dozens of people who are already half-full battlemaster gear. I can barely put a dent in them and they are two-shotting me. Fun.

    So then I started a Commando alt but I found I couldn’t bring myself to do the quests. I just literally couldn’t do them a second time… which is odd cause I did all the quests in Age of Conan about 6 different times with all my alts there, but it didn’t seem as boring or pointless as in SWTOR. So I PVP’d him to lvl 45… and then one day I just couldn’t bring myself to log in again. I sat there looking at the login button for a few minutes and realized that I was having much more fun in World of Tanks and I ever had in my whole SWTOR experience.

    It was moderately fun for one playthrough, but the re-playability is completely nil.

  • You know, it is very suprising that no one has matched a game like World of Warcraft. Yes i said it. While a lot hate on that name or rush to defend the titles that are being compared to WoW and it still remains king.

    You would figure by now that companies would start to realize things like combat and general game response. look and feel, replayability, time sinks like crafting, leveling skills (such as lockpicking in WoW) or long chains to get a mount all matter.

    If you do not have things to keep people occupied they get bored. Lets also not forget things like combat logs, the ability to make and use addons for said game.
    People want these things NOW, not a year from now or 8 months from now.

    When I buy a game, I want to know that I or someone else can make a addon and use that addon.ere not know what my dps is, am I improving or is it worse then it was with the last rotation or priority list i tried.

    Auction houses lately in new games have been a mess. Just a complete mess, posting or buying something is a headache.