SWTOR looking to have a future.

[barrsftw]

YOu used to be able to play without a sub

They took away the warzone and raid passes....It's much worse

I had prepared my acct to truly play F2P, came back and they had done away with the key stuff that made that plan work.

I haven't gotten to those features yet, so I stand corrected.. I assume those are the end game PvE and PvP content? So far for me I haven't noticed a single restriction after getting a few classes to 30-40ish

[lionofwar87]

I mean, I played it at launch and it was fine. I'm sure it's still a decent game in 2019 - I would personally give it another shot if they overhauled the engine at some point. That was one of the main reasons I quit playing, it just wasn't optimized and felt clunky.

This is how I feel about it too. I was hyped for years before release. Got my names and everything. Went mega server and had to change my snipers name. I felt I had lost my characters identity. I started a chiss guardian and enjoyed myself but the leveling was so fast, I couldn't enjoy any of the story it was trying to tell before I felt forced to go to the next zone.

If the game got a solid tune up, I'd give it another chance in a heartbeat

[Mukind]

I haven't gotten to those features yet, so I stand corrected.. I assume those are the end game PvE and PvP content? So far for me I haven't noticed a single restriction after getting a few classes to 30-40ish

Yup it allowed you to raid and do infinite warzones for the week

could buy for in game currency.

[Masser]

With this kind of "business" mentality it's no surprise that games from EA aren't that great.

[schwank05]

As a sub yes, class story quests are pretty much all you need to level up. As a non-sub, since you don't get the xp bonus for being a sub, you need to supplement the class story with other quests to be on-level as you go from planet to planet, especially since non-subs can't even get the xp bonus items as quest rewards which is another kick in the balls for non-subs.

I don't know why you wouldn't just pay the $15.00 and play the game? I reactivated my sub last week and had 5800 Cartel credits sitting there so I bought a 5 pack of the bonus exp things you get 600 credits a month for being a sub. At any rate why purposely gimp yourself. 4 months worth of $15.00 sub gets you a game that will easily give you 100 hours+ of time which is the same as a normal game on the market today.

[Koriani]

As a sub yes, class story quests are pretty much all you need to level up. As a non-sub, since you don't get the xp bonus for being a sub, you need to supplement the class story with other quests to be on-level as you go from planet to planet, especially since non-subs can't even get the xp bonus items as quest rewards which is another kick in the balls for non-subs.

And if you're a non-sub you may have to pay to have access to dungeons at all.

SWTOR may have a few pro points (Played and SUBBED for 7+ years here, quit a couple years back) - but the Freemium restrictions go above and beyond restrictive. You pay to effin unlock HIDE HELMET for **** sake. Seperate fee to COLOR MATCH the clothing (which is native to the UI just like hide helmet). Seperate fee to unlock more than 300K in your bank - EACH TIME YOU DO IT. Doesn't matter if you have 5 million credits, if you have no sub you get 350K at a time (or 600 or 1 million) and pay each time to use it. Separate fee to unlock XYZ dungeon content per week...the list goes on and on.

And while I agree, LOTR is almost as bad, to me SWTOR/EA has the worst freemium system because it isn't just content they charge for - they piecemeal EVERYTHING. You can't even get random NATIVE GAME EMOTES (like /greet or /nod etc.) without subscribing. It fits no logic - some "day one" basic emotes you can still use, but some are locked behind a pay wall. Not talking about emotes bought and unlocked later on, just talking about basic level 1 day 1 emotes (like greet).

Its about the worst nickle-and-dime "AAA" Western Title MMO as far as I'm concerned when it comes to their "Preferred" or "Freemium" status game mechanics. And I'm not someone who feels I should get everything for free. I don't mind the paywall between preferred/free player and Sub to include some real differences. But having to pay to unlock hide helmet takes it to a whole other, very wrong, level.

Coupled with their "story" taking the CONFLICT out of Star Wars. Their story taking Jedi vs. Sith OUT of the story (wth?). Their story NOT MATCHING TIMELINES across characters and levels and sides so depending on which side and what class you play, you have a whole bunch of different galaxy "truths" going on at the same time. The whole thing to me is more of a lesson on how to ruin what should have been a "no brainer money maker." I mean really - you get Star Wars and decide to force Jedi and Sith on the same side? WHY?!

All so you can shoehorn a MULTIPLAYER game, with different class stories (that you lauded as a feature when it launched) into a SINGLE PLAYER STORY (same one for every class, force user or not) without Jedi/Sith conflict. So you can make every individual player the OUTLANDER hero - no matter their faction; and totally null the idea of Empire V Republic/Jedi v. Sith in the process. Because... that's what players who want Star Wars want, they want their Jedi and Sith to play nice.

