star wars old republic is actually quite good

[zerocool84]

I played it during a free weekend a while back. Obviously only got to play it for you couple hours overall the weekend so didn't get to be super deep in it but I enjoyed it. I'll definitely be playing it when it turns free to play. I was a Sith Inquisitor.

 

[thespyder]

SWTOR is a little different. There are not other other players running around in the background when you are doing a quest. Yes, the travel paths have other players, but everything central to the story is instanced like a single player game. When you hunt down a sith in a base, it's just you and your companion unless you invite someone else. Also makes completely quests easier since there is very little competition for a mob.

Overall, it's a single player game with some MMO stuff tacked on. I got 3 players to 50 and that was enough for me. I just could not stomach doing anymore of the non-class specific quests.

Sounds like I would have the same problems with it that I have with Diablo 3. Always online. Lag for no reason.

Shame if they were going that direction anyway, why they couldn't just have made KoTor 3.

 

[Mem]

SWTOR is a little different. There are not other other players running around in the background when you are doing a quest. Yes, the travel paths have other players, but everything central to the story is instanced like a single player game. When you hunt down a sith in a base, it's just you and your companion unless you invite someone else. Also makes completely quests easier since there is very little competition for a mob.

Overall, it's a single player game with some MMO stuff tacked on. I got 3 players to 50 and that was enough for me. I just could not stomach doing anymore of the non-class specific quests.

I left after 4 weeks when it was first released ,at the moment playing SWGEMU(f2p) http://www.swgemu.com/forums/content.php?r=179-Install-SWGEmu ,it brings back fond memories of SWG PRE-CU nice to see the server full(3000 cap) and lots of things to do plus it has so much more to offer then TOR,also the developers have made quite a bit of progress .

 

[micrometers]

SWTOR is a little different. There are not other other players running around in the background when you are doing a quest. Yes, the travel paths have other players, but everything central to the story is instanced like a single player game. When you hunt down a sith in a base, it's just you and your companion unless you invite someone else. Also makes completely quests easier since there is very little competition for a mob.

Overall, it's a single player game with some MMO stuff tacked on. I got 3 players to 50 and that was enough for me. I just could not stomach doing anymore of the non-class specific quests.

One thing about the original KOTOR at least was that the worlds did feel very desolate. This at least solves that.

EA really screwed up though by charging $15 a month. They should have done it like Diablo or Guild Wars: $60 entrance and no monthly fee.

Release a $40 "expansion" every 18 months.

Since there is a huge fanbase for the story aspects, that would have worked out.

Now they're giving away SP for free, hoping people get hooked on the MMO parts. Idiots.

As it is, my initial impression of the classes is that they aren't even close to as interesting as WOW's combat mechanics, so I'd guess that arenas and multiplayer in general isn't as fun as WOW. For me at least, Arathi Basin was hugely fun.

 

[turn_pike]

Played SWTOR during one of those free weekend events.
Enjoyed the setting and story a little bit. Still Bioware style if not up to the usual Bioware quality.
If its F2P then I can certainly see myself playing all eight single player story campaign.

My question is :
For those who played both WoW and SWTOR.
What is the big thing that makes WoW so much better ?
What do people mean when they say end-game content ? Please be elaborate in your description / story.

I simply am having difficulties trying to understand why people play WoW day in, day out, happily pay 15 bucks per month for the privilege.

The only MMO I played for any significant length of time was Guild Wars. Bought the collectors edition and I thought it worth every penny of it.

 

[KentState]

Played SWTOR during one of those free weekend events.
Enjoyed the setting and story a little bit. Still Bioware style if not up to the usual Bioware quality.
If its F2P then I can certainly see myself playing all eight single player story campaign.

My question is :
For those who played both WoW and SWTOR.
What is the big thing that makes WoW so much better ?
What do people mean when they say end-game content ? Please be elaborate in your description / story.

I simply am having difficulties trying to understand why people play WoW day in, day out, happily pay 15 bucks per month for the privilege.

The only MMO I played for any significant length of time was Guild Wars. Bought the collectors edition and I thought it worth every penny of it.

