What ToR did right and what it failed at

[RealReality]

Biggest fail would be the dupe hack that was out for weeks after pre release that screwed up any kindof economy that game is ever going to have. That if anything should give you enough reason to stay awau. Imagine your favorite game with currency where it doesn't even matter. Yeah thats SWTOR.

[jearle]

Better how exactly?

The game is actually incredibly fun and has difficulty prior to max level?
This alone makes the game more worthwhile to me than WoW.

It really amazes me that people are still riding the World of Warcraft fan train.

Most of the things people like about WoW are add-ons created by 3rd partys or were add-ons that they incorporated into the game.
Not to mention alot of the other popular "features" of WoW were taken from other games, achievements, guild leveling, ect.

WoW is like a huge MMO blob that just grabs stuff from other games to make it appeal at some level to the masses (brilliant really)
I played WoW for a long long time, it is a great game in some ways, very polished and developed.
In other ways it is absolutely terrible, so lets not make the mistake of claiming that WoW is greatest thing since sliced bread.

Is TOR on WoWs level of polish and quality? Not even close.
Does TOR have a great framework to be a great MMO? It sure does
Does BW has some work to do over the next couple months? You bet your ass they do

The Secret World comes out in April, and TERA drops in May, not to mention D3 coming out in the span of spring-summer and MoP and GW2 on the horizon.

The "new car scent" will be gone once there is another "new" mmo for players to dabble in.

Patch 1.2 in March needs to be absolutely amazing in order to drive up retention in the following months.

I am a patient person, but patience only goes so far when I am making the same bug reports almost 2 months into Live that I was making 6 months ago in beta.
Not to mention bigger issues of population imbalance, the terrible failure that is Ilum, and class balance issues.

OT: I agree in some cases with you and disagree on others, your post just smells like you can't get over WoW and in your mind that is the way all games should be.

---------- Post added 2012-02-06 at 02:27 PM ----------

You keep telling yourself that

Only thing TOR has going for it is the fact its new, once that wares off it really doesn't offer much.

I can't believe you still come to the TOR forums. We get it, you have "I love WoW" tattooed on your lower back like a tramp stamp.
Try to stay on the MoP forums where your feedback is relevant.

[PBitt]

Honestly, a lot of the things that are wrong with the game are minor-yet they add up to be really annoying. The AH is the biggest piece of shit, IMO, and I don't even want to use it ATM, not sure what they were thinking with that. Companions also seem to be way too big of a part of the game, and I don't like how it's like "OMG I"M BACK!!' and interrupts what you are doing...and the first time this happened to me was while I was using the AH for the first time which made me hate both of these things even more. I don't really like the crafting professions either, shouldn't take a minute plus to make a piece of shit green thing.

The game has done some things very well, too. The sound is really good, the gear actually looks kind of neat, I like how you can hologram if you are too far away from party members when turning in quests, lots of things like that. Ironically, the game exceeded my somewhat low expectations yet it didn't get as much love from the masses as I thought it would have.

[igame]

Taht was 5 years into production....hmmm dang ole SwToR not having everything wow has COME to accomplish.

SWToR did have 8 years in production and 100 million to make things happen. It seems they spent 85 million on voice acting and 15 million on the rest of the game.
If I bought a car from the 90s I would not expect many features but if I am buying a new car today, I want ABS, power windows, power steering , bluetooth, ipod connectivity etc because these have become standard now.

---------- Post added 2012-02-06 at 10:45 PM ----------

Pro-tip, don't send companions on crew skill missions if you don't want them popping up during combat. But instead, "OMFG BIG BOX CLUTTERED UP MY 17 Inch Prosauce Over-Priced Alienware Craptop!!!111". The UI is perfectly fine, only the bads are complaining that they can't perform better in-game due to not having macros/addons.

---------- Post added 2012-02-06 at 12:33 PM ----------



And it's doing a better job then WoW. In B4 Herpa Derp WoW has more subscribers111!!!

WoW, This has to be the most uneducated reply in this thread. So you want people to buy new monitors because ToR dev team is so short sighted that it did not see that people do not want to see companion windows in combat?
There is a term that we get banned for using but you sir definitely are an ardent fan of SWToR.

