Looking back at swtor over the last year

[OneSent]

Game disappointed me greatly, I played it longer than I really should have, for the sole reason of being Star Wars.

I'm in the same boat and I think that's the only reason why anyone continues to play it now - because it's Star Wars.

If it were just another fantasy-based MMO with elves and dwarves, no one would give a shit.

[Deleted]

I really don't get them. Here they had a perfect chance to make some good press and rep for a game with the lifeday and 1st anniversary.But no, instead the only real effort they put in was for the cash shop items and even they look like they have been made by some intern on his lunchbreak.
I find it hard to believe the goal would be anything else anymore than getting every dime out as fast as they can out of the game before they close the shop.

[FusedMass]

I really don't get them. Here they had a perfect chance to make some good press and rep for a game with the lifeday and 1st anniversary.But no, instead the only real effort they put in was for the cash shop items and even they look like they have been made by some intern on his lunchbreak.
I find it hard to believe the goal would be anything else anymore than getting every dime out as fast as they can out of the game before they close the shop.

That's something I agree on. They could have easily made a public event in day game or something. Maybe everyone would get something in the mail. Yet all those nice shiny expensive products even for subs are on full display on ..Cartel Shop. The customer knows they're being jerked so to speak on their money but to make it so very obvious that they are in this for the money.

I have concerns every holiday will be a different Cartel shop item. As I mentioned before why make new items when you can make items only for Cartel Shop and being paid for it. Other then customer base seeing this as a knife in the back to paid subs.

[Volitar]

My honest thoughts? "Wow Killer" lolol @ everyone who tried to shove that terrible game down my throat.

[slime]

I definitely quit wow when this released saying I would never go back. And I didn't and thanks to swtor I found the best, most enjoyable mmo out there, Rift.

[FusedMass]

My honest thoughts? "Wow Killer" lolol @ everyone who tried to shove that terrible game down my throat.

Not everyone screamed from their lungs it was wow killer. I cant help but notice at some players reaction to the limited success at mocking it. Keep in mind without this game I doubt the new expansion for warcraft would've been pushed so heavily so quickly or that the annual pass that gave away a free 60 dollar game and other goody's just for keeping the sub active.

If other MMO's have sucesss it will lit a fire under Warcraft dev's to do more. If they dont have that fire they can just sit back and reap in profits. Blizzard made triple profits last year. Regardless of which game you are playing you're thing should be to have fun. Even if this game ends people won't magically go back to warcraft if they don't enjoy it.

[Deleted]

Not everyone screamed from their lungs it was wow killer. I cant help but notice at some players reaction to the limited success at mocking it. Keep in mind without this game I doubt the new expansion for warcraft would've been pushed so heavily so quickly or that the annual pass that gave away a free 60 dollar game and other goody's just for keeping the sub active.

If other MMO's have sucesss it will lit a fire under Warcraft dev's to do more. If they dont have that fire they can just sit back and reap in profits. Blizzard made triple profits last year. Regardless of which game you are playing you're thing should be to have fun. Even if this game ends people won't magically go back to warcraft if they don't enjoy it.

I wouldn't say it had limited success now, when compared to other mmos it did pretty well tbh what annoyed me was that Bioware, correct me if i'm wrong had prepared for 10 million subs which was a bit rediculous. Despite it not being my current favourite game I realised I was still subbed to it about week ago after not playing since allies and am happily doing pvp and i havent enjoyed myself more in ages

[FusedMass]

I wouldn't say it had limited success now, when compared to other mmos it did pretty well tbh what annoyed me was that Bioware, correct me if i'm wrong had prepared for 10 million subs which was a bit rediculous. Despite it not being my current favourite game I realised I was still subbed to it about week ago after not playing since allies and am happily doing pvp and i havent enjoyed myself more in ages

I use the term limited success. As people self reflect what they like or don't like about the game. Some users post here to straight mock this game during this stage. It annoys and frustrates me sightly because they act as if all people playing TOR foamed at the mouth and raved about having 10 million users. Most people just wanted to play and enjoy the game.

And I still am subbed. I am enjoying this game deeply to. It's complex moral choices. Companions side missions. It's class missions and PVP. It's hard find that entertainment for a 15 dollar a month. Yet just saying this games success if it had been really high. My thing was to show that companys would've tried even harder to make their game better.

