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  1. #1

    What ToR did right and what it failed at

    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.

    I have now been playing pretty much since release and here is my summary of what all ToR did right and wrong, some of this mistakes will turn out to be the arrow in ToR's knee.

    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

    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.

    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.

    4) Storage system: Well done, no complaints

    5) Levelling experience: This is again a good one, mostly because of the story telling aspect.



    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.

    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.

    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. Most environments just feel not so heart warming. Even alderaan looked so much more beautiful in movies, it does not give me the same feel in the game. Same goes with things like night and day and weather changes, come on BW, this is not 1990...if you want to give immersion, dialogues is not the only thing to do. make the world feel real and changing.

    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.

    6) Things that should have never made it to live: Things like camera reset to max zoom out at random, minimap randomly zooming in all the way, Too many black dull screens (it's not that hard to slap a small portrait indicating what one is upto), companion pet mission windows popping in, no matter if you are ina boss fight or at 200HP in a fierce PvP battle (how did BW not see that no one cares what the companion came back with, when we are in combat?)

    7) Auction House Design: All I can say about this is "What the F*** were they thinking". Things like this making it to live gives the game a very unfinished and rushed feel.

    8) Music: WoW, Dragon Age, Skyrim...they are all better than ToR. Also, really that hard to make loop music? Many wil say 'that's what itunes is for' and thats good for you, I played WoW with WoW music because I loved the music so much, I do not see why it is blasphemy to expect a game to have good music. Music is important to many people.....I have not played WoW in ages but still sometimes I like to hook up the soundtrack and just chill out, that is quality music.




    I understand that many people will disagree with a lot of my points and some will brush them off as being not a concern but these are things that many people expect from an MMO. Only making a good story and having voice actors is not enough. People want to play as they like it. Whena company starts imposing it's own wishes so hard on users from get go (such as in UI, macros etc), it feels that one is playing as the company wants them to and not in a way that we find fun.

    I think BWs biggest failure was not to learn from WoW's high points. Things such as customisable UI, dual specs, raids like ulduar which have multiple kinds of environments withing one raid.
    BW could also have tried to lessen the number of load screens, it is very annoying, get out of ship in a load screen, run a 4 metre corridor, load screen again.

    While many will jump on my throat about giving the game time and what not, that is valid to say, however One can not deny that First Expressions go a long way. What I have listed above are not bugs, these are mostly features that deserved more attention and features that are game breaking for many people.
    I was very very excited for this game and I must say if GW2 is not upto scratch either, it might just be time to leave the MMO genre all together because the companies really seem to fail to understand what their consumer wants.

    In summary, it is a good concept but rather poorly executed and they game is playable and enjoyable at times but it's not a game I will fall in love with.
    Last edited by OhpUldum; 2012-02-02 at 10:40 PM.

  2. #2
    Deleted
    I think you are being extremely picky about your bad points.

    Many games are released with a similar UI. Take wow for example, personally I think it's horrible and it's little different to swtor. The point behind them however, is to be simple. It's not until addons come in that most good Ui's can be made. This is the same for games such as wow and the elder scrolls. To say the ui ended the game for you seems so silly to me. The ui may not be amazing, but it does teh job it needs to.

    Again dps, healing and threat charts are all something that usually doesn't come until later in a game. And is often a 3rd party thing. Wow still to this day has no inbuilt meter system.

    I think the only bad point I agree with you about is the lack of being able to macro. The other things you've mentioned don't seem to bother me at all.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaiex View Post
    I think you are being extremely picky about your bad points.

    Many games are released with a similar UI. Take wow for example, personally I think it's horrible and it's little different to swtor. The point behind them however, is to be simple. It's not until addons come in that most good Ui's can be made. This is the same for games such as wow and the elder scrolls. To say the ui ended the game for you seems so silly to me. The ui may not be amazing, but it does teh job it needs to.

    Again dps, healing and threat charts are all something that usually doesn't come until later in a game. And is often a 3rd party thing. Wow still to this day has no inbuilt meter system.

