SWTOR: State of the game at this point

[Forsedar]

So I point out an occasion where one of the guys HEAD of the game is actively helping the community daily and you manage to find the one single 'issue' with it? Come on.

And for the record, its not an issue directly with you- its the fact that I only see attacking everything. At least the others in this thread try to look at things from your viewpoint where as you're on the train that is essentially "I'm right and will always be right."

[Redblade]

So I point out an occasion where one of the guys HEAD of the game is actively helping the community daily and you manage to find the one single 'issue' with it? Come on.

No I took issue with you calling it excellent when it's fairly well known that it's mediocre to OK at best, not a complaint I would have taken up anywhere if you didn't as I generally find all MMO support to be kinda bad so I really don't take that much offense when it is just that.

And for the record, its not an issue directly with you- its the fact that I only see attacking everything. At least the others in this thread try to look at things from your viewpoint where as you're on the train that is essentially "I'm right and will always be right."

I'm not attacking everything, if that's how you read my post then you are twisting them that way in your head, again let go of what ever issue you have taken with me as it's clouding your judgment, as for my posts on the circular argument, others are arguing that they are right in a circular fashion yet I'm apparently not allowed, by you, to argue my point as if I'm right ... ?!

[Deleted]

I am not really worried about a small (but dedicated) playerbase.
I've played 5 Years Everquest 1 which had it's peak in 2004 with 430,000 players... and it was fine.
Small MMOs survive just fine, plus like Forsedar wrote already...a small circle of players brings you closer to the DEVs themself.
I was in Contact with Bastian Thun, the Lead Community Coordinator for Germany when i had a problem.

What counts on the end of the day is... that you enjoy your game.
And i do enjoy bending the force at my will :-D

ps: oh, and the server merge will probably come at some point. Dont worry.

[Bodaway]

Gave SWTOR another shot hoping I could play it until GW2 and got a new character up to about level 14 and just couldn't bear to play it anymore. The game is not fun at all to me. Glad some people enjoy it but I surely don't.

[Forsedar]

I'm not attacking everything, if that's how you read my post then you are twisting them that way in your head, again let go of what ever issue you have taken with me as it's clouding your judgment, as for my posts on the circular argument, others are arguing that they are right in a circular fashion yet I'm apparently not allowed, by you, to argue my point as if I'm right ... ?!

Again, I said I do not have an issue with you. You only proved my point because you somehow found a way to write a continuous response attacking me when I only said I do not have a problem with you.

Its whatever at this point. The game will remain just that- a game. Arguing over the interwebs proves nothing, especially when its out of our hands.

[Redblade]

Again, I said I do not have an issue with you. You only proved my point because you somehow found a way to write a continuous response attacking me when I only said I do not have a problem with you.

So claiming that I'm attacking everything when I'm not, repeatedly ask only me to stop posting as if you even have a right to ask that in the first place, isn't having an issue with me?

I'm not attacking you at all, I'm responding to you, if you don't like that perhaps you shouldn't start a discussion with me in the first place.

[Forsedar]

repeatedly ask only me to stop posting as if you even have a right to ask that in the first place.

What? I don't recall ever asking you to stop posting. Someone is getting a bit emotional here and putting words in my mouth because I am not saying anything wrong.

I will repeat for the third time. I do not have an issue with you. I might begin to if you continue trying to create something out of nothing. Good day.

[Redblade]

What? I don't recall ever asking you to stop posting. Someone is getting a bit emotional here and putting words in my mouth because I am not saying anything wrong.

Telling me to leave an argument is asking me to stop posting, again you took no issue with others doing it for far longer and equally repetitive.

[Tarien]

Pretty sure that this could be taken to PMs, as much as this is probably entertaining people right now...

[padrote]

How many times has Diablo 3 been pushed back, they announce the release date of it and then suddenly they push the release date back. You cant make an exception for one company and say it doesnt apply to another

The only release date that's been announced is May 15th, 2012.

[Dakia]

Enough with the pissing contest. Get back on topic.

[Lord Blackmore]

Actually... they are fixing their issues faster than any other MMO in the industry. Once again, we have to use the 'golden leader' at this point in time. Remember those bugs that have been around for 6 years and have been fixed? I don't... because they're still in the game to this day. Such as mage blink, etc.

