An Objective Look At BioWare's Promises For SWTOR

[Shadylol]

This is a Short, Objective Analysis of BioWare's promises for Star Wars: the Old Republic. I will state in simple terms (Yes or No), weather or not BioWare delivered on individual aspects, with a brief description of why

First, let's start with Main Points; the primary marketing allure for SWTOR — a "Fully Voiced, Story Driven MMO"

Fully Voiced - No) SWTOR is not fully voiced. There are many instances of unique voice acting, but there is also a staggering amount of non-voiced Content. For example, there are: quest text Datapads, quest text Mission Boards, quest text Mission Dropboxes, Droids (Robots) who go "beep beep", Aliens that "talk" in random sounds, and the Playable Classes really love to repeat themselves (Look no further, I'm your Sith/I live to serve the Republic, etc.)

Story Driven - No) Simply having a Story does not make something "Story Driven"; to employ this logic would be to claim that World of Warcraft is also Story Driven, as well. The vast majority of SWTOR's "story" is "Kill XYZ". The occasional Dark Side/Light Side options are cool, but they are rare. Each Class does have it's own Story, but it accounts for very little of the content, past level 20, and since the game doesn't end at level 20; it is not Story "Driven", rather it has a Story, just like WoW

MMO - No) SWTOR is no more an MMO, than Modern Warfare 3; it has Online, and you can play it with other people. The game is lacking virtually every feature that defines an MMO in the year 2011/2012, the Raid (Operation) sizes are comically small, with the "larger" setting being 16 man. SWTOR also has no Open World, each zone consists mainly of Hallways (be they outdoor, environmental hallways like Hoth, or literal Indoor Corridors, like Nar Shadaa) there is instancing around every corner; and of the course, there is Sharding separating players from one another, even in the same zone, on the same Server

Okay, so BioWare didn't deliver on the game's Main Points, but let's see how they did with some Features they promised us

Star Wars - Yes) There is lots of Star Wars stuff in SWTOR, the theme, visuals, sounds, pretty much everything.

Space Combat - Yes) I don't care for it, and I guess the EVE Online crowd doesn't either; but BioWare did give us exactly what they promised us with Space Combat, and it works pretty well. Space Combat also comes with Exp for leveling, and you can even get Gear for your Ship

Choices - No) From 1-50, I did not encounter a single choice that actually mattered. It's just picking the Red Option, or the Blue Option

"Epic" Stories For Every Class - No) I'm not an English Major, but the Sith Inquisitor's story is poorly written. Apparently most of the other stories are average, with only the Sith Warrior story, and the Imperial Agent story getting widespread praise

Bolster - No) "Bolster" is the Tenacity (Wintergrasp) Buff, that's supposed to make PvP acceptable for anyone level 10-50 to be in the same Warzone. This feature is comically non-functional; with my Level 50 Sorcerer, I can kill anyone below level 40 with no real effort, and even 40-49 doesn't stand a good chance of taking out a 50. This problem will get much worse, as more people get PvP Gear with Exerptise - which is limited to 50s

Companions - Yes) The Pet AI could use some serious work, but overall, the pets work pretty well. Out of combat, certain pets also have Dialogue, and in typical BioWare fashion, you can have sex with some of them

Player Ships - Yes) They don't do much, but they're there

Crew Skills - Yes) Crew Skills are SWTOR's Professions; what sets them apart is that you can have your pets farm, and craft for you. This was a cool feature, both somewhat innovative, and very convenient

Legacy - No) Legacy is literally undefined

That's all I could think of; which can actually be assigned a Yes/No Rating, while remaining perfectly non-biased. The actual Content for PvE, and PvP will be enjoyable for some, and not for others; just like every other MMO, including WoW. Overall, it seems that BioWare was able to deliver on some, but not all of the features they promised; while missing on the game's major selling points. Obviously no MMO is ever "finished" at launch, since they continue to be developed after Release, but SWTOR still feels like it could've used another year or two in Development. People will try to blame Electronic Arts for this; but BioWare is still the one that made the game, even if EA forced it's release too soon.

TL;DR, I think BioWare was able to deliver on some features, but completely failed to deliver on their major promises. What do you think?

[Tastyfish]

The Bolster thing is complete bullshit. They seem to offer pvp ended gear to only high lvl players while letting in lower lvls to compete in the BGs with potentially geared out people. All it is, is a gold/exp farm fest for lvl 50s every time they go up against lower lvl teams. You just don't have the gear or skillset to deal with that kinda setting at low lvls and it's more of a cocktease then anything.

It just seems like they Over hyped the game and ended up like everyone else, promises for more to come, but the initial thing was less then the implication of what it was going to be.

[mirodin]

Two things about this. First its not objective , and second this thread will end badly.

[Grable]

Too biased and hating.

[Dakia]

These are the points that I disagree with you on.