The users are the ones who benefit from this.

[Armourboy]

Like I said, most MMOs don't really give you a big reason to group up with anybody aside from, maybe, GW2. However, like I said before, you get loot bonuses in TOR for being in groups. Not for being in FPs or Ops (in which groups are pretty much mandatory), but out questing in the open world. Not quest rewards, but loot drops are better. Plus, you gain more experience by being in a group then you do by playing solo. Also more credits. There ARE benefits to grouping unlike, let's say, WoW. During Cataclysm, my wife and I grouped up from 80-85. We didn't hit 85 until we were in Twilight Highlands. That's with doing all the quests in both starter zones and my wife herbalizing everything in sight. When I leveled my alts, without heirloom gear, I hit 85 in Uldum. So, while you may not get that "Ermagerd" weapon or armor, you DO still gain benefits by grouping in TOR. More than most other MMOs.

---------- Post added 2012-12-22 at 12:39 PM ----------



Fixed that for you. :P

The big difference between your main and your alt was probably due to rest XP, not the grouping. My first level 85 was just like yours, and I did it solo. The ones after that finished up long before twilight highlands just like you. TBH WoW has never really penalized you for grouping, I did at least one toon with my wife since TBC and the only real variation was due to the rest XP ( and later BOA items) that my alts were able to have stock piled.

In TOR the only real benefit I even got to grouping while leveling was the fact my buddy and I could two man most heroic 4's ( he was a healer ( smuggler) and I was a tank ( trooper )), and the social points, which didn't really make that much of a difference.

There really hasn't been an MMO that I can think of that made grouping that big of a deal while leveling since FF online ( and it was a must )

[Edge-]

My honest thoughts? "Wow Killer" lolol @ everyone who tried to shove that terrible game down my throat.

The ultravocal hyperminority of fans of any new MMO talk about the game as a "WoW killer" in any seriousness. I've never heard that term discussed outside of hardcore fan sub-groups mentioned in any other way than ironically. That term really needs to die. It was created by stupid fans, and for some reason likes to be brought up all the time despite the fact that I don't think any game has ever set out to "kill" WoW. Even EA, who were the most aggressive, only said they were aiming to take a big piece of the pie (WoW's subs), not outright kill them.

[Armourboy]

I wouldn't say it had limited success now, when compared to other mmos it did pretty well tbh what annoyed me was that Bioware, correct me if i'm wrong had prepared for 10 million subs which was a bit rediculous. Despite it not being my current favourite game I realised I was still subbed to it about week ago after not playing since allies and am happily doing pvp and i havent enjoyed myself more in ages

The reason the game is not deemed successful by lots of people is because it didn't even meet the companies own expectations. They weren't aiming for 500k subs, if they had been they never would of went F2P. At the peak they had nearly two million subs, and they were only able to retain about 30-40% of its initial population after less than a year. While currently they may be up there with more succesful games such as EQ and FF online, its the goal they set that makes that lackluster.

I think overall, from a gaming industry stand point, you would be hard pressed to find very many people that would deem it successful. SWG had its group of players that liked it and stuck with it to, but that didn't make it a success. Being one of those players, I can look back and see I enjoyed the game a lot, but I can also realize it didn't even get close to successfully meeting the companies or the industries expectations.

[Psychlon]

Whatever the company was expecting, it is to no concern for the players. People from WoW just couldn't find any reason why they should play a very similar MMO with the exception of the VO story bonus for very little in exchange. Operations were just at the very beginning, difficulty and design wise. People quit because they was no reason left to kill the pylon trash over and over because the encounter was bugged/ didn't reset/ had to reset the zone. There was this massive bug on Illum which must have "killed" tons of subscriptions (canon bug = spawn camping)... and after the initial months you've been left with practically nothing new, still bugs in the very first operation and that's it. Legacy was still far out there somewhere, people had to depend on luck to get their PvP armor, crafter (except Biochem) had 0 reason to exist past lvl 50. No character transfer available and each server got smaller by the day, killing another big junk of subscriber which didn't want to wait for hours for an pvp match to open, didn't want to wait hours for any player to find their way into chat channels to build a group or an operation. I was in a 8man group at that time, doing all content together but even for us... D3 killed 1-2 players and with it our guild as there was nobody left to join with 75-100 people during absolut prime time on the fleet.