    I think the only bad point I agree with you about is the lack of being able to macro. The other things you've mentioned don't seem to bother me at all.
    To be fair, wow has no in-built threat system because devs don't want to make threat management to be a concern. Many other systems that started out as mods were integrated into the game over time. TOR needs to ramp up the effort on allowing UI mods, because right now the biggest thing it fails at is innovation.

    I like playing this game, and should it have come out five years ago, I'd call it a masterpiece MMO. Today, it's as mediocre as mediocre gets.
    The night is dark and full of terrors...

  4. #4
    Deleted
    4) Environments: I am primarily comparing the environments to those in WoW. personally i would pick storms peaks over Hoth any day. Most environments just feel not so heart warming. Even alderaan looked so much more beautiful in movies, it does not give me the same feel in the game. Same goes with things like night and day and weather changes, come on BW, this is not 1990...if you want to give immersion, dialogues is not the only thing to do. make the world feel real and changing.
    You do know alderaan was never shown in the movies right?

    As for other games having better music .....no just know

  5. #5
    Pit Lord philefluxx's Avatar
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    I love how people act like nothing is going to be improved on. I also love how people forget that if the game did not ship, there would be no game. So if you can find enough things you do like about the game, you need to have some fucking patience so they can finish things they have already announced will be improved on instead of wasting time writing out threads like this. Its really getting old....

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by MmoFanatic View Post
    Cry more plz-_- everyone else is doing it we really need more of these Threads......
    no game is perfect nothing in this freaking world is perfect.
    why complain on MMO anyway? don't think Bioware will just stroll in here and say we will change this asap just cus u said it.
    Threads like this only attract more of the same people. think of it like this it's like flies attracted to crap.
    No one is crying. I made a post with points and reasons and you have said nothing logical.

  7. #7
    While I can't argue with many of the bad points, they are greatly outweighed by No.s 1 and 5 in your pro list. Admittedly, if I were raiding, I would be screaming for macros and Healbot. I also find the AH annoying, the phasing rudimentary, the UI clunky and the frequent loading annoying, but those are minor nusiances that have very little affect on my overall experience playing the game. Having instanced areas with no load times so each player or each group can experience critical story based quests (class or planet) without interference from other players was absolute genius. The minor quirks mentioned above will without question be resolved as the game evolves. As someone said in a earlier post, 20,000 beta testers cannot possibly provide the feedback required to truly fine tune a game of this size. We are only 1.5 months into release. Give the game time to evolve and enjoy the story for now.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by AnthonyUK View Post
    You do know alderaan was never shown in the movies right?
    Episode 3, near the end.

  9. #9
    The music? I thought it was pretty good.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by philefluxx View Post
    I love how people act like nothing is going to be improved on. I also love how people forget that if the game did not ship, there would be no game. So if you can find enough things you do like about the game, you need to have some fucking patience so they can finish things they have already announced will be improved on instead of wasting time writing out threads like this. Its really getting old....
    Quote myself " While many will jump on my throat about giving the game time and what not, that is valid to say, however One can not deny that First Expressions go a long way. What I have listed above are not bugs, these are mostly features that deserved more attention and features that are game breaking for many people."

    What I listed are not bugs, these are things one should expect as a consumer wanting a quality product. None of these is hard to deliver or game changing but all them them cumulatively make the game mediocre at best.

  11. #11
    I'll just comment on your "fail" list.

    1) Brand new game, give it time. Default UI is more functional than WoW's original UI was (remember when they didn't even have raid frames?)

    2) Yet again, brand new game...

    3) Not about control, it's about development time and what they have the focus on. Once you add macros, you have to tune for people having them, thus making them mandatory.

    4) Alderaan was never seen in the movies except from space. Honestly I think the environments are far FAR better than WoW at this point. Opinions are opinions.

    5) Yet we're nothing in WoW's storyline when we ARE the storyline in SWTOR.

    6) Opinions again.

    7) It's not bad per say, just very different. I find it easier to find upgrades personally...

    8) I can't even comment on this. I truely think you're out of your mind on this one...

  12. #12
    Pit Lord philefluxx's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by igame View Post
    Quote myself " While many will jump on my throat about giving the game time and what not, that is valid to say, however One can not deny that First Expressions go a long way. What I have listed above are not bugs, these are mostly features that deserved more attention and features that are game breaking for many people."