I played both and a few other MMOs. Not sure if WoW is better, but it was the first to have a polished formula that everyone could get into. To me, the instanced dungeon runs in WoW where a lot more important while leveling. Since that was case, it was easy to maintain that type of play past 60. It was also big enough to grow some roots and maintain a player base.

In SWTOR, you can do everything solo and avoid an instanced dungeons that require a group and get to 60 quicker. It's actually more advantageous to avoid grouping and everything that makes it a pain. Once you hit 60, there are no more quests to do so it goes from a fun single player type game to an instant grind fest. Add in that the player base peaked so early and then it was near impossible to do anything that required a group.

IMO, if SWTOR was released first, it could be the dominate MMO, but it was a reskinning without thought for how to make it survive. Now they have to scramble and offer free play which is basically a slap in the face for the those of us that was shelling out $15/month less than 6 months ago.

 

[micrometers]

What I liked about it was that I actually got a feeling of grandeur similar to WOW in playing some of the early jedi knight levels. The architecture isn't quite up to Blizzard standards, but it's better than other games.

in WOW, I found that design was best from levels like 15 to 40. Is SWTOR similarly interesting or not?

 

[micrometers]

I hate this game.

To start off, the combat system doesn't feel as meaningful as World of Warcraft's. Like, WOW had this interesting thing with rage and mana and focus + combo points. None of that here. It's an extremely simple system of "focus" which means that fights just end up feeling ho-hum. Warrior's don't really have an incentive to attack lots of enemies, rogues have no incentive to optimize combo points, it's just crap.

Secondly, I don't get a feel for stats in this game. You start off doing "50 damage" or something like that, so it's hard to put a finger between the relationship between loot or stat upgrades and increases in damage. Like, if I'm in an RPG and I start off doing 3 damage and then I do 4 damage thanks to a new item, I really notice that.

IF I'm doing 50 damage and I do 55, that's not as noticable.

There's too much waiting around. Other games have created systems that tell you the story while you're running around. In SWTOR you always have to stop and just sit and watch dialogue for like 5 minutes.

The game runs noticably slower than WOW thanks to newer graphical options, but stuff just ends up being a little more detailed and sharp.

The quests are generally kinda dumb.

The story is modestly interesting but I'd probably rather just watch a movie or read a book than put up with "busywork" to get the story.

Oh, and death isn't interesting at all. WOW had a cool death system, complete with cool "spirit world" graphics. It tied in with the lore well, and was cool.

Here...an enemy beats you to a pulp and then a robot flies over just in time to rescue you. Weird.

This game is noticably inferior to WOW.

 

[gizbug]

I'm playing the trial...it's good! Has the same KOTOR feel to it, only MMO.

The funny thing is that many people on here would be perfectly willing to pay $60 for a KOTOR 3, but with the free trial coming up, lots of KOTOR fans will probably just play the free trial and get through the story by themselves.

Played it for the first 3 months. Now collecting dust. Once you get to max level, game gets boring, same old grind fest. Canceled my subscription, think I'm done with MMO. Same ol Sh|t from them, and they get boring quick.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Out of curisoty anyone who has played this game and the Star Trek MMO? How do they stack up against each other gameplay wise?

 

[zokudu]

Played SWTOR during one of those free weekend events.
Enjoyed the setting and story a little bit. Still Bioware style if not up to the usual Bioware quality.
If its F2P then I can certainly see myself playing all eight single player story campaign.

My question is :
For those who played both WoW and SWTOR.
What is the big thing that makes WoW so much better ?
What do people mean when they say end-game content ? Please be elaborate in your description / story.

I simply am having difficulties trying to understand why people play WoW day in, day out, happily pay 15 bucks per month for the privilege.

The only MMO I played for any significant length of time was Guild Wars. Bought the collectors edition and I thought it worth every penny of it.

The big thing to me is I always felt that WoW combat was "tight". You hit a button and you got a response quick and fast and just responsive. In SWTOR I felt like the combat was sluggish. Like the animations were too involved or took too long to execute. Also another huge one for me is that most people have invested so much time into WoW that quitting it and jumping into a new game is really tough to do at times. Especially if the game really wasn't bringing a lot to the table to compel me to switch.

Just my 2c though.