And its not 100s of hours of story, once you hit the "Expansion" content - you get one storyline per side for every class, and that story is the same, as mentioned above - even if you're not a force user. You'll finish each expansion's (there's 2) "story content" in LESS THAN 10 hours - and those few hours will end with you hitting "new" max level within the storyline itself. Took me 10 hours because I'm a slow player, some of my friends finished new expansion content in 2-3. They are each, basically, a single long story quest. The other DLCs consist of just dungeons, or new dailies to grind (only).

So they took an MMO with a few innovative ideas that "could have been" and turned it into 2-3 (per faction) separate single player stories. Because that was the only thing they could come up with to keep the game solvent. Cash in on the alt-play to keep'em coming back! (And then screwed that by homogenizing all the stories!)

[Katchii]

I don't know why you wouldn't just pay the $15.00 and play the game? I reactivated my sub last week and had 5800 Cartel credits sitting there so I bought a 5 pack of the bonus exp things you get 600 credits a month for being a sub. At any rate why purposely gimp yourself. 4 months worth of $15.00 sub gets you a game that will easily give you 100 hours+ of time which is the same as a normal game on the market today.

I'm just playing devil's advocate for those that don't sub for whatever reason. I'm with you. I won't play without a sub.

[NoRest4Wicked]

I've been thinking about coming back to SWTOR to level again. I loved the leveling, I enjoyed the voice acting and the slow pace of questing - it felt like a good RPG. I quit a month or so after launch, did a raid, got some weird flying car mount, did some pvp..... I just didn't like the end game. Leveling though was superb.

[Katchii]

And if you're a non-sub you may have to pay to have access to dungeons at all.

As far as I remember you can still do them just can't get loot after a certain amount. But I may be wrong, I always play subbed so don't really pay attention to the restrictions.

SWTOR may have a few pro points (Played and SUBBED for 7+ years here, quit a couple years back) - but the Freemium restrictions go above and beyond restrictive. You pay to effin unlock HIDE HELMET for **** sake. Seperate fee to COLOR MATCH the clothing (which is native to the UI just like hide helmet). Seperate fee to unlock more than 300K in your bank - EACH TIME YOU DO IT. Doesn't matter if you have 5 million credits, if you have no sub you get 350K at a time (or 600 or 1 million) and pay each time to use it. Separate fee to unlock XYZ dungeon content per week...the list goes on and on.

Agreed 100%

And while I agree, LOTR is almost as bad, to me SWTOR/EA has the worst freemium system because it isn't just content they charge for - they piecemeal EVERYTHING. You can't even get random NATIVE GAME EMOTES (like /greet or /nod etc.) without subscribing. It fits no logic - some "day one" basic emotes you can still use, but some are locked behind a pay wall. Not talking about emotes bought and unlocked later on, just talking about basic level 1 day 1 emotes (like greet).

Its about the worst nickle-and-dime "AAA" Western Title MMO as far as I'm concerned when it comes to their "Preferred" or "Freemium" status game mechanics. And I'm not someone who feels I should get everything for free. I don't mind the paywall between preferred/free player and Sub to include some real differences. But having to pay to unlock hide helmet takes it to a whole other, very wrong, level.

Again, agreed 100%, which is why I won't ever play unless I'm subscribed.

Coupled with their "story" taking the CONFLICT out of Star Wars. Their story taking Jedi vs. Sith OUT of the story (wth?). Their story NOT MATCHING TIMELINES across characters and levels and sides so depending on which side and what class you play, you have a whole bunch of different galaxy "truths" going on at the same time. The whole thing to me is more of a lesson on how to ruin what should have been a "no brainer money maker." I mean really - you get Star Wars and decide to force Jedi and Sith on the same side? WHY?!

I don't get this at all. The core of most of the main story is all about conflict or at least conflict resolution. The most common enemies on both factions are either the opposing faction, the Sith in general or the Emperor himself. At least until you get to the newer stuff, but even then it's still Empire vs Republic. During the KotFE story it's everyone against Zakuul, but even during THAT story the Empire and Republic are still at odds they're just not in outright war because they have bigger fish to fry.

