SWTOR: State of the game at this point

[Tarien]

No, what I am saying is that there is no majority wanting it, and there is no majority not wanting it. Indeed, the majority most likely don't care one way or another. However, enough people want it, that BW, and other companies, feel they would gain more than they lose by adding it. As someone else said, if 25% of people don't want it, and 5% of those say they will leave if it comes in, and 25% do want it, and 10% of those say they will leave if it doesn't come in, there is no majority either way, but they would lose more by not adding it. I'm just failing to understand how you fail to understand it has nothing to do with majority. The majority don't even post on forums to say what they want. Hence, the "vocal minority."

I'm going to skip over the made up statistics and reiterate that either a majority of playings voicing an opinion want it, or they don't, in which case as I suggested BioWare are implementing features that the majority don't want which sounds ridiculous even to me.

It's at this point where I have to concisely clarify what should be fairly obvious that I again can only conclude that you are being obtuse merely to avoid conceding defeat on this point.

look how many post on forums to not even do them because you can get geared faster just doing Ops.

Well that's a design flaw, but for the sake of hammering out this point let's assume it doesn't exist.

Most people, if they don't get something, they won't do it. If they don't need gear from FPs, they won't do FPs. So there needs to be a reward, or people will complain, and if there is a reward in doing something, people will feel forced to do it because they want the reward. Also, who would do more work for something if there is a lazy setting?

I think a better question is, why would they want to do more work than necessary? The only possible reward is a better group of players you know, trust and enjoy playing with but then you can still use the LFD tool and get the benefits.

As for the reward, I would assume that being auto grouped is enough for levelling or recently-max-level characters, the rewards beyond that (ie WoWs tokens each day) are a double edged sword. Sure they feel mandatory to top tier PvE players, but for newbies they are a godsend because they get gear faster and the benefit of experienced players. Given that there are more newbies and casuals than hard cores I would imagine that overall the effect is positive but I agree that it isn't all positives. But overall I think the system is beneficial. Bare in mind that without the LFD tool the hard cores would take longer to get their tokens, so while it may feel mandatory they are still reaping the rewards.

I'm sure all those people who group with friends for dungeons all actually fly to the dungeon. Wait, no, they just form the group and use the lfg. You know what happens in WoW when you try to spam for a group? People just tell you to use LFG. Yup, sounds like you're not being forced at all.

Well anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. I saw people spamming for players for speed or achievement runs and successfully forming groups in both WoW and RIFT, but that is just my experience.

Honestly, I don't think they pushed it out "early." Not in the sense people keep saying it. In the business world, there are deadlines. The December deadline was probably set some time ago, and the simple fact is BW had to skimp on some things to make it. Basically, they were failing at the deadline.

Well ideally they should have known that that wouldn't be enough time and just moved the deadline back. Look at GW2, open(ish) beta testing, still no launch date. When it's ready should be every developers mantra.

[Madruga]

What did WoW have at launch? All they had were quests that got you to level 55 and you had to basically grind to 60 from there.

They didn't have a basic queuing system for PvP. You had to GO to the location of the instance for that specific battleground, and queue there. They only had Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin for the first couple months.

They had one raid instance for the first couple months.

They had an auction house that broke half the time.

They had servers that crashed every other day.

Maintenance Tuesday lasted until midday Thursday.

You could randomly fall through the ground while walking through door ways.

You could randomly fall through the ground while walking up hills.

Flight Paths weren't connected and were far and few in between.

Mobs randomly reset mid fight.

Shall I go on? I don't want to derail the thread but I just couldn't see such nonsense stated.

To be fair, you cannot compare WOW at its launch more than 7 years ago with what we have now. That would be like comparing the Ford T with a Camaro.

You have to compare WOW at its launch with the other super-grindy MMOs that existed at the time, like Everquest or Ultima Online.

You could compare SWTOR launch with Rift´s, that came on about the same period of time. And I must say that Rift had a much smoothier launch than SWTOR. It even seems Rift is more solid now than SWTOR is, given that Start Wars is one of the most powerfull franchises in the world, if not THE most powerfull.

[ati87]

To be fair, you cannot compare WOW at its launch more than 7 years ago with what we have now. That would be like comparing the Ford T with a Camaro.

You have to compare WOW at its launch with the other super-grindy MMOs that existed at the time, like Everquest or Ultima Online.

You could compare SWTOR launch with Rift´s, that came on about the same period of time. And I must say that Rift had a much smoothier launch than SWTOR. It even seems Rift is more solid now than SWTOR is, given that Start Wars is one of the most powerfull franchises in the world, if not THE most powerfull.

You should compare SWTOR with the current WoW and the current Rift no mater how unfair it is.

You can only spend your money once and people will spend it on the product that will give the best experience.