[Moonsorow]

Dropping like flies? Sure if you use the vocal minority of the gripe fest of these forums as a indication. Beyond that I think 1.7 million accounts might argue that that is a bit of a premature statement. Lets see the numbers during the next sub announcements before making assumptions like these. I think this is largely overblown. Any statement beyond the numbers we have in hand at the moment are complete speculation.

I could just as easily say. Wow my server is super active ( it is btw ) more so even with no sign up population drop off so OBVIOUSLY the game is doing fantastic just as easily as your assumption both are inaccurate bs

I'm going by ToRstatus.net that shows server population over 30/60 day cycles. Under light load the population seems fine, on prime time nights for example is where the population drops. Many have said the light load is people leveling from 1-30 ish while heavy is people hitting the top level.

Here is the link to the source: http://www.torstatus.net/

[Rooflesstoofless]

Things ToR did well or better than others:

1) Story-telling: No one even comes close to ToR on this. The cinematics don't have the cheap feel like uldum and the class storylines, especially deserve accolades
I actually disagree with this. Story-telling ranges wildly in this game and most of it is probably passable for people who cannot read (or do not like to read). TOR does better story-telling than Nick Jr or some of the lesser quality Saturday Morning cartoons, but it certainly isn't on the scale of the original Star Wars (look up Hero's Journey) or even that of the Clone Wars cartoons. This game isn't even on par with single-player RPG games I've played in the last couple of years.

If the pinnacle of a game is the story-telling, I expect some Steinbeck/Abbey/Palahniuk quality shit.


2) Casting animations: Every movement feels fluid, it must have taken a lot of work to make the light saber hit single bullets and deflect them but it is very well done. Some spells etc have amazing animations as well.
I agree. I didn't experience the ability delay problems too much when I played other than in PvP and even then it only happened once in a while.

3) Vehicles level progression: I think they got it spot on, the timing for the first speeder is good and then we get to go faster at 40 and 50 works well too.
Agreed.

4) Storage system: Well done, no complaints
Agreed.

5) Levelling experience: This is again a good one, mostly because of the story telling aspect.
Disagree, but I thought the story telling was weak and I feel the game dictated my character's identity waaaay too much for an MMO. You almost need to find a story that fits your personality instead of just finding playstyle you enjoy.


Things where ToR failed:

1) UI : There is absolutely no excuse of making such a UI in this day and age. I ahve seen the video for the "so-called" customisation coming too. It just has one slider which makes everything on your UI smaller or bigger. What if I want my map to be big and rest small or something like that. This is what ended the game for me because BW are just behaving like control freaks. It's not a point of 'they will fix it', it's a point of how could they release such abomination of a UI, I know I am not the only one who will quit because of this.
I am pretty apathetic about this and don't really think its a failure for a game that just came out. I don't really care if game has customizable UI to any great length...although if I have a proc-based build I would hope there would be some indicator on screen that the proc is up (like in Rift).


2) Lack of Competitive raiding: Again related to UI. in competitive raiding, people like to know how they are doing, they like to run numbers and get the best out of the team. Not allowing combat logs is a big mistake. It means that everyone is just playing in the dark with no idea if they're doing well or not.
Once again, apathetic to this issue. A lot of no name guilds have completed nightmare modes for this game so I don't really see where the competition stands...maybe for the next expac or major content patch there will be some sort of competition?

3) Lack of Macros: Again, how can this be absent from a game released in 2011 is beyond me and this yet again points to a very "control freak" attitude on BW's part. Do things as we want you to, you can not come up with any ideas yourself.

4) Environments: I am primarily comparing the environments to those in WoW. personally i would pick storms peaks over Hoth any day.
This is one of my biggest rants in the game. There is no day/night, there is no weather (other than what is already in place), there are NPCs wildly gesticulating toward each other but no noise, there is very little ambient noise or little creatures running around...etc...the worlds feel stagnate, sterile, and dead. I don't think I've ever played a SP-RPG in recent years that is as bad as TOR is in this regard.

There are areas in WoW where I loved to fish. I actually enjoyed the environment and wanted to actually hang out there and 'breath' it in. There is not a single planet that makes me feel this way in TOR. I love the art-style in TOR more than WoW by a long shot, but it feels like nothing was done to capatialize on this.



5) Your actions do not seem to have any impact on the world...
Agreed.