If I remember back then... whoever left at that time had tons of reason. Now we're complaining about stuff nobody would have cared back then because you wanted to "play". Even if Bioware would add tons of stuff we would still have similar discussion just different subjects. I haven't heard about class balancing in a while, I didn't experience any problems with different classes myself... but who in their right mind would freely point out that apparently we've got something very very important "fixed" in this game. People can find raidspots with almost any class, not like in other MMO's which would just bench you because your class is unbalanced/ not as good as another class doing the same job. My only concern with PvP is lag and people which are afraid to die. People would leave this game if you had everything else but these wouldn't be balanced out. I mean there is a lot of stuff we just don't realize because we are all too busy to think about how terrrible everything is (which it really isn't as much as some believe). I agree with a lot of complains, especially things which should be a no-go (charging for event stuff) and that Bioware doesn't seem to care how much content they bring as long as they have "something" every 6-8 weeks. However this is the only game I played more than 3-4 characters to max level, I only hope that they actually take their stuff serious and come back to a pace and quality we can agree with.

[OneSent]

@Psychlon

You make alot of really good points. I had forgotten about most of that stuff. The Ilum exploits, Valor farmers, the RNG Battlemaster bags (lol); those were a pretty big blow to the PvP community and the bugs that persisted for months in the Operations chased off alot of the PvE crowd.

But the single most crippling thing that happened to the game was them not having transfers ready when the population started to die down. Hands down, nothing had a larger negative impact overall. Players started to leave because there server was dying and there was no one to play with. And once they were gone, most of them didn't come back.

By the time the first wave of merges happened (over half a year later), it was way too late. Between my Republic and Empire characters, I have over 50 players on my friends lists. Most of them made it on there because of how often I saw them online; I haven't seen a single one of them online since 1.2.

But at this time last year, I was having an absolute blast playing the game. I remember being at my grandparents for Christmas and constantly checking the time, eager to leave so I could finish leveling my Sentinel. I miss those days. Regardless of how bad I think the game turned out, the first 2-3 months were nothing short of amazing.

[Icaras]

I've found that 2 months seems to be my limit for SWTOR. I 1st subbed when the game launched in Australia and played the 1st months, really enjoyed it. But by the 2nd month, I slowly found my interest dwindling and I didn't even end up getting any characters to 50. I actually got a free month from the legacy level I achieved and didn't even log in then.

When F2P was announced, I resubbed and decided to get at least my fav toon, my sniper, to 50.

Trying to get into a random FP at the end of the game was painful, the queues were insanely slow. But I could accept this as I recall as DPS even in WoW normal dungeon queues were slow (Swtor was much slower mind, but I also knew there was no cross server queues)

After a little research, it seemed my 1st stage of gear progression at 50 was dailies and buying armorings and mods and such, as well as being able to buy...I think it was an ear peice slot.

At 1st I only did Ilum and it seemed painful and slow, as the dailies were spread out and there was heaps of trash I had to try and dodge or fight to GET to the objectives >.<
And the cost of the gear from daily badges? Yikes! The armorings and barrels and such weren't too badge, but the rest? 200? O.O!
But then I discovered from googling that as a fresh 50 I could just queue random H mode FPs (Normal FPs were still slow as hell and thus near worthless), and I managed to get a decent amount of tionese and columni gear (to the point that the free set of tionese gear 1.6 gave my main didn't need and I used it for comp gear)
However, and I think this is due to HK, false emp and foundry came up WAY to much (And battle of Ilum for some reason, unrelated note: all the jumping and dodging to avboid trash: Not fun). I think there are still 1 or 2 i've yet to do (And I wasn't able to finish lost island )
I'm now pretty much at the point where it seems I need black hole or later gear to progress my toon, and the amount of BH badges I get is pitiful.
I suppose the game wants me to raid, but the server i'm on (Dal Borra, Asia Pasific pve) I have never had an OP pop from the LFG tool. One weekend I stayed in the queue for 4 hours! And this was around prime playing time!