 

[micrometers]

The big thing to me is I always felt that WoW combat was "tight". You hit a button and you got a response quick and fast and just responsive. In SWTOR I felt like the combat was sluggish. Like the animations were too involved or took too long to execute. Also another huge one for me is that most people have invested so much time into WoW that quitting it and jumping into a new game is really tough to do at times. Especially if the game really wasn't bringing a lot to the table to compel me to switch.

Just my 2c though.

A good MMO has leveling being a delicate dance. Then, you care about ever +1 in stat points since you can see how +1 str means +2 more damage.

Here in SWTOR, that's not the case. I just feel like I'm ploughing through *fluff. The developers themselves said that they wanted to divide enemies into small units so that you got an "epic" feel out of it. Well, it just feels like fluff.

I dunno, does combat get more interesting at higher levels?

 

[DaveSimmons]

> I dunno, does combat get more interesting at higher levels?

How high did you get? You do gain new skills, and while you don't need them for trash mobs you do need them for elites, groups of strongs, and bosses.

For my jedi consular sage (42) I have to use 5 kinds of heals, 4 kinds of DPS, and sometimes a stun and disable. On a boss if I mess up my tank companion dies and I'm in trouble unless the boss has already been whittled down. On Quesh at level 37 or 38 there were groups of 3 sith (sorc, juggernaut, other) that were brutal unless I disabled one and could kill the other two in time.

As a gunslinger DPS (I've played to 37), it's even more complicated since you have a rotation of attacks that feed off of each other and you have much more limited energy / ammo than my jedi.

 

[diesbudt]

DS3 = Dungeon Siege 3.

And see? Context.

I was actually thinking about getting into TOR. Now I won't. Thanks.

Nuff said.

This. Dragon Age 2 was light years worse than Dragon Age origins. It can almost even be stated as a fact because approximately 98-99.9% of the people who have played both agree on it.

Also on TOR, I made it to 37, got bored. Game felt empty and this was even on release month. Everywhere I went, especially instanced quests, it felt like I was just playing an RPG. So it lost all MMO elements right away. Then each quest took forever speaking (I can read much faster than they spoke). On top of all that, if just wasn't "fun" killing things, especially considering unless I did a tank character, took way too much damage per battle to just flow between fights.

Unlike other MMOs I have enjoyed, I loved the fighting and only would have to rest/break every few fights.

 

[Arkadrel]

In FFXI the downtime for soloing was usually what made soloing a bad idea.
You would kill "easy prey" targets and get exp chains from kills getting 25-33 exp pr kill.

And you would have to "rest" which ment 1-2mins resting after each kill.

The healer types would kill slowly, but have less downtime when soloing = not optimal.
The tank types would have really high health, but kill slowly + rest time = not optimal.
The dps types would either die soloing, or just barely kill stuff (quick) but long downtime = not optimal.

you know what this resulted in?
People figouring out it was better to make exp groups and chain 200exp monsters at same rate than a person could solo the 25-33exp kills.

I loved that system, I think all MMORPGs should have something like that, so people are encouraged not just to try and solo the intire way though the game (like WoW does ect).

Also death penalities, dieing should come with a punishment of the exp kinde.
If you noob up, get aggro exploreing some dungeon and die to a big monster you fogot to sneak/invis/deoderant on, you should use EXP that takes 15mins (group exp Party) or 45mins of soloing to get back.

Even something like gathering resources was challengeing and fun
Gathering nodes would have monsters patrolling them, that where too tough to solo.
So you would have to find a clear node, wait for patrol to walk by and keep sneak/deoderant up, and cast invis when the patrol turned around ect.

The risk element made it that much more rewarding when you mined some rare ore or such.


^ summery : people dont want to play MMORPG in instances, and doing solo quests for the intire game.

also:

This. Dragon Age 2 was light years worse than Dragon Age origins. It can almost even be stated as a fact because approximately 98-99.9% of the people who have played both agree on it.

Same with Diablo III.
I feel like its the company's way of "cashing" out on a title.
Next Dragon Age.... am I buy it? probably not.
Next Diablo... am I buying it? probably not.

 

[diesbudt]

Played SWTOR during one of those free weekend events.
Enjoyed the setting and story a little bit. Still Bioware style if not up to the usual Bioware quality.
If its F2P then I can certainly see myself playing all eight single player story campaign.