6) Things that should have never made it to live:
The number of load screens kills it for me. Seriously, this is shit game if someone wants to create excuses for the godawful number/duration of load screens.

7) Auction House Design:
Agreed. The one area that should have been a direct copy/paste from WoW. The excuses for it used in interviews just go to show how little forethought was put into the GTN.


8) Music:
Turned the music off within 30 minutes of playing. Seriously, it didn't feel it 'fit' at all and was fairly poor compared to other SW games I've played in the past. I don't play many PC games with the music on after a certain point...but this is the only game I've played where I didn't even make it out of the starting zone or 'know your controls' area and already had the music down to 0%...

I think the game falls short in too many problem areas that simply wont be fixed because they are a part of the world/game design. I think I've held out on going back to any other MMO because I've had hopes that certain issues will be fixed or there will that certain patch that makes everything right but it simply isn't coming.

Whatever success the game currently has (which is debatable) will peter out in the coming months. I'd say it will be a nice niche game for those who enjoy that sort of MMO, it might even compete with Rift in the long run...but it wont even touch numbers half of what WoW was able to pull off. For those who doubt this, think about how much this game needs to be prequalified..."If you liked KOTOR, If you like SW, If you like Mass Effect...then you will probably like TOR...". Think about the millions of people who play WoW and don't know about the lore, don't give a crap about competitive raiding, etc...but still pay per month to 'play' that game.

[reLik]

Mod Edit ~ Remember people this is an opinion based discussion. Keep it civil and respect one another. While opinions may differ both sides want a successful game.

-snip-

5) Your actions do not seem to have any impact on the world, outside of your tiny green phased room: This is a big gripe, even WoW despite it's age has been trying so that when people do something radical in game, the environment around them changes, again soemthing that one should not have to ask for in a game of this generation.

There is nothing in WoW that a player has a choice in something that makes a difference in the world. In Icecrown there was the Phasing of the starting Crusade quests, but that was story progression and not really choices a player made because you had no choice. You went along with story.

In ToR I agree, would be much better if choices changed the direction of your story as a whole, but it's pretty hard to do in an MMO I think. At least in ToR you were given choices on how you want to proceed about a situation. Just didn't make a difference on the whole in where you go. So in my opinion that "ToR Fail" shouldn't really be there, not for the reasoning given.

[Moonsorow]

The server errors i personally never experienced, but i had a similar situation in WoW so i can relate. Still the fact that the servers don't crash and by that i mean not everyone gets booted of is a good indication. Also i don't know if TOR uses instance servers or not but in WoW they crashed a lot. As for the patching system, the biggest problem is the non-separate times for US and EU and im sorry but the servers don't go down 4-8 hours every week mostly they are out for 2 and if you think the patches are to frequent then you haven't played an MMO at the begging before. Also WoW's weekly maintenance is 5 hours iirc (3 to 8).

WoW does have maintenance but it's once a week. If something else happens during the week they patch the servers and reboot the servers. SW:ToR on the other hand has more problems. I remember two weeks ago that the servers went down at a peak hour for over 4 hours on a Friday night. I can understand a 15 minute window but 4 hours on an off maintenance night is unjust. So I'm paying $14 a month for my servers to be up on certain days. I personally wouldn't mind the bug fixing, but I get 3 days off for the week and those being Fri - Sun. If the servers go down on a Friday that limits my time.

[igame]

This is one of my biggest rants in the game. There is no day/night, there is no weather (other than what is already in place), there are NPCs wildly gesticulating toward each other but no noise, there is very little ambient noise or little creatures running around...etc...the worlds feel stagnate, sterile, and dead. I don't think I've ever played a SP-RPG in recent years that is as bad as TOR is in this regard.

There are areas in WoW where I loved to fish. I actually enjoyed the environment and wanted to actually hang out there and 'breath' it in. There is not a single planet that makes me feel this way in TOR. I love the art-style in TOR more than WoW by a long shot, but it feels like nothing was done to capatialize on this.

I could not put it better myself.

[ShaftyMcShaft]

Since when is ganking low levels PvP? You can actually do that on some planets (Tatoine, Alderan, Belsavis, etc just not on every planet). If i remember correctly on Voss the republic and empire zones are separated by 1 bridge. One problem with not being ganking friendly is because the zones are so damn big.