I decided to grind out HK-51 and while I found the inital quest chain enjoyable(romping around that ship...minus the jumping puzzel in the middle, I hate those in MMOs), the 2nd half of searching for the parts was SOUL DESTROYINGLY BORING. After an hour on the 1st part I was about to give up when, unlucky for me, I detected a part and soon found it. And so being the dummy I am, I just had to finish it then. Overall, it reminded me of the grind to get a gold chocobo in FF7 and while, like the gold chocobo I eventually did tough it out and finish, I don't think it was worth it. Many a time i'd read about the area I had to search and groan "Oh man!"

Ultimately I could have tried to join a raid team, so I could at least see the raids, but I wasn't prepared to farm up all the consumable and various gear enchancements a "proper" raider should, and I didn't feel like spending ages to try and find a raid team, only to then walk out after seeing the raids once (and I may not even see some raids, some having been superseded). Also, I raid in WoW still and didn't want to be commited to 2 differant raid groups. While you can queue for raids like WoW, in SWTOR the lack of cross server queues (At least for the server I'm on) seems to kill this. In WoW I know that i'm guaranteed to get into an LFR once I get geared enough. In Swtor you basically need to pray your server has a healthy LFG pug queue community or no dice. Yea bioware, you protect the "community" *rolls eyes*

I kinda enjoy PVP a bit, but as I'm still rocking mostly the free blue pvp gear (Apart from bracers and belt, which I was able to buy as soon as I dinged, and a gun, which I earned enough badges to buy) I find that my sniper still can't kill people too quick and sometimes it just seems there are heaps of premade (or partial premade) groups that queue random WZs and when you realise you're facing one...bye bye chances of winning, bye bye fun. Wow banning pre mades from random BGs was a damn good idea.

So now on month 2, I've gotten to the point where my interest in swtor is dying off again, and i'm finding leveling my tanker trooper is again starting to feel like a chore (he's on quesh ATM level 36)

It doesn't help tho that whenever my sister(who plays MMOs with me) tried to update swtor it would corrupt on her and not work(Back when we 1st playe dthis happened all the time to her. Then she'd either need to use a differant lap top and try again or visit me and copy swtor across), and when it happened again (She resubbed because I did) she just said stuff it and gave up on the game. (Which was a shame, as i'd been enjoying the 2 sith we'd been playing, me as a tank warr and her a healer inquis)

I don't think i'll resub past this month tho I will still play a little f2p. I'll prolly drop just enough cash on the coin shop to buy the unlocks for hide head gear(I MUST be able to see my toons faces!) and wear epic gear(Otherwise why even play?) and then just play swtor as a F2P filler game for the odd time I start to feel wow burn out.

But even then, i'm starting to think my burn out games should be the single player offline RPGs i've been ignoring for the last few years...

[Perkunas]

I'm not sure what you guys are trying to say but just v=because you couldn't stand by your convictions dosn't mean that mine is gonna crumble as well.

WoW is the last thing I ever want to go back to, there hasn't been a single draw for it since mid cata. It has polish only because of it being so old but Blizzard just seems to have run outta ideas now that it can't leech of of WCIII lore anymore. Kungfu panda based of ONE joke character they had in WCIII and a half assed pokemon rip off? Oh and I hear they added Farmville. No thank you.

Then there's blizzard and its retarded petstore charging $25 for a reskin pet or Mount. Meanwhile giving less out for things like anniversaries. they used to give pets (but now dummies will buy them for $25) then they gave nothing now they give a crappy repaint of a tabard.

It's not about Kung-Fu Panda or Pokemon it's all based on the fact that if you want to play a PVE MMO your only real option is Warcraft. It's as simple as the combat system and the features. No other MMO on the market compares. It's a sad reality, but most of the people playing Star Wars(myself included) are only bound to this game because of the story content for the classes and because it's Star Wars. Hell, even the PVP in TOR is second-rate. Lucasarts would have been better served to sell the IP to Blizzard from the start.

[OneSent]

Lucasarts would have been better served to sell the IP to Blizzard from the start.

The union of these two companies would have produced a product of unspeakable nerdgasms.

A game with WoW's polish, basic features, combat style and same fluid engine, but set in the Star Wars universe? WoW with lightsabers?! Yes, please! Hell, that's what I was hoping for with SWTOR all along. People used to joke about it, but who wouldn't have been sold on that? You'd get the best of both worlds.