Fully Voiced - No) SWTOR is not fully voiced. There are many instances of unique voice acting, but there is also a staggering amount of non-voiced Content. For example, there are: quest text Datapads, quest text Mission Boards, quest text Mission Dropboxes, Droids (Robots) who go "beep beep", Aliens that "talk" in random sounds, and the Playable Classes really love to repeat themselves (Look no further, I'm your Sith/I live to serve the Republic, etc.)

I do think you could consider the game fully voiced. Alien languages still count, regardless of whether or not you can understand them.

Mission boards may not be voiced, but I really don't think that is a big enough of a point to even try to say the game isn't fully voiced.

Story Driven - No) Simply having a Story does not make something "Story Driven"; to employ this logic would be to claim that World of Warcraft is also Story Driven, as well. The vast majority of SWTOR's "story" is "Kill XYZ". The occasional Dark Side/Light Side options are cool, but they are rare. Each Class does have it's own Story, but it accounts for very little of the content, past level 20, and since the game doesn't end at level 20; it is not Story "Driven", rather it has a Story, just like WoW

Each class has its own story and progresses through that story. The game is, therefore, story driven as most of the your progressions focuses around that class story.

MMO - No) SWTOR is no more an MMO, than Modern Warfare 3; it has Online, and you can play it with other people. The game is lacking virtually every feature that defines an MMO in the year 2011/2012, the Raid (Operation) sizes are comically small, with the "larger" setting being 16 man. SWTOR also has no Open World, each zone consists mainly of Hallways (be they outdoor, environmental hallways like Hoth, or literal Indoor Corridors, like Nar Shadaa) there is instancing around every corner; and of the course, there is Sharding separating players from one another, even in the same zone, on the same Server

This is something that I actually don't mind at all. Sharding has happened in other MMOs, so you can really put that against TOR. The raid sizes are definitely smaller than WoWs, but I've been want a 15m raid size from WoW for quite some time. After testing, they may have just found that raid size to be optimal. I know that a WoW Dev comment about how a 15m raid size would be optimal for them, but they don't plan on introducing it.

TOR does feel like a single player RPG with MMO elements, but I find it a refreshing change and actually like it.

[Ghul]

to me the game often feels like its not "complete" yet. blizzard would have never released their game in such a state!
also theres many inconvenient bugs like companion suddenly disappearing in a dialogue, or unable to send companion to sell my grey stuff unless i relog. some ressource notes unklickable and so on.
the talents also seem pretty hastly done and i just KNOW bioware can do much better than that.
at least right now they are promising to patch everything into shape "soon", but we all know that soon is very relative. the legacy system is also completely missing right now(one reason why i think the game isnt finished yet) and we can only sit here and hope theyre going to do something cool with it. but i fear its gonna be some hasted work like the talent trees ~~

also many skills feel the same even tho they are from different classes, and some dont even make sense in the way they work. (imperial agents aoe where he shoots a ton of bullets in a cone for example, only does damage in a certain area you have marked...)

totally agree on the voicing too, its pretty fancy and all on first look but it cant withstand an in-depht analysis.

and alien "voices" DONT count! they just took some sounds and let them play in some random fashion wich then mimics some kind of "alien voice" feel. its just lazyness, most twileks can speak english but then theres some random ones who suddenly cant anymore.. thats just saving time and nothing else.

[Brimstone]

I will not go into whether I agree or disagree with you, but what is it exactly that makes this objective? Most of your points can be argued either way.

You lost all credibility but putting the word objective in the thread title.

[zerocarbs]

I think most people knew there was going to be an illusion of choice in this game before it launched. There were even articles written on it. I don't know if there is a good solution to giving people real and significant choices in a persistent world MMO.

One aspect though that does kind of disappoint me is choices in flashpoints. The Esseles was really engaging with all of its choices. Since then, no other flash point has been as engaging as the first one sadly.

[Deleted]

Okay it's not an MMO. Yeah right. If you're guildless maybe, other than that it is more of an MMO than wow ever was. I find myself grouping all the time with new people, RPing or just chatting if I'm not in the mood for serious RP.

Sith Inquisitor story I found brilliant, Zash's character being a fantastic eccentric, and being allowed to vent frustration in the most dark side'ish way was reminiscent of a killing spree in GTA.

It is fully voiced, I don't know how you can say otherwise. It seems you want a dialogue when you pick something up. There is enough already. And I would find it weird if Jawas or Droids started talking in basic.

It is story driven since your class quest line is what directs the game and where you go.

Bolster sucks I agree with that at least.

TL;DR : You need to stop with the whole jaded over a videogame thing and enjoy what you have. less cyniscism, more pew pew.
Oh and you don't know what objective means BTW.

[Deleted]

Fully Voiced - No) SWTOR is not fully voiced. There are many instances of unique voice acting, but there is also a staggering amount of non-voiced Content. For example, there are: quest text Datapads, quest text Mission Boards, quest text Mission Dropboxes, Droids (Robots) who go "beep beep", Aliens that "talk" in random sounds, and the Playable Classes really love to repeat themselves (Look no further, I'm your Sith/I live to serve the Republic, etc.)