No, the problem with "world pvp" in SWTOR is that the questing areas don't overlap. At all. You level as Republic and never seen an Imperial, and vice-versa. And when you're done with a planet you look at the map and think "what's all that unexplored area?" Go visit and that's where all the opposing faction's quests are.

Even after you're 50, if you're doing the PvE dailies on Ilum, "the pvp planet," the Empire questing area and the Republic questing area are completely separate and do not overlap. There is no PvP until you go into the "designated PvP area." WoW did this better in Tol Barad, where the PvE questing portion has both factions in the same area, so if you're going there to do PvE dailies, you need to be prepared for PvP.

[Omniclass]

SWToR did have 8 years in production and 100 million to make things happen. It seems they spent 85 million on voice acting and 15 million on the rest of the game.
If I bought a car from the 90s I would not expect many features but if I am buying a new car today, I want ABS, power windows, power steering , bluetooth, ipod connectivity etc because these have become standard now.[COLOR="red"]

Bahahaha.....Guess what I can make a sandwich that is just like every other sandwich out there in terms of it has bread a filler substance and more bread. However it wont be the same. This is closer to MMO gaming analogy than you car reference due to teh fact that cars are not complex coding that have a chance that a bolt screwed in wrong on the bumper might break the transmission. You made a horrid mistake trying to appear like you speak for the masses which imo invalidated anything you could say. The internet sense of entitlement is beyond me. You have no desire to be debated with so I am not going to argue further than pointing out the fail in your analogy. among my previous post explaining the dangers and downside to addons and macros.

[atrixx]

thank you.
how is everyones argument that 8 yrs ago some game was made w/ out certain things so sw:tor doesnt need them. if youre happy playing an incomplete game good for you, but you cant expect everyone to be content w/ a subpar product just cause you like the IP its based on.

I don't want to rationalize this too much, but I'll make a point. No SWTOR shouldn't try to compete the WOW of 7 years ago...so the comparisons are pretty silly. However, there is only so much that can go into release to maintain a delivery schedule and also to make sure the launch goes smoothly. The more various systems/features you add the game, the much more complicated it will be to fix them. The first 2-3 months of any program/game release is for bug fixing since not everything can be caught in Beta. Simply not possible unless the program is extremely simple. Is it an incomplete game? Sure. Many features need to be added, but they have said for a long time that many of the features people want are scheduled to go in post launch or they are reviewing. If people don't want to deal with the game during the first few months post launch, simply don't play. Come back after a couple major content patches and try again.

The one thing that they have done very well so far though that few hit on, is the server stability. They have been able to increase population limits since launch and things haven't crashed once (for me) since the start of early access. That to me is an amazing success that no one has really been able to accomplish.

---------- Post added 2012-02-07 at 07:37 AM ----------

WoW does have maintenance but it's once a week. If something else happens during the week they patch the servers and reboot the servers. SW:ToR on the other hand has more problems. I remember two weeks ago that the servers went down at a peak hour for over 4 hours on a Friday night. I can understand a 15 minute window but 4 hours on an off maintenance night is unjust. So I'm paying $14 a month for my servers to be up on certain days. I personally wouldn't mind the bug fixing, but I get 3 days off for the week and those being Fri - Sun. If the servers go down on a Friday that limits my time.

Have never experienced the downtime during peak hours after launch. My better half is on for several hours and every evening and has never said anything. At first I would have thought you were on an EU server, but there have been a couple isolated server outages that they've reported issues on. They tend to do a good job keeping people updated on the forums and twitter though. However, I usually play every Friday evening and have never seen things go down unless it was for emergency maintenance and patching which is done at 2AM. Even with those, we normally get around a days advanced notice but sometimes it is only a 6 or 8 hours notice. Either way, they post when servers would have to go down on their forum.

[ShaftyMcShaft]

The first 2-3 months of any program/game release is for bug fixing since not everything can be caught in Beta.

Yet there are hundreds upon hundreds of bugs caught and reported over and over again in beta that were not fixed before release.

Is it an incomplete game? Sure.

Yet they expect us to pay a complete price for it. If the game is bugged and broken, how about not charging us money to play it until it's fixed?