I don't necessarily agree with the direction Blizzard has taken their game over the past few expansions, but you can't deny that it has remained rock solid the entire way. No amount of content or "innovation" can ever compare to having a solid product that plays smoothly. It's the one thing every other MMO has been lacking since.

What I wouldn't give for a World of Star Warscraft. But bring back Blizzard's original Dev team to produce it.

[Derah]

Hmm, incoming Wall-o-Text (ok not really, a wall of text is just LOTS of words in a single paragraph with no punctuation at all. Mine is just a rather long post)

From the very first moment I heard about this MMO, I could had sworn it would put a "Before/After" in the genre, I wasn't foolish enough to think this would actually harm wow in any way, but did believed it would be a worthy rival. The game was very revolutionary on SOME aspects, but alas, while Bioware was/IS the gods of RPGs, they are absolute IDIOTS when it comes to managing an MMO, and it shows. The entire history of SWTOR is a textbook example of how NOT to run an online game.

First the good: The game's selling point: its story. I swear to god, this game has the BEST STORY OF ANY MMO. EVER. PERIOD. END OF STORY. As much as I love(d) wow's lore, SWTOR is on a completely different ascended level of awesomeness, with superb voice-acting (That isn't done by 80% the same actors like in wow) fantastic characters, a believable story, plenty of multi-layered villains and sidekicks, and everything you could expect from a bioware game.

Then came the second thing I enjoyed about it: Companions. Sidekicks that serve as your personal crew, helping you along in combat, in crafting, and in some cases, being your romance and everything. It would decrease that feeling of lonesome adventurer that is too overpresent in too many MMOs.

Third: Multiple genres rolled in one. This is an RPG, is an online game, its also a spaceship railshooter (ala Star Fox), a platforming game (for the holocrons) and more.

Fourth: Can't be stated enough, STORY. Not just on your character quests, but also in the dungeons (or so I believed)

When I first tried this game, my first impression was: This is a diamond in the rough, not quite perfect, still has plenty of flaws, lots of bugs, but has the potential to be a landmark in MMO history. As long as bioware takes great care of it, this game will spread its wings and soar high.

What actually happened.........

First off, bioware added WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much padding in this game. It was a sub-based game, and they didn't wanted you to enjoy stuff at your own pace, so they added ungodly amounts of padding to their game. Instances have way too much trash that takes FOREVER to kill. Class quests are just a minor fraction of the quest content, most of the quests you're doing are planet-side quests, and while the plot of the class quests are pure gold material, the planet-side quests are SNOOZE-FESTS, this goes double for the bonus-series. But you can't skip them, you need them to have enough level to continue your class story.

The padding is even in the combat, at no point do you ever get to face ONE enemy in the field, they're always hanging in packs, you see 3 mercenaries that you need to kill for a quest? pull them and suddenly 3 more pop out of thin air. This also ruins the companion benefit. When I look back at all the other MMOs I've played (Lineage II, Wow, Lotro, CABAL, and Silkroad) I've always been able to stand my ground toe-to-toe against single mobs, even if I pull a small pack of 3 mobs I usually can kill them before they can kill me, provided we're on the same level and my gear is adequate. NOT ON SWTOR YOU WONT. The game is balanced around having your companion to kill stuff, past lvl 10, if you don't have your companion out with you, you will be unable to solo anything, and if you do by some miracle manage to do it, its gonna leave you almost dead.

my inquisitor? I leveled her as a tank, with a tank companion. At every 2 or 3 pulls I had to stop and rest. On my sniper agent with my tank companion? I had to stop and rest EVERY PULL. On my marauder with a DPS companion? we couldn't make it past a single pull if it had more than 1 silver mob. Padding. you're not allowed to kill LEVELING mobs easily. This is acceptable for single-player games, where there is no endgame, you complete your campaign, and that's it, time to can the game, and play something else, but this is not ok for an MMO, because on an MMO, the leveling is just the first baby step, there's a WHOOOOOLE llot of stuff you're supposed to have available at max level to keep you playing long after you reach the level cap. Thus reaching said level cap should NEVER feel like a fucking chore.