My question is :
For those who played both WoW and SWTOR.
What is the big thing that makes WoW so much better ?
What do people mean when they say end-game content ? Please be elaborate in your description / story.

I simply am having difficulties trying to understand why people play WoW day in, day out, happily pay 15 bucks per month for the privilege.

The only MMO I played for any significant length of time was Guild Wars. Bought the collectors edition and I thought it worth every penny of it.

Here goes my attempt to explain it best I can.

World of Warcraft was released still in the early days of MMOs being created (2004ish). At release like many MMOs it was bug ridden a bit, but it prevailed to be fun to players because of it already having a strong story / lore to pull from with Warcrafts 1-3.

When the game was first out:

Leveling: Much like the few previous MMOs, in which leveling was almost endless (Looking at you Asheron's Call - Max level 126 would take years for some) leveling in Warcraft actually took a while. So hitting level 60 was actually a pretty big feat to celebrate. Also since gear required you to group play and gold wasn't easy to obtain, you had to rely on other people and guilds to get through things, like buying a mount. It took enough gold that at max level you had to actually work at making gold for that 100% speed mount, yet it felt like a huge achievement when completed as an individual and sometimes as a group. Making the game much more social, therefore getting you into groups/friends/guilds to form a bond with other people, and not just play by one-self. When more players started to join because of how often people talked about this game; blizzard slowly reduced the difficulty so more people could experience everything that was WoW. Which would bring more players and keep the cycle continueing (Because re-upping the difficulty now would haev a backlash on its playerbase)

The World: Overall, except for the dungeon instances everything was basically open. So world PvP (especially in first 2 years) was a massive part of the game. Southshore wars were commonplace, where 1 member of a faction would gank someone on the other faction, and before you knew it 30+ v 30+ was going on. And no rewards were even needed to entice people to do this as it was fun huge battles were taking place, and felt like a war again in the "world of Warcraft". It never felt empty, even though sometimes you wouldn't run into another player of either faction for a while. ***Also some of it I believe is my theory: bright colors has an effect on the brain to enjoy something more and want more of it, while darker and bleaker colors gives more of a depressed / why bother feeling (WoW had bright colors, TOR had dull/bleaker colors)

Difficulty: At the beginning the game was difficult, you could barely get the gear needed for your level, no heirlooms, not many people willing to run you through some dungeons, even though beyond level 40 dungeons weren't exactly run throughable. Raids took many many months to complete, and took the ability to have/find 40 semi-intelligent people to complete it. So after all was said and done, it felt like you actually achieved something. And as many more people started to join, they slowly reduced the difficulty of the game to bring in more people and so on. Also at the start of Burning Crusade expansion. Heroic dungeons and a few bosses in the 25man raids were ridiculously difficult. So banging on your head for weeks or even months to take down a boss nicknamed "The guild killer", feels like an achievement worth everything in the world. Has anyone actually listened in on vent-like programs of the people who get their first kills on these hugly difficult things? A guilds first KT kill in Temptest Keep, after 2 months of attempting him, the vent I listened to EXPLODED with excitement, happiness and cheerfulness for over 5 minutes. Never once have I heard the same thing from bosses currently in Warcraft or new MMOs. (And I am sure some people who stick with WoW still hope they will run into mroe content like this, although that is not the path they are going)

The "ooo" factor: Some parts of World of Warcraft I will NEVER forget. Unlike TOR and other MMOS (I literally cant remember much except what my character looks like on ToR, and I havent played in just a few weeks. I remember a huge thing in WoW from years ago).

-Who doesn't remember their first time in Zul Ferak. (S/p?) Climbing those stairs, feeling like it was an effort to get this far to free the people at the top for a quest that required it. Celebrate we saved them, turn around to leave only to find a MASS ARMY of trolls spawning at the bottom getting ready to come at us. I can personally tell you my eyes got big and I think I held my breath a second because I was thinking what trouble did we run into... Finally finding a way to survive, feeling like we just smacked the Troll army a big one, we talk to the people we rescued to hopfully have a reward. However to find them Betrey us!? This was inconceivable!