All of the stories are layered and unless you've done them all you're missing part of the whole narrative. There arne't

All so you can shoehorn a MULTIPLAYER game, with different class stories (that you lauded as a feature when it launched) into a SINGLE PLAYER STORY (same one for every class, force user or not) without Jedi/Sith conflict. So you can make every individual player the OUTLANDER hero - no matter their faction; and totally null the idea of Empire V Republic/Jedi v. Sith in the process. Because... that's what players who want Star Wars want, they want their Jedi and Sith to play nice.

I agree with the same story part, but you and I played very different games if you think the Jedi and Sith are playing "nice." As I said, it's just classic " the enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality while Zakuul is out to get both of them.

And its not 100s of hours of story, once you hit the "Expansion" content - you get one storyline per side for every class, and that story is the same, as mentioned above - even if you're not a force user. You'll finish each expansion's (there's 2) "story content" in LESS THAN 10 hours - and those few hours will end with you hitting "new" max level within the storyline itself. Took me 10 hours because I'm a slow player, some of my friends finished new expansion content in 2-3. They are each, basically, a single long story quest. The other DLCs consist of just dungeons, or new dailies to grind (only).

Doing all available quests for each faction from the base 1-50 game, all of the content on Makeb for each faction, all of the content from the Revan expansion, everything in KotET and KotFE stories and the recently released Onslaught expansion can take a long time. Whether or not it's literally 100s of hours is irrelevant to me, but it's a LOT of potential game play time.

So they took an MMO with a few innovative ideas that "could have been" and turned it into 2-3 (per faction) separate single player stories. Because that was the only thing they could come up with to keep the game solvent. Cash in on the alt-play to keep'em coming back! (And then screwed that by homogenizing all the stories!)

Don't necessarily disagree, but the amount it would cost to continue supporting 8 different stories in the long term, including voice actors and everything else such as writers, etc...) would have been astronomical so from a business perspective I completely understand why they "streamlined" it.

I don't disparage them for what they're doing now as far as stories go, I just wish they'd release new stuff faster. The content they do put out is fine, it's just not nearly enough.

[Swnem]

Yup it allowed you to raid and do infinite warzones for the week

could buy for in game currency.

Not completely accurate. These were cartel market items wich could be sold in the GTN.

I disagree though. It was good they removed them. It removed too much value from subbing, and the game needs that stable revenue to keep a regular development team.


Also, because i see this still going on. SWTOR is a SUB MMO with a free TRIAL mode. It is NOT AN F2P game! Get that through those cheap skulls that want everything for free.

[kranur]

If only the gameplay didn't feel so clunky. I haven't even activated my key yet and have a few thousands coins from having an authenticator for some years.

[tehdef]

Seems SWTOR is still bringing in nice money for EA, Enough that they went from their 50-60 staff to near 200 with their newest Expansion.

Perhaps EA is finally becoming willing to put more work back into it. Here is hoping.

A long time friend of mine is the game director. He's been doing a great job.

[Greevir]

2) The graphics are atrocious. Seriously, it looks like they forgot to apply shaders and textures to everything; everything looks so waxy and lifeless. When you realize that SWTOR uses the same game engine as ESO it makes you wonder how they made it look so terrible in comparison. Did they spend all the budget on licensing and voice acting and have to quickly throw together some graphics or what?

Just wanted to correct you here. ESO does NOT use the same engine as SWTOR. Zenimax used the HERO Engine for testing assets and world building before making their own in house engine.

[Swnem]

A long time friend of mine is the game director. He's been doing a great job.

You know Keith? The game has been looking much better once he has taken over. That shmuck that was on the lead before and went to Anthem before leaving Bioware cause everyone was onto him already really did a number on the game. But, with Keith, my faith was restored. It really helps that he is someone who actually loves and plays the game. He has first hand contact with it and the team streams are always full of great energy.
I do hope that the renewed success the game is seeing under him will allow for bigger projects to be green lit.

[Katchii]

You know Keith? The game has been looking much better once he has taken over. That shmuck that was on the lead before and went to Anthem before leaving Bioware cause everyone was onto him already really did a number on the game. But, with Keith, my faith was restored. It really helps that he is someone who actually loves and plays the game. He has first hand contact with it and the team streams are always full of great energy.
I do hope that the renewed success the game is seeing under him will allow for bigger projects to be green lit.

Completely agree with this sentiment.

[Baconeggcheese]

Everything about it feels clunky. The way you move, the way you fight and the way NPCs move and fight everything is so stiff almost like the game has a natural lag to it. Its not fluid at all like GW2/ESO/WoW etc.