[igame]

Bahahaha.....Guess what I can make a sandwich that is just like every other sandwich out there in terms of it has bread a filler substance and more bread. However it wont be the same. This is closer to MMO gaming analogy than you car reference due to teh fact that cars are not complex coding that have a chance that a bolt screwed in wrong on the bumper might break the transmission. You made a horrid mistake trying to appear like you speak for the masses which imo invalidated anything you could say. The internet sense of entitlement is beyond me. You have no desire to be debated with so I am not going to argue further than pointing out the fail in your analogy. among my previous post explaining the dangers and downside to addons and macros.

So you think making a car is not as complex as a game and hence a bad analogy and choose to use "making a sandwich" as an analogy instead? You win.

[Omniclass]

So you think making a car is not as complex as a game and hence a bad analogy and choose to use "making a sandwich" as an analogy instead? You win.

If you can look past the simplicity of it, all mmos consist of similar things(for the most part) questing, end game, an avatar, abilities....etc. <--- bread, a filler substance and more bread....An LFG, macros, addons your suggestions and opinions of necessity are lettuce tomato they are choices not standards by any means. thank you my analogy works perfectly with a little bit of thought.

[xrobar]

i believe alot of people who are playing swtor are trying to play the game as new version of world of warcraft and unfortunatly that isnt what the game is the game is an mmo in a completly different way during leveling and that is something people need to understand.\

I personally love the music it is one of the few games where i make sure the music and ambience are on.

The way the story telling is done irks me a bit... unfortunatly i prefer to go through a story at a quicker pace so i enjoy each planets story more than the class storys belsalvis was great along with my taris nostalgia

UI customization is going to be added soon so i dont understand why it bothers people so much IR NEDZ HEALBOTZX AND BARTNDR

I do wish there was a night/day cycle and weather

and actions dont effect the outside world?? unfortunatly they could have easily solved that with a phase changer such as used when your in dromund kaas(1) or dromund kaas (2) but dromund kaas(you) and dromund kaas (me) if people were in different phases.

my biggest issue with the game is that there isnt any swimming.... i didnt realize the universe was filled with waist deep water

its still the most fun game i have to play right now and i love the game hopefully time will gradually add the things everyone feels is needed to make the game a more enjoyable experience im willing to wait and see how the game can progress and i know many of my friends and guild mates feel the exact same way. if you dont like it then you can jerst geeet out

[jvbastel]

If you can look past the simplicity of it, all mmos consist of similar things(for the most part) questing, end game, an avatar, abilities....etc. <--- bread, a filler substance and more bread....An LFG, macros, addons your suggestions and opinions of necessity are lettuce tomato they are choices not standards by any means. thank you my analogy works perfectly with a little bit of thought.

What's the difference with the car analogy then? All cars are made with an engine, have a steering wheel, etc.

The car analogy is perfectly fine, and is a lot better than comparing the game to a sandwich, which, in all fairness, sounds silly.

I see a lot of people saying the quality of life features that SWTOR misses (UI customization,Macro's,etc.) are not as important at the release date. However, I tend to disagree. QoL is very important for a product with a recreational goal. You're meant to have fun, at all times. If I'm getting annoyed over the fact that the UI doesn't suit me, or that I can't mouseover target to heal, or that my abilities lag, I might not have a lot of fun while playing.
If I'm not having fun playing at any given time, I just stop playing.

That's why I quit wow, I was running circles in SW/Org, which isn't really what you're supposed to do in a game, so I quit and haven't looked back.
After I dinged 50 in SWTOR, I did 1 or 2 flashpoints, queued up for a warzone, and after that most of my time spent was by running circles on the fleet.

For me personally, if SWTOR had some alternatives for the wow-style endgame, I probably would still be hooked to my monitor playing my IA. WoW is actually gradually giving the players more options at max level, especially in MoP, which I can only applaud. Sadly, Bioware decided to make SWTOR's endgame a Light-version of WoW's.

[Ravenblade]

SWToR did have 8 years in production and 100 million to make things happen. It seems they spent 85 million on voice acting and 15 million on the rest of the game. [...]

I am pretty sure they didn't just get 100m and split them among developers and actors.