If it is SWTOR they will go for SWTOR but if it is WoW people will just play WoW.

is it unfair to compare a new product to another product that had time to evolve: No
but does and should the average consumer care that the new product has less time: Also NO

However given the fact that you can just copy the used concept of other MMO and you don't have to come up with a whole new way of doing things. If I would have to implement for example LFD I could ask myself what kind of conditions I need to put in or I could just use WoW's because I know that will work (yes I know the haters disagree but majority agrees).

[Shadowzmoon]

Everyone is just complaining about a crappy launch (i cant say much on how it was at launch, i have only been playing this game for 2 months now and am still enjoying it very much) and comparing it to WoW, not to mention all this talk about no LFD option Yet!. I mean every MMO will have issues at launch, they will never be perfect and not all of them will have smooth launches, but at least they busted ass and are trying to fix everything up. It doesnt matter how long they took before releasing the game. Comparing anything to WoW is pointless, WoW has been out for 7-8 years not, it has been mentioned many times, they have had time to polish everything out. New MMOs wont ever be up to the standards that WoW is currently at, not at their own launch date at least, maybe after a few big patches that fix things up, maybe then SWTOR will be caught up so i say give it sometime, play something else and then come back, but before to long SWTOR will be polished up and everything will be working and like the creators mentioned LFD is coming in 1.3 so patience. Hopefully Bioware will smarten up and merge servers to get rid of most of the underpopulated servers so that way you do have the choice of LFD or building your own group from trade chat.

[woodydave44]

If it has nothing to do with the OP, then there is no point in posting something that has nothing to do with the thread.

---------- Post added 2012-05-06 at 07:48 PM ----------



What did WoW have at launch? All they had were quests that got you to level 55 and you had to basically grind to 60 from there.

Which, at the time, was a LOT better than other mmos. Every mmo before this required you to grind from level 1 to max.

They didn't have a basic queuing system for PvP. You had to GO to the location of the instance for that specific battleground, and queue there. They only had Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin for the first couple months.

No other game had a que system at the time, period. This was something new brought into the genre.

They had one raid instance for the first couple months.

They had 2 actually. And they took months for the first guild to actually clear. SWTORs raid instances were cleared on patch night.

They had an auction house that broke half the time.

SWTOR has a failure of a GTN. And this is supposedly working...

They had servers that crashed every other day.

Again, the high population was entirely new at the time. No other game could of prepared them for this. They learned on their own.

Maintenance Tuesday lasted until midday Thursday.

At least they didnt pull any features at the last moment in order to get it up sooner.

You could randomly fall through the ground while walking through door ways.

You could randomly fall through the ground while walking up hills.

This literally happened to me in swtor last raid night. Happens in every mmo. Nice try though.

Flight Paths weren't connected and were far and few in between.

Only 1 other game had flightpaths at the time. They were ground only and were far worse than WoWs improved flightpaths.

Mobs randomly reset mid fight.

I still encounter mobs that are perma evaded in SWTOR. Nice try again.

Shall I go on? I don't want to derail the thread but I just couldn't see such nonsense stated.

Shall I?

You cant compare technologies issues from 7 years ago to present. Especially when those technologies gave us the new standards for mmos.

[Redblade]

If it has nothing to do with the OP, then there is no point in posting something that has nothing to do with the thread.

You do see the irony in you telling me that I shouldn't post on the off topic discussion when you proceed to post on the same off topic discussion your self right?

[A Challenger!]

Which, at the time, was a LOT better than other mmos. Every mmo before this required you to grind from level 1 to max.


Again, the high population was entirely new at the time. No other game could of prepared them for this. They learned on their own.

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.

You cant compare technologies issues from 7 years ago to present. Especially when those technologies gave us the new standards for mmos.

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.

[Leonard McCoy]

While the sophistication of hardware has jumped by leaps and bounds over the years the programming of software generally hasn't. It is as time consuming and prone to errors as it was when warcraft came out. As users demand more and more functionality more and more investment must be made. As more and more investment is made quicker returns are expected. Developers are often forced to release software at bare minimum standards to meet the demands of investors. As more and more features are added, more and more complexity and the greater likely hood of errors and bugs creeps in. These aren't excuses these are simple realities of software design. When you understand this then you understand why swtor is the way it is today and why increasingly all software will be this way, INCLUDING stuff made by Blizzard. The removal of PVP from diablo 3 is evidence of this alone.

Now once you recognize this you as the end user are left to make a judgement call. Do I feel that the developers are adding features and content at a quick enough pace to make it worth the 15 a month?

[Koalachan]

I'm going to skip over the made up statistics and reiterate that either a majority of playings voicing an opinion want it, or they don't, in which case as I suggested BioWare are implementing features that the majority don't want which sounds ridiculous even to me.