-Or who doesn't remember their first time entering something more than a 5 man dungeon (whether it was a 10 man Strat/scholo, or a 20man raid or a 40 man raid) it just felt so much more. Like you were only a small cog in a large machine. And if you didn't do your part, could severly impact the rest of the "machine"

The internet factor - Since the MMO genre was still learning to walk upright, many people never even realized such a genre existed. So forums and a lot of 3rd party sites didn't have much to communicate on these games. So when you started to play WoW, unless you befriended people who told you stuff in the game, you may miss a lot of events or things to do to make the game easier, it made one feel like they HAD to immerse into the game to funnly enjoy it. However look at now? I can hop on google, type 3 words and within 2 minutes find out everything I need to do to create a character on any MMO, and how to play it and where the best quests are and the fastest way to level. This info was out there, but much rarer to find at the start of WoW. Sure, WoW is the same way now, but I still connect the way I felt from those first 2 years to now. Sure I don't play it anymore, but There was a good 5-6 years worth played on that.

Age factor - When MMOs first came out, there were no where near as many computer game players. Consoles were all the rage for teens and under playing them. So with Warcraft/Everquest/Asheron's call etc. The playerbase had more (though how much more can be argued) maturity. People you ran across in the world either became enemies or friends. It felt like a lot more people were looking out for others and not just themselves or being a troll and talking like a 13yr old gansta pimp from Tampa Bay. However, since WoW seemed a little bit "cartoony" slowly teens and younger that parents allowed them to play did. Eventually, this would lead to many more younger players getting into the MMO world. Which now as can be seen, it is rather difficult to find any maturity on any MMO.

Take what I said as you will, these are just my guesses or how I see why WoW succeeded. And as people have said, it is more on the time it was released, and what was involved in the game then the actual game itself. However, if WoW wasn't released and since no MMO would have seen multi-million population success, would any other big named companies have attempted an MMO?

SO in conclusion, World of Warcraft defined the MMO market, and has both helped and hindered the chances of success at the level it found for any MMO to follow. We will probably never see such population numbers again for any game.

Edit: I am so not an english major, just looking over this quickly and I see many mistakes in sentence structure, grammar and spelling...

 

[darkewaffle]

SWTOR's non-grindiness is it's gift and it's curse. It's not afraid be generous with both gear and levels, but at the same time that also means that people are quite quick to 'beat' the game and feel like they don't have anything to do. Since release, the only real grind in the entire game has been for PVP ranks, everything else is pretty relaxed both absolutely and relatively.

Space Combat isn't intended to be a deep experience; it's there to give you a break from normal questing. If you're levelling but not doing your space dailies each day, you're really doing yourself a disservice missing out on so much XP.

Levelling can be done solo or grouped, there's no set track. Particularly with the groupfinder implementation, running flashpoints should be easier than ever actually. I levelled both my main characters extensively both solo and grouped, sometimes one of my friends would happen to have a character at the same level as me and "Hey, let's hit Taris" or if nobody was online I could do my PVP daily, space daily, class quests, companion quests, or just head to the next planet perfectly capably. It can be done either way equally well. A couple of my friends obsessively completed every flashpoint to level, I skipped almost all of them.

From a design standpoint, the game actually has a lot of really interesting ideas, they're just subtle. From the four person parties with four unique base classes (and class buffs, and how well this number fits with the idea of companions) to the 'division of labor' in crafting to 'intelligent' green drops to the dynamic UI to the passive resource generation through companion gathering and xp -> legacy conversion for max level characters and post-wipe speeders, it has a lot of solid, evolutionary ideas imo.

Personally I was quite fond of the operations (raids), though they were buggy at first. Going through them for the first time was much more exciting and fun for me than Kara or Naxx ever was at least, and given their size it was much less of a chore doing it in the following weeks as well. The downside to this being that given that they were only 4-5 bosses long and 'beginner' level content essentially a lot of people felt like the entire game was too easy; I think it's just a matter of the developers learning to balance 'too hard/too long' vs 'too easy/too short', and it was a good freshman effort. The most recent operation, Denovo, was definitely a step up; we never did quite clear Hard Mode courtesy of D3's release lol.

My biggest gripe was PVP balance, but given the absolutely mindnumbingly bad feedback on the forums that could explain it. Plus I don't blame them for making it a low priority while implementing a lot of other big changes to the rest of the game like the UI customizer, group finder, and organizing en masse server transfers.