I think the Aliens are meant to speak diffrent languages? iirc some even state they dont speak another language.
i find it funny most of the time to hear what some creatures speak like. like the pig people or the small gnome pig people. ( sorry don't know what theyre called)

As for the datapad. no idea why it isnt voiced. don't honestly care either. You have some points im wondering about too, but they don't bother much me so far.

[zerocarbs]

blizzard would have never released their game in such a state!
some ressource notes unklickable and so on.

I seem to remember many resource nodes in WoW disappearing before I was able to click on them.

[fadingintofall]

I... almost completely disagree with almost all of your "no." Non-biased? That is... fairly laughable.

The game is FULLY voiced. Just because ALIENS do not speak ENGLISH does not mean they aren't voiced. Yes, you probably cannot understand them... but it is still a vocalization. It is still more than just text based. This is an incredibly lame argument that I have yet to see someone actually successfully make. It's like arguing that a subtitled anime has no voice actors because you have to read subtitles.

Story driven? If you choose to level up pve... it is story driven. You must complete the story in order to move on. That is the definition of story driven. Whether or not the story is good... that is up to debate, yes. And I will agree - quite a few of the storylines are fairly mediocre. But not all of them are downright bad. Trooper's storyline is entertaining. Not quite as good as IA. Granted I've only seen to the beginning of Act 1 with both of them. Consular suffers from poor pacing, but at least is somewhat engaging. SI... yeah, that one is just... standard video game storyline.

And the "Not an mmo" argument? Really? This is by far your most biased comment. How is it not a massively multiplayer game? The game encourages and forces partying more than... okay, well... more than WoW back in vanilla. It encourages you to actually talk with other players, and get to know people. Christ, my friends list is populated with people I've ran groups with. Another tired and lame argument with no real merit. Yes, the game uses frequent instance servers instead of WoW's solution of using phasing. It helps keep a cohesive storyline. I've ran into tons of players in the wild. And yes, some planets are mainly corridors... but others are very wide open - Tattooine, Dromund Kaas, Alderaan, Taris, Balmorra... y'know... basically every planet. Raid size has ZERO to do with being an mmo. ZERO. ZERO. ZERO.

And Epic does NOT mean well written. You're an English major and don't know the definition of Epic? That's pretty sad.


Bolster? I dunno... when I was pvp'ing at level 10 i was regularly topping the charts for heals. Sure, I was squishy. And I didn't have a good arsenal so I was definitely weak... but it at least makes people below 50 have some purpose.

TL;DR, Your post is not an un-biased look. While some of your arguments might hold some merit - they are written in a way that shows a total negative bias. And after numerous spelling and definition errors - I seriously doubt your claims at being an english major.

[Buckwald]

Fully Voiced - No) SWTOR is not fully voiced. There are many instances of unique voice acting, but there is also a staggering amount of non-voiced Content. For example, there are: quest text Datapads, quest text Mission Boards, quest text Mission Dropboxes, Droids (Robots) who go "beep beep", Aliens that "talk" in random sounds, and the Playable Classes really love to repeat themselves (Look no further, I'm your Sith/I live to serve the Republic, etc.)

It is fully voiced. Every time you talk to a quest NPC they talk. The aliens "random sounds" are still intelligible language in the SW universe. About turning in quests to a drop box or data pads, even if they did talk, it would be in a computerized voice, and then you'd say "Well, it doesn't count because it's the same digitized voice".

Story Driven - No) Simply having a Story does not make something "Story Driven"; to employ this logic would be to claim that World of Warcraft is also Story Driven, as well. The vast majority of SWTOR's "story" is "Kill XYZ". The occasional Dark Side/Light Side options are cool, but they are rare. Each Class does have it's own Story, but it accounts for very little of the content, past level 20, and since the game doesn't end at level 20; it is not Story "Driven", rather it has a Story, just like WoW

I'm level 36 on Balmorra and I know clearly what MY story and the Planet's story is. While, at the end of the day, you're still killing X number of Y, I have a reason to. I have to go recover the data pads of the fallen Republic fighters before the Empire does. Oh look a bonus to kill X amount Y, well shoot, I'm in the area, I might as well slay those dirty Empire Bastards.

MMO - No) SWTOR is no more an MMO, than Modern Warfare 3; it has Online, and you can play it with other people. The game is lacking virtually every feature that defines an MMO in the year 2011/2012, the Raid (Operation) sizes are comically small, with the "larger" setting being 16 man. SWTOR also has no Open World, each zone consists mainly of Hallways (be they outdoor, environmental hallways like Hoth, or literal Indoor Corridors, like Nar Shadaa) there is instancing around every corner; and of the course, there is Sharding separating players from one another, even in the same zone, on the same Server

MMORPG. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Is it a Role Playing Game? Check. Is it online? Check. Have I played with numerous players in Warzones, Flashpoints, Heroic Quests and General Questing? Check.

Yep. So, it's not objective and it's not unbiased. That's not a dig at you, it's just we all have our opinions about those subjects. So, it's almost impossible to be completely objective and unbiased.

[conscript]

Closing since this is about as objective as watching Fox News.