Where's the data to support your assertion that "they are fixing their issues faster than any other MMO in the industry"? That's twice now I've called you out for stating opinions as fact. You don't know with any degree of reliability that this is true.

And you point about bugs still being in the game 6 months support your point at all. If SWTOR lasts 6 years, people will still be complaining about "day one" bugs that never got fixed. It's the nature of software development that not all bugs get fixed. I'm fairly confident, based on my own experience, that whatever is wrong with mage blink was triaged and determined to be of a lower, perhaps much lower (as in we're not going to fix this bug ever) priority. Bioware is undoubtedly doing the same, as this is an industry standard type of practice.

[Leonard McCoy]

Where's the data to support your assertion that "they are fixing their issues faster than any other MMO in the industry"? That's twice now I've called you out for stating opinions as fact. You don't know with any degree of reliability that this is true.

And you point about bugs still being in the game 6 months support your point at all. If SWTOR lasts 6 years, people will still be complaining about "day one" bugs that never got fixed. It's the nature of software development that not all bugs get fixed. I'm fairly confident, based on my own experience, that whatever is wrong with mage blink was triaged and determined to be of a lower, perhaps much lower (as in we're not going to fix this bug ever) priority. Bioware is undoubtedly doing the same, as this is an industry standard type of practice.

I'm not sure what data one could present to back up that argument but I'm not sure it's relevant. Really in the end if the user feels bugs are getting fixed fast enough well than that's fast enough. Perception is also key here. I feel at any rate their ahead of the curve in terms of bug fixing but yea theirs still things to fix and probably will be for a long time. Bug Fixing is not simple in many cases. First you have to find and replicate the bugs behaviour. Then you have to make sure the fix doesn't screw anything else up during the fix. It's difficult and is made only more difficult by the scale and size of an mmo.

---------- Post added 2012-05-07 at 03:42 AM ----------

I am not really worried about a small (but dedicated) playerbase.
I've played 5 Years Everquest 1 which had it's peak in 2004 with 430,000 players... and it was fine.
Small MMOs survive just fine, plus like Forsedar wrote already...a small circle of players brings you closer to the DEVs themself.
I was in Contact with Bastian Thun, the Lead Community Coordinator for Germany when i had a problem.

What counts on the end of the day is... that you enjoy your game.
And i do enjoy bending the force at my will :-D

ps: oh, and the server merge will probably come at some point. Dont worry.

MMOs used to be measured in thousands. They were profitable then and considered a success. Back before that one game came along...

[woodydave44]

That is no excuse; WoW's opening population was nothing special, two million or so, give or take a few million. That was about the normal for most popular MMO's, and WoW could not handle that for about a year; not to mention imbalance and bugs that were so bad, some classes were even unplayable.

100% incorrect.

Games like Everquest and Daoc had around 250k subs at that point, as the mmo genre was rather new. They actually made announcements about it which is how I remember. To go from 250k to 2-3 million was a huge deal hardware wise.

No. You can compare them, and WoW did not give us standards. MMO's these days share a very similar archetype; that is to PvP, do dailies, PvE. As long as the archetype remains the same, you can compare them. Gone are the bygone days of games of great exploration and whimsy such as DAOC, Everquest (though that is still around, but not sure how much it has changed) and FFXI (Same deal, not sure how the community has been lately).

SWTOR is not an amazing game, it is however a "good" MMO, depending on opinion.

No, you cant. I dont like WoW anymore, but it games the genre most of the ideas they all use. Que systems, quest systems for leveling, battlegrounds, item sets... Thats just a few. This is no different than how Daoc and FFXI followed Everquests standards at that time.

[RenegadeXan]

lol at people whining on travel time, this is not even a minor issue.

[Ap0calypse]

Biggest problem with the game atm is the amount of people on each server, and then the current warzone problems (queue times, pre-mades vs pugs, uneven teams). Fix the 1st and the 2nd will partially be solved.

Coding should be in place for random warzones to prevent 2 teams of 4 being put into the same match on the same side, as well as preventing games launching with uneven teams. The uneven teams problem could be fixed by stopping people joining the one team if the other cant get more people to join. This would prevent teams of 8 vs 5 or even less ever happening, as it would only launch the game at 5v5.