I think that given SWTOR generous reward model, it might be best played by 'power gamers' in 'bursts' every few months. Like, if later this year there's another operation I could see me and my friends going back to clear Denovo and then the new operation, taking a break, and then repeat. For better or worse, without the need to compulsively run the most current content every week to gear up (a la WoW) you can admittedly feel 'done' with the game faster than I'd like.

 

[diesbudt]

(A) SWTOR's non-grindiness is it's gift and it's curse. It's not afraid be generous with both gear and levels, but at the same time that also means that people are quite quick to 'beat' the game and feel like they don't have anything to do. Since release, the only real grind in the entire game has been for PVP ranks, everything else is pretty relaxed both absolutely and relatively.

(B) Space Combat isn't intended to be a deep experience; it's there to give you a break from normal questing. If you're levelling but not doing your space dailies each day, you're really doing yourself a disservice missing out on so much XP.

(C) Levelling can be done solo or grouped, there's no set track. Particularly with the groupfinder implementation, running flashpoints should be easier than ever actually. I levelled both my main characters extensively both solo and grouped, sometimes one of my friends would happen to have a character at the same level as me and "Hey, let's hit Taris" or if nobody was online I could do my PVP daily, space daily, class quests, companion quests, or just head to the next planet perfectly capably. It can be done either way equally well. A couple of my friends obsessively completed every flashpoint to level, I skipped almost all of them.

(D) From a design standpoint, the game actually has a lot of really interesting ideas, they're just subtle. From the four person parties with four unique base classes (and class buffs, and how well this number fits with the idea of companions) to the 'division of labor' in crafting to 'intelligent' green drops to the dynamic UI to the passive resource generation through companion gathering and xp -> legacy conversion for max level characters and post-wipe speeders, it has a lot of solid, evolutionary ideas imo.

(E) Personally I was quite fond of the operations (raids), though they were buggy at first. Going through them for the first time was much more exciting and fun for me than Kara or Naxx ever was at least, and given their size it was much less of a chore doing it in the following weeks as well. The downside to this being that given that they were only 4-5 bosses long and 'beginner' level content essentially a lot of people felt like the entire game was too easy; I think it's just a matter of the developers learning to balance 'too hard/too long' vs 'too easy/too short', and it was a good freshman effort. The most recent operation, Denovo, was definitely a step up; we never did quite clear Hard Mode courtesy of D3's release lol.

My biggest gripe was PVP balance, but given the absolutely mindnumbingly bad feedback on the forums that could explain it. Plus I don't blame them for making it a low priority while implementing a lot of other big changes to the rest of the game like the UI customizer, group finder, and organizing en masse server transfers.

I think that given SWTOR generous reward model, it might be best played by 'power gamers' in 'bursts' every few months. Like, if later this year there's another operation I could see me and my friends going back to clear Denovo and then the new operation, taking a break, and then repeat. For better or worse, without the need to compulsively run the most current content every week to gear up (a la WoW) you can admittedly feel 'done' with the game faster than I'd like.

(A) - This. The carrot on the stick was too small and unrewarding, and even too easy to grab.

(B) - An issue. If they wanted to add some "flair" to the game to set it aside from other MMOs they should have definitely put a lot more into this. After 1 or 2 it was "meh" as I found it too slow on leveling and not worth much other than somethign new to try.

(C) - Yes, game can be played level wise as you choose, which I think hurt it more than help it. In WoWs best days, you could do most the quests solo, enough to level you to max at least. But its ending zone quests, which were usually the most fun and rewarding quests, always required a group and sometimes it allowed a raid group. TOR failed at this immersion process making it feel less like an MMO, and more like a single player. This leads to less friend/guild/groups forming, so less socialable game. And in my Experience if I wasnt on the fleet ship, I almost never talked to anyone, even in guild/

(D) - The crafting was in my opinion the only real productive new idea they brought to the table. It was easy, yet took quite some time to get what you need, and also helped your companions like you and/or turn you evil or good somewhat. However the other ideas, such as legacy has problems. A good legacy system should add over 100+ hours of gameplay trying to get more "after max level stuff unlocked", but unless it is just for flair stuff, it would unbalance any MMO game, as whoever plays more has an advantage in PvP. And if it is just flair... Achievements work just as well as "After max level gameplay". Also the Intelligent drops, brings back that carrot on the stick issue. If the game can drop you what you need at a better pace, you outplay the game faster.