Usually when you develop a new product you have higher costs due to the thing we call prototyping. Every time in industry something new is developed the initial first model is more expensive than the mass-produced models later on. This is why many game developers prefer DLCs and direct sequels over creating a brand-new franchise because they have a base model and base assets to work on whereas a new franchise involves alot of prototyping and case studying. It tends to generate revenues earlier and doesn't need as much investment and development time even if things are getting overhauled.

That's why I am sure they didn't spend the majority on actors. There is also costs of operation, licensing, upkeep, training and purchases which can be substantial in such a phase. It is especially higher for MMOs because MMOs are based on multiple teams working on multiple systems having all a different focus which is different to normal software whose number of systems are alot smaller and the focus more manageable.

[RAGINGBRODADDY]

>what swtor did wrong
evrything

>what it did right
nothing

---------- Post added 2012-02-07 at 01:54 AM ----------

The game is actually incredibly fun and has difficulty prior to max level?
This alone makes the game more worthwhile to me than WoW.

It really amazes me that people are still riding the World of Warcraft fan train.

Most of the things people like about WoW are add-ons created by 3rd partys or were add-ons that they incorporated into the game.
Not to mention alot of the other popular "features" of WoW were taken from other games, achievements, guild leveling, ect.

WoW is like a huge MMO blob that just grabs stuff from other games to make it appeal at some level to the masses (brilliant really)
I played WoW for a long long time, it is a great game in some ways, very polished and developed.
In other ways it is absolutely terrible, so lets not make the mistake of claiming that WoW is greatest thing since sliced bread.

Is TOR on WoWs level of polish and quality? Not even close.
Does TOR have a great framework to be a great MMO? It sure does
Does BW has some work to do over the next couple months? You bet your ass they do

The Secret World comes out in April, and TERA drops in May, not to mention D3 coming out in the span of spring-summer and MoP and GW2 on the horizon.

The "new car scent" will be gone once there is another "new" mmo for players to dabble in.

Patch 1.2 in March needs to be absolutely amazing in order to drive up retention in the following months.

I am a patient person, but patience only goes so far when I am making the same bug reports almost 2 months into Live that I was making 6 months ago in beta.
Not to mention bigger issues of population imbalance, the terrible failure that is Ilum, and class balance issues.

OT: I agree in some cases with you and disagree on others, your post just smells like you can't get over WoW and in your mind that is the way all games should be.

---------- Post added 2012-02-06 at 02:27 PM ----------



I can't believe you still come to the TOR forums. We get it, you have "I love WoW" tattooed on your lower back like a tramp stamp.
Try to stay on the MoP forums where your feedback is relevant.

Fanboy, Urbandictionary.com

1. A person who is completely loyal to a game or company regardless of if they suck or not.

The wow user base is incredibly dumb, we all know that. The controls, fights and class mechanics in wow, however, are the best in any video game, ever.
WoW is popular because it's good.
SWTOR is popular because it's popular.

[igame]

If you can look past the simplicity of it, all mmos consist of similar things(for the most part) questing, end game, an avatar, abilities....etc. <--- bread, a filler substance and more bread....An LFG, macros, addons your suggestions and opinions of necessity are lettuce tomato they are choices not standards by any means. thank you my analogy works perfectly with a little bit of thought.

Ok I will bite one more time, Please do not think I complain because I like to, I am complaining because I want this game to do well. It will be good for the MMo genre and good for gamers to have more choices.
Sure the points I listed might not be anything that bothers you but it does bother others and you really need to think if everyone will be as patient as yourself?

---------- Post added 2012-02-07 at 09:11 AM ----------

I am pretty sure they didn't just get 100m and split them among developers and actors.

Usually when you develop a new product you have higher costs due to the thing we call prototyping. Every time in industry something new is developed the initial first model is more expensive than the mass-produced models later on. This is why many game developers prefer DLCs and direct sequels over creating a brand-new franchise because they have a base model and base assets to work on whereas a new franchise involves alot of prototyping and case studying. It tends to generate revenues earlier and doesn't need as much investment and development time even if things are getting overhauled.

That's why I am sure they didn't spend the majority on actors. There is also costs of operation, licensing, upkeep, training and purchases which can be substantial in such a phase. It is especially higher for MMOs because MMOs are based on multiple teams working on multiple systems having all a different focus which is different to normal software whose number of systems are alot smaller and the focus more manageable.

So how did Rift have 10 times the features with 10 times less budget and time spent in production?