It's at this point where I have to concisely clarify what should be fairly obvious that I again can only conclude that you are being obtuse merely to avoid conceding defeat on this point.

Again, It's not the majority, not even the majority of the vocal. It's enough. I'm not trying to "not concede," I'm trying to get you to realize you are arguing your apples when the topic is oranges.

Well that's a design flaw, but for the sake of hammering out this point let's assume it doesn't exist.

No. Because it DOES exist, so unless there is a reason for people to use your LFG they won't. Enter reward system, thus making people feel obliged to do it. Unless they change the design, it is there.

I think a better question is, why would they want to do more work than necessary? The only possible reward is a better group of players you know, trust and enjoy playing with but then you can still use the LFD tool and get the benefits.

As for the reward, I would assume that being auto grouped is enough for levelling or recently-max-level characters, the rewards beyond that (ie WoWs tokens each day) are a double edged sword. Sure they feel mandatory to top tier PvE players, but for newbies they are a godsend because they get gear faster and the benefit of experienced players. Given that there are more newbies and casuals than hard cores I would imagine that overall the effect is positive but I agree that it isn't all positives. But overall I think the system is beneficial. Bare in mind that without the LFD tool the hard cores would take longer to get their tokens, so while it may feel mandatory they are still reaping the rewards.

I will say that overall the system can be more beneficial, however in practice, there needs to be a reason for people to use it that doesn't make them feel forced to use it. People say "nobody forces you to use it" but when your not forced, people don't use it, then people complain about the queue times.

Well anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. I saw people spamming for players for speed or achievement runs and successfully forming groups in both WoW and RIFT, but that is just my experience.

The difference is with your anecdote, they're looking for something different. Again, the apples and oranges. They're looking for fast runs, or achievements. Things that running with that new guy you were just mentioning usually won't be able to get in on, because they are new and/or undergeared. They're not looking to just do the dungeon.

Well ideally they should have known that that wouldn't be enough time and just moved the deadline back. Look at GW2, open(ish) beta testing, still no launch date. When it's ready should be every developers mantra.

Just because they don't have a release date, doesn't mean they don't have a deadline. If only all deadlines in the business world could easily be changed and be more relaxed.

---------- Post added 2012-05-06 at 04:10 PM ----------

At least they didnt pull any features at the last moment in order to get it up sooner.

New dances for WOTLK. They didn't even say they were pulling them, they just never added them.

[Tarien]

Again, It's not the majority, not even the majority of the vocal. It's enough. I'm not trying to "not concede," I'm trying to get you to realize you are arguing your apples when the topic is oranges.

Fine fine, deny the logic.

No. Because it DOES exist, so unless there is a reason for people to use your LFG they won't. Enter reward system, thus making people feel obliged to do it. Unless they change the design, it is there.

It was a hypothetical so that we could discuss the real issue without a condition imposed from the start that renders half the argument moot.

I will say that overall the system can be more beneficial, however in practice, there needs to be a reason for people to use it that doesn't make them feel forced to use it. People say "nobody forces you to use it" but when your not forced, people don't use it, then people complain about the queue times.

People complain, use rational logic to figure out what is best for players overall and run with it. You managed that in your first sentence and then tripped and fell in your second.

The difference is with your anecdote, they're looking for something different. Again, the apples and oranges. They're looking for fast runs, or achievements. Things that running with that new guy you were just mentioning usually won't be able to get in on, because they are new and/or undergeared. They're not looking to just do the dungeon.

Either there is a LFD tool and the noobs don't need to spam for groups, or there is no LFD tool and everyone is spamming for groups. Either way there is no problem, the only problem is when people complain about loss of immersion, anti social behaviour or the 'requirement' to run them, in all three cases there are mitigating arguments to be made which we have already discussed.

Just because they don't have a release date, doesn't mean they don't have a deadline. If only all deadlines in the business world could easily be changed and be more relaxed.

Well yeah but if you don't have a release date then the deadlines are just to make sure that work is being carried out in a timely fashion. ArenaNet are doing a good thing by refusing to set a launch date, which they would then be obliged to release on or risk the chance of significant backlash from players.

I think there was a lot of player pressure to release SWTOR, and probably a lot of pressure from EA too. I honestly suspect that BioWare would rather have polished the game some more. At least I hope that's the case.

[Xalzel]

ah, SW:ToR, a GREAT RPG, trapped in the sickly, crippled, dying body of an MMO...

[Azaril]

Just because they don't have a release date, doesn't mean they don't have a deadline. If only all deadlines in the business world could easily be changed and be more relaxed.

Alex Mayberry on Release Dates at Blizzard.