    What I listed are not bugs, these are things one should expect as a consumer wanting a quality product. None of these is hard to deliver or game changing but all them them cumulatively make the game mediocre at best.
    If you feel you are important enough to write up this thread, you need to do some research to find out why things are the way they are. You don't see any reputable publications creating QQ @ the AH reviews do you?. As I said, if they did not ship the game they would not have it. EA was ready to pull the plug, even this far into development. Its PAINFULY obvious that a lot of things were thrown together. We dont need more threads pointing out the obvious. BW has already stated they will be "improving" upon many of the "fails" you pointed out. So its pretty obvious to anyone that not everything is as intended. A fail would indicate a finished product or feature has failed. Maybe you should change the title to what BW did right and what BW needs to finish. Personally Id rather have the game with all its flaws and wait for them to finish then no game at all.
    Last edited by philefluxx; 2012-02-02 at 10:34 PM.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by igame View Post
    I think BWs biggest failure was not to learn from WoW's high points. Things such as customisable UI, dual specs, raids like ulduar which have multiple kinds of environments withing one raid.
    Lets just ignore the fact everything here is an opinion that you try to pass of as fact, but the above quoted leads me to believe you have never done an opp in SWTOR. The first opp on the game, EV, features different environments but yet here you are telling us how Bioware "Failed" at their design. WoW having a custom UI is a function of add-ons not the game itself, unless something has changed since I quit less than a year ago. Macros and add-ons are comming.

  14. #14
    Dreadlord Tehfred's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by igame View Post
    8) Music: WoW, Dragon Age, Skyrim...they are all better than ToR. Also, really that hard to make loop music? Many wil say 'that's what itunes is for' and thats good for you, I played WoW with WoW music because I loved the music so much, I do not see why it is blasphemy to expect a game to have good music. Music is important to many people.....I have not played WoW in ages but still sometimes I like to hook up the soundtrack and just chill out, that is quality music.
    It incorporates music from the movies, from KotOR, and original score.

    What more do you want? A brand new score? IMO it just wouldn't have a Star Wars feel to it without John Williams' master touch.
    http://fredplz.wordpress.com/ - Thoughts of an obsessive Resto Shaman

  15. #15
    Equal stats for everyone in pre-50 battlegrounds was a good thing IMO, no twinks and anyone can join. Hopefully other MMO's copy that.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by monostat View Post
    Lets just ignore the fact everything here is an opinion that you try to pass of as fact, but the above quoted leads me to believe you have never done an opp in SWTOR. The first opp on the game, EV, features different environments but yet here you are telling us how Bioware "Failed" at their design. WoW having a custom UI is a function of add-ons not the game itself, unless something has changed since I quit less than a year ago. Macros and add-ons are comming.
    exactly what i was going to post.
    Eternity vault was deff a breath of fresh air, loved the fights with the pillars and everyone having to kill there own little boss on another ... and to be honest the final boss i thought was ace having to drop down that massive pit to the bottom. Imo wow should take some pointers on how to make raids....and lets not talk about music, in the palace opp i could not help but turn my volume up full once you approached first boss and the nostalgic music kicked in..fucking ace

  17. #17
    I enjoy the game alot I only have minor things that annoy me. I disagree with your comment about #4. The storage system is ok but not great. I would like to have the items that can stack in my storage to actually stack when I click said item in my bags.
    Last edited by Stankymcgee; 2012-02-02 at 10:40 PM.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by AnthonyUK View Post
    You do know alderaan was never shown in the movies right?

    As for other games having better music .....no just know
    Sorry, I'm going to go ahead and get geeky on you, it was ep3

  19. #19
    High Overlord
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    Good thread, i totally agree with everything you said.
    +1

    There is no need to quote the OP's entire post. Oddly enough doing so can garner you an infraction. Consider this a polite warning. - Cula
    Last edited by OhpUldum; 2012-02-02 at 10:42 PM.

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by igame View Post
    No one is crying. I made a post with points and reasons and you have said nothing logical.
    still why make a post here? where it will do nothing more that collect more of the same?

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