Leveling mobs should be easy, with the occasional hard one that serves as the boss of the current zone you're questing on. On wow? I'm in towlong steepes, only in quest-gear, I get a quest to kill 20 Yaungol, I can pull 4 safely, mow them down, and still remain at 80% on a rogue. On Swtor? Me and my companion pull ONE mob pack (as mobs are never alone) and its a life-or-death battle, and if for some reason a second pack joins in, unless you are a tank class, in tank spec, kiss your ass goodbye.

That's unnaceptable padding.

Then there's the way they treated their customers. Really shitty customer support, ignoring blatant mistakes on the game, the WORST FREE-2-PLAY MODEL IN THE HISTORY OF GAMING, and now they're selling us a glorified patch as if it was an expansion pack.

Before I stopped playing in mid-july there was this annoying bug where Jaessa (and this goes for Kira too) would sheathe her double-bladed lightsaber, but it would not switch off, causing the laser blade to clip through her face. it looks stupid. Here we are, on december, almost january, and that bug still persists. Take a cab, and it goes invisible randomly. That bug is still on. Add a friend to your list, and sometimes they'll show up grayed out (as if they were offline) even if they're online. That bug is still there. I could be here all day listing how many bugs are still there that WERE PRESENT AT LAUNCH, but that'd be boring.

it really irks me how bad the decisions they're making are, I mean really, Rise of the Hutt Cartel can't possibly qualify as an expansion. ONE ZONE, 5 levels, 2 quest-lines (one for republic, one for imperials, no class quests here) and if we're lucky, 1 OP and MAYBE one FP. THat's it. Enjoy.

I've seen content patches on other games that offer more. Yet this one is labeled an expansion and you need to pay for it. Is this the future now? paying for content patches? They've hit that low rock bottom?

/whatever

I've changed my mind a lot about this game in the past year alone, and after I finish the storyline of my unfinished classes, I'll just pack my stuff and leave. Unless they get their shit together and stop treating potential customers like dirt.

What makes me cringe the most, is that this could had been easily an award winning, game of the year contender if they had released it AS A SINGLE PLAYER GAME. Just picture it, a massive single-player game, with 18 explorable planets, over 8 different campaigns to play, each with a darkside and lightside path, fully voiced protagonists, 9 races, massive replay value, and the capacity to play these campaigns in co-op with up to 4 friends. IT WOULD HAD BEEN AWESOME. It would had kicked the shit out of games like Skyrim.

instead, they chose to dillute the awesome into what is esentially a crappy MMO, treat their customers like dirt, and make EVERY WORST POSSIBLE BUSINESS DESICION THEY COULD THINK OF.

/tsk tsk tsk

[puppyfoot]

SWTOR did not do enough to stand out in a market saturated with THEME park MMOS. They banked on lightsabers and voice overs. The voice overs are nice touches but really do not add to the immersion of an MMO world. to the individual story.. yes but the over all world nope. Everything they could have done to make the game have immersion they dropped the ball on. The game is on rails, no exploration, and nothing that makes you believe the world is alive. Even a game as old as wow has more immersion in the world that swtor.. and wow was launched in 2004. They did not even have the basics down.

when it comes to theme park MMOs WoW is king. There is no question. It will be very hard to compete with it if not darn near impossible. I think the only thing that will knock wow out is a well created Sandbox MMO and I think that is what the market of MMOs is ready for.


when I first heard of SWTOR and read about it I knew it wasn't going to do so well. I still played it and it confirmed my thoughts about it and I kicked myself for buying it. I am really not surprised it went f2p and I think it will be shut down in another year.

I went ahead and tried pandas and found it to be a good xpac but I am done with WoW. I have nothing bad to say about it I just want something different. Since there is nothing different for me to play on the market,. i just went back to playing swg.

[Derah]

i just went back to playing swg.

So........ you jumped back in time to play a game that no longer exists? (Unless SWG means something else. If you're talking about Star Wars Galaxies, that game was shut down)

[Deleted]

Well, I always thought star wars was a good game, enjoyed leveling and loved the warzones. However, having subfee and limited gametime it competed with other games, also couldnt get friends to try the game. Now the f2p model destroyed a great game, and it's sad to see. If they had done the f2p model better perhaps me and my friends had checked in every now and then for some pvp. Now it most likely wont happen ever.