Release Schedules

At most companies he has found that the schedules that they make are called "Right to Left" meaning they start at when they want to ship, and basically say "we can only do this amount of game to hit that date." However at Blizzard they start out with "What is the game we want to make" and then they figure out how long its going to take.
They have deadlines but they never announce them until they are 100% sure they are going to hit the date because they are always going to be trying new things. If they are not happy with the results, they will just keep trying new things.

[Leonard McCoy]

Alex Mayberry on Release Dates at Blizzard.

pvp in diablo is the exception then?

[Koalachan]

Fine fine, deny the logic.

There's no logic to deny. There is fallacy I am denying. A company doesn't need the majority of people to want something. They just need enough. I'm sure the majority of McDonald's customers want to McRib to be a permanent thing, however they still don't have it as such. For whatever reason, they still determine they will make more having it be a limited annual thing. You are merely assuming that because they implement something it must mean a majority.

It was a hypothetical so that we could discuss the real issue without a condition imposed from the start that renders half the argument moot.

People complain, use rational logic to figure out what is best for players overall and run with it. You managed that in your first sentence and then tripped and fell in your second.

You're not even making sense. My second sentence validates the first. It can be beneficial, but there must be a reason to get enough people to want to do it in order for it to be beneficial.

Either there is a LFD tool and the noobs don't need to spam for groups, or there is no LFD tool and everyone is spamming for groups. Either way there is no problem, the only problem is when people complain about loss of immersion, anti social behaviour or the 'requirement' to run them, in all three cases there are mitigating arguments to be made which we have already discussed.

The only mitigating argument made against it is "la la la la, you don't need to do it, la la la la." It's not a mitigating argument, it's not listening to the other side and claiming they don't have a valid argument, which is what happens on both sides pretty much over every argument about any MMO.

Well yeah but if you don't have a release date then the deadlines are just to make sure that work is being carried out in a timely fashion. ArenaNet are doing a good thing by refusing to set a launch date, which they would then be obliged to release on or risk the chance of significant backlash from players.

I think there was a lot of player pressure to release SWTOR, and probably a lot of pressure from EA too. I honestly suspect that BioWare would rather have polished the game some more. At least I hope that's the case.

A company is not obliged to release their internal deadlines to the public. That doesn't mean they don't exist. And when people consistently fail to meet deadlines, they get replaced by people who do make them. So yes, there is pressure. Given the amount of outsourcing we know they did, we know they had a lot of options. There was no real reason for them to not meet deadlines.

[Shadowzmoon]

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

[Voolawl]

I enjoyed SWTOR for the little bit that I played it(~level 26), but once the patcher messed up and it required more then just restarting or running as Administrator, I canceled my account.

Can't get your stuff right now, not looking good for the future.

[Kronik85]

pvp in diablo is the exception then?

Well remembering the tone of the anouncement about cutting PvP then sort of. What I got was that Blizz thought that D3 had taken too long as is and since the PvE is completely finished they were prepared to throw us a bone and get playing right away rather than rush out the PvP and tack on a few months to release. I'm pretty sure people will be upset because there's no PvP at release but PvP has never been at the beating heart of Diablo and it's more for the lulz if anything. Any functional* PvP is a step up from D2 so Blizz don't have to aim particularly high for it to have been improved, the fact that Blizz are going to sit it on it abit is probably for the better.

*Functional describes something that isn't an Amazon with 100% pierce block locking you the second you step out of the Rogues Encampment in an Act1 Normal game called PvP1.

[Deleted]

For me it will be Diablo3 + TOR for the next few Years.
Nothing better on the Horizon

[Ciby]

Before I cancelled, and got my refund in January, the State of the Game was: Dying

From what I've read on the Forums here, and the SWTOR Official site, most Servers are very low population, so I can't imagine it being any better off now

as you were chased out of the swtor beta and live forums for being a dbag, servers were not dying. i have seen more people on than at launch. the real problem is that because bioware didnt want to deal with entitled babies crying about login queues they decided to launch too many servers, thusly making the population thinned out.

and dont bother replying to me. i dont care about your trash opinions. you have shown on the swtor forums for months you have nothing to say that doesnt involve tears.

[Klutzhoof]

Yeah, the patcher needs serious work. It's a big reason I don't play as much as I'd like. Because "Patching error. Retrying..." means "You're not playing this game within the next few hours. Also, the lag is horrible. It literally cripples you and blocks all movement. In WoW at least I can go where I want and wait for the game to catch up. Here... it's IF the game catches up. In later levels, if it catches up before I DIE.

I also really hate how weak I feel while levelling. I get that this is a social game and all, and in a perfect world I'd love to have friends to play with! But with realms dying and my IRL friends having backed off already, it's hard. Too hard for just one guy in most cases. All I can say is thank God for my companion(s).