Its 1 of the most important parts of an MMO and they completely fucked it up. I keep hearing about how good the story is but its FF14 all over again with an atrocious limited engine. I don't know how people can ever get into a game like that but maybe I've been spoiled so long with fluid action combat. I can understand it not bothering you if you haven't played another MMO in the past 8 years.

Swapping from ESO to this is like literally going back in time, but I can't put my finger on it and compare anything because I've never played a game that felt so clunky. I really wanna play through the campaign because I love star wars, I think I just need to get REALLY stoned lol.

Its funny cause I felt this way when I tried ESO recently, its a newer game that feels like I'm playing a really old one. It has horrible graphics, animations, really bland and poorly designed combat and abilities, pretty much the only thing it has going for it is the elder scrolls universe and story telling... but even then I think I'd take SWTOR's questing structure over ESO's. Especially because SWTOR feels better to actually play with it being a WoW clone.

I say this as someone who hadn't played SWTOR since launch and only recently downloaded it to fiddle around a bit and then put it back down for other games. I'm surprised how well SWTOR is holding up for how old it is and the lack of resources its gotten.

[cparle87]

3) There are WAY too many abilities. Like people want to bitch about WoW's pruning of abilities but JFC the sheer number in SWTOR is beyond ridiculous. It needs a major pruning/ability consolidation.

This right here is what WoW was reaching back in Cataclysm when they added their last batch of 81-85 abilities. They realized that having entire bars filled with moves you never use in a certain spec was a detriment. Sadly they took it too far.

[Fkiolaris]

Its funny cause I felt this way when I tried ESO recently, its a newer game that feels like I'm playing a really old one. It has horrible graphics, animations, really bland and poorly designed combat and abilities, pretty much the only thing it has going for it is the elder scrolls universe and story telling... but even then I think I'd take SWTOR's questing structure over ESO's. Especially because SWTOR feels better to actually play with it being a WoW clone.

I say this as someone who hadn't played SWTOR since launch and only recently downloaded it to fiddle around a bit and then put it back down for other games. I'm surprised how well SWTOR is holding up for how old it is and the lack of resources its gotten.

Each to their own mate, I am not a fan of what ESO currently is, but putting it next to SWTOR in terms of animation and fluidity is like night and day for my taste. However, what SWTOR is, is something that I have accepted since release as a founder and I can live with it just fine.

On the topic of ability pruning, I do not trust Bioware to do it right, if they ever try to do something like it again. One of the things that really killed my enthusiasm for the game was their massive ability pruning (plus killing hybrids entirely with the rigid trees) back with the release of the Revan expansion, if I remember the timings right. They removed a ton of situational abilities that were fun to use on clutch moments (ie range abilities/cover for scoundrels, stock strike for commandos etc), but they left other things like certain rotations looking like a convoluted mess (I am looking at you Focus Guardian). So what we ended up with was a situation where we still had ability bloat, but with less flavour for each spec (or discipline or whatever they are called, it's been a while).

[Baconeggcheese]

Each to their own mate, I am not a fan of what ESO currently is, but putting it next to SWTOR in terms of animation and fluidity is like night and day for my taste. However, what SWTOR is, is something that I have accepted since release as a founder and I can live with it just fine.

I have a friend who's favorite game in the world is ESO, and even he can admit that the animations and combat are scuffed. Like he LOVES the shit out of that game but he can still be objective about it and separate his preference from what the game actually is. Like how could anyone seriously pretend the animations are fluid while it has things like a super stiff and awkward running animation and optimal play being to weave left clicks in between every attack which leads to the most awkward choppy ass animations where your character flails around.

Don't get me wrong, swtor has its mix of decent animations and really stiff and rigid ones like the running animation... but ESO is just *not* the game to bring up as a counter example since its just as bad if not worse.

[Fkiolaris]

I have a friend who's favorite game in the world is ESO, and even he can admit that the animations and combat are scuffed. Like he LOVES the shit out of that game but he can still be objective about it and separate his preference from what the game actually is. Like how could anyone seriously pretend the animations are fluid while it has things like a super stiff and awkward running animation and optimal play being to weave left clicks in between every attack which leads to the most awkward choppy ass animations where your character flails around.

Don't get me wrong, swtor has its mix of decent animations and really stiff and rigid ones like the running animation... but ESO is just *not* the game to bring up as a counter example since its just as bad if not worse.

As I said, each to their own taste mate. You know your friend, I know mine and the people I played ESO with until recently and they agree with my opinion- does that make it a fact? No, just my and their opinion. So yes, while ESO is not perfect in that respect (or any other, unfortunately), for my taste what it does get good in terms of animation is miles better than SWTOR.