(E) - And this one is what games are all about. Opinions. My best raid experience was Molten core in Vanilla and Karazhan in BC. Those were some of the most felt raid instances I have ever done. MC was hard, long and the coloring made me feel like I could feel the heat of the place. 40+ people, it was like a real glorious battle that people would sing for ages. Karazhan, was nice to have a smaller group, more order. And that instance? Was so nicely designed to me. And this is when the fights started to get more "advanced" beyond just normal fights with 1 flair thing. (40Naxx is when it truly started, with 4 horsemen, Goth and so on)

TOR has its charm, but personally after playing WoW, I just couldnt even force myself to complete it. Level 37 Sith Inq (assassin) and Level 13 Jedi Guardian. That is as far as I got. 3 weeks of logging in, taking 3-4 steps, then logging out. Before /cancel sub.

Which brings back to the argument, it is the time of the release and what WoW brought is to why other MMOs cannot follow the same formula and succeed.

It is the same as if in the 60s The Beatles rock group were to open up for some no name rock band that just formed a few months prior to the gig they are playing at.

Therefore the solution? Need to reimagine the formula. But the question is... can it be done!?

 

[Wardawg1001]

I enjoyed SWTOR for a while, but eventually gave up due to PvP imbalances and lack of variety. There were only 3 'battlegound' type things and one of them in particular (Huttball) was incredibly annoying and certain classes had huge advantages in it simply due to their mechanics. Overall class balance wasn't great either, and as others have noted there was a noticeable delay between activating an ability and it actually going off, which made for a very frustrating PvP experience a lot of the time. I un-subbed after maxing out 1 character and playing end game PvP for about a month, but balance changes were not coming fast enough and the changes they tried to make to entice people into open world PvP were a huge failure. I may give it another try sometime, but from what I see on the forums many of the things I took issue with are still hanging around.

 

[darkewaffle]

Actually I really liked all the warzones, Huttball got a bad rap early on because it was played so often but aside from the obscene damage on the fire/acid obstacles, it's honestly some of the most fun I had playing the entire game.

Balancing issues and how negatively server population issues affected PVP were my problem; it sucked waiting through long queue times to just get the same Republic premade (which were almost the only republic ever playing) and just having the same useless teammates most of the time. I think the transfers probably alleviated that, but I haven't played much since before they went through.

Marauders and Sentinels were out of control last I played (also Powertech), and it was especially bad as a sorc. Even prior to 1.2 (I think) they were pretty obscene, but 1.2 further tipped expertise in their favor and actually buffed both Warrior classes. All the jackoffs on the main forum had this warped sense of balance since almost all of their opinions were tinted from the 10-49 warzones (where everything works completely differently due to lack of gear) or even just 50 warzones at release (where, again, everything is different when nobody has gear). The first round of balance changes to Operatives was appropriate, but since then it's lagged behind what's 'really' going on. Though that does mirror what usually happens in other games, so I guess it's to be expected.

 

[Wardawg1001]

Actually I really liked all the warzones, Huttball got a bad rap early on because it was played so often but aside from the obscene damage on the fire/acid obstacles, it's honestly some of the most fun I had playing the entire game.

Balancing issues and how negatively server population issues affected PVP were my problem; it sucked waiting through long queue times to just get the same Republic premade (which were almost the only republic ever playing) and just having the same useless teammates most of the time. I think the transfers probably alleviated that, but I haven't played much since before they went through.

Marauders and Sentinels were out of control last I played (also Powertech), and it was especially bad as a sorc. Even prior to 1.2 (I think) they were pretty obscene, but 1.2 further tipped expertise in their favor and actually buffed both Warrior classes. All the jackoffs on the main forum had this warped sense of balance since almost all of their opinions were tinted from the 10-49 warzones (where everything works completely differently due to lack of gear) or even just 50 warzones at release (where, again, everything is different when nobody has gear). The first round of balance changes to Operatives was appropriate, but since then it's lagged behind what's 'really' going on. Though that does mirror what usually happens in other games, so I guess it's to be expected.