[Azaril]

How many times has Diablo 3 been pushed back, they announce the release date of it and then suddenly they push the release date back. You cant make an exception for one company and say it doesnt apply to another

They've announced the release date of D3 exactly once.

May 15th, 2012.

They have only announced a release date and had to change the date exactly once. The original release date of The Burning Crusade was changed because after they announced it due to a game breaking bug discovered shortly after the release announcement.

[Teabaker]

Game is bad.

Reasons:
-Damage way too high, resulting in dumb button smashing and very zergy pvp. (Kinda like wotlk and cataclysm).
-Balance is utter shit. Some classes (Commando, DPS-Scoundrel) are utter shit, while other, like Sentinels, Shadows, Vanguards and Heal-Scoundrels, are much better than anyone else. Also they are making way to big changes to classes in patches. This game will be like WoW in terms of balance. Your beloved class can be shit next month and staying like that for weeks or even months.
-No Open PvP
-Copy paste most content from WoW. If I want to play WoW, I play WoW >_>
-Dead, static world
-Bad background sounds and music. After playing GW2 it really surprised me how bad the sounds in SWTor really are.
-Wrong design decisions like focusing on Legacy, instead of Rated Warzones. I will never understand that. What Lead Designer puts the priority of a feature for alting over a core of the game? Also the core features of the Legacy aren't even in the game. Who cares about a race or fist fighting. Give us +EP on warzones or flashpoints! This brings me to the next point:
-You still have to do plain boring side quests to level. Leveling with only the class quest isn't viable. Leveling trough PvP takes forever and forces you to play against people of higher level with more talent points and abilities. Also you can't play with your lvl 50-friends till you reached max level. Flashpoints also award wayy to few EP. I just love to play multiple chars but it forces to me to play trough boring content, unless I give up on playing with friends and I don't mind getting stomped by chars with more abilities.
This really bothers me, especially after playing GW2 with the structured PvP. I just loved how WvWvW was about progression and structured PvP was about E-Sports. Just very elegant and very well solved.
-Crafting extremely boring. Also it's RNG.
-Awfulness of Ilum and the Outlaw removes a lot of faith in the game.
-Game follows the exact same route as WoW with the dead and static world, dailys, raids, weeklies and no open pvp. I can't really explain it but this game feels exactly like WoW.

EDIT: Also dead servers. I can't play warzones with my scoundrel on Scepter of Ragnos. (I have a marauder on the tomb however). Bioware is ignoring this or just doesn't see how important this is. This problems should have been fixed weeks ago, maybe even months.

I hoped I could play this game till GW2 but no. Can't even finish a warzone anymore before quitting. As a star wars fan, I gave this game a lot chances. I really still can't believe someone managed with a 200-300 mio budget and the "Star Wars"-franchise to do something this bad-mediocre.

[Odegon]

Teabaker the game is not bad. You just want to play GW2.

Different players like different games. At launch a lot of wow players rushed to SWTOR expecting another wow with shiny graphics. They noticed that it is not wow and complained. Than wow haters came. They said this game is a wow copy and complained.

This game is not perfect, but it is also not horrible. SWTOR is just a mmo which launched with bugs and some design problems. SWTOR is also a game which fixes its problems rapidly. Even wow brought which I find an essential part of a mmo: gear custimization recently. AFAIK it still does not have dying of gear.

I find essentially the SWTOR universe lame. A shiny good vs evil war without any substance in it. Bioware managed to take that and make a great game out of it. It has great visuals and awesome music(they have some problems with delivering it though). This game has a soul.

Different games for different folks. I`m having fun playing this game. I don't care if others like it or not. I will play this game as long as I am having fun.

[Deleted]

Odegon, try read Teabreakers post again, cause your post shows you didnt. He doesnt want a game that is much like WoW.
I completely disagree with you, the main core problem with SWTOR is excatly that it doesnt have a soul.
Once you realize that the famed quest stories are run by the same generic choices, the game falls apart, you just dont believe the stories anymore, and the travellings across the planets become pointless.
All the quests, have the same 2 options, and you can reply with the same 3 answers, with slight variations. Even worse is the dissappointment in the companions stories, when you realize, that your choices dont have any consequenses. You can kill you companion, and the next minut he is back on the ship, as if nothing happend.
If the game breaks the illusion of its own story, it dont work, hence no soul.
SWTOR is the first MMO to completely let down its audience.