Huttball got a bad rap because it allowed for same faction against same faction which meant for Empire players (which vastly outnumbered Republic players on most servers) ended up playing Huttball against other Empire players 90% of the time they queued for a warzone. The other reason is got a bad rap is that certain classes had skill sets that simply made them more useful than others, so Huttball games were often pre-determined at the start of the game just based on who got the most Jedi's or Sith, and god forbid you only got 1 or 2 while the other team has 6. Huttball isn't about fighting, its about teamwork and moving the ball, so all you need is people who can move fast, and (I can no longer remember the exact class names) the end result was those classes with sprints and leaps were the only ones able to do anything useful, while everyone else was basically dead weight.

 

[diesbudt]

Huttball got a bad rap because it allowed for same faction against same faction which meant for Empire players (which vastly outnumbered Republic players on most servers) ended up playing Huttball against other Empire players 90% of the time they queued for a warzone. The other reason is got a bad rap is that certain classes had skill sets that simply made them more useful than others, so Huttball games were often pre-determined at the start of the game just based on who got the most Jedi's or Sith, and god forbid you only got 1 or 2 while the other team has 6. Huttball isn't about fighting, its about teamwork and moving the ball, so all you need is people who can move fast, and (I can no longer remember the exact class names) the end result was those classes with sprints and leaps were the only ones able to do anything useful, while everyone else was basically dead weight.

And CC. any class that could CC members so easily (I know my assassin could) could lock down multiple members on the other team. You had to do 0 killing to actually win this game

 

[darkewaffle]

The fact that huttball emphasized a completely different skillset is part of what made it enjoyable; most other warzones/battlegrounds/whatever are just glorified deathmatches. Sure you could win huttball with pure offense, but you could also lose it like that too.

And saying only certain characters were competitive is an extremely shallow way to look at it. Not everyone is a ball carrier, no, but not everyone in the NFL is a running back either. People just assume that if a character cant sprint through the fire and score, they're not useful. But even if all you do the entire match is get open for passes and then move the ball forward, you're potentially a huge asset to your team. A class just has to play to it's strengths.

 

[Wardawg1001]

The fact that huttball emphasized a completely different skillset is part of what made it enjoyable; most other warzones/battlegrounds/whatever are just glorified deathmatches. Sure you could win huttball with pure offense, but you could also lose it like that too.

And saying only certain characters were competitive is an extremely shallow way to look at it. Not everyone is a ball carrier, no, but not everyone in the NFL is a running back either. People just assume that if a character cant sprint through the fire and score, they're not useful. But even if all you do the entire match is get open for passes and then move the ball forward, you're potentially a huge asset to your team. A class just has to play to it's strengths.

Nobody that didnt have stealth, leaps, or speed boosts could get into position, at least not any better than someone who did. Please don't try to compare Huttball to Football, or any kind of real competitive sport. The fact is if you cant sprint through half the map or stealth up on to the ledge to get open for a sneaky pass, you are less valuable than someone who can. And when your team has 1 person with those abilities and the other has 6, the game is already over unless the other team just doesn't understand the rules of the game (which was a common problem early on, but even within the time period I stopped playing which was several months ago, it was starting to get pretty rare). Just because I could slowly walk my Smuggler over to the other end of the side of the court and potentially score when someone passes to me doesn't make mean I'm still not a second rate class compared to someone who could have done it in half the time. Being able to do something useful does not mean you are competitive, it just means you aren't completely useless. But that doesn't take away from the fact that your team would have been better off with another class.

You even mentioned yourself WHY certain classes are more useful - they can move the ball. Thats all you need to do to win, and certain classes can do it very well, while others can't. If you aren't a class that moves the ball well, you are a detriment to your team.

 

[AMDZen]

Well good news everyone!!...it will be free to play for the single player experiance....

Is this actually confirmed? As I understood it, this was a rumor and no timeframe was given. Although it is likely to become fact, when is the question.

If it becomes FTP soon, while the game is still relevant - then maybe it does OK based on the sticker price and people picking it up. If they wait 3 years then no, it won't do well.

I've heard rumors of all kinds but a large majority of people say it will be a long time before its FTP. And even then, its not 100% that it will be.