I am trying to review SWTOR as objective as possible. I rerolled to Fatman recently so I could play SWTOR as it´s meant to be played. And my final impression is SWTOR is pretty solid as both, game and MMO.

First of all, I´d like to notice we just didn´t have many SFI MMOs arround to compare.

These are positive features of SWTOR I compiled through my 300 hours gameplay.

1. SW lore is cool. This is it. It´s very difficult to make SW lore unintresting, and this is not a case. Bioware nailed quite well the overall look and feel of Star Wars universe. Environments and backgrounds are fantastic, really of the best looking arround. After Witcher 2, SWTOR environemnts are the best ones.

2. Voiceovers really make the difference.

3. The dialog options are so good for a MMO. Really. Morality choices are of the best I played before. You can be very evil, neutral or good. Only a few games arround offer this kind of choice, and none of them are MMOs. You may say those choices didn´t matter but they mattered to me, and to many others. Those choices defined my character and myself. I choosed the dark path and I still have remorse for taking some heartsplitting decisions. For the first time, I hadn´t just level up my character but I defined him with my choices too. WoW doesn´t offer this.

4. SWTOR offer more chalenege. Heroics and Flashpoints are more difficult that the similar areas from WoW. You must group to complete them and this feature push people together. It´s good thing.

5. SWTOR is the most grouping-friendly games I played. People are grouping in this game quite easily. I tried WoW sometime before, and got to level 30, but mostly I played solo. I tried to group with other people, but they plainly ingnored me. During my playthrough in WoW, I couldn´t group not even once, and I was in guild with 50 people.

In SWTOR is quite opposite. If you want to do Heroics, you must group with somebody. The groups usually are of 4. It´s pretty easy to group. I just throw a message to General Chat "Anyone for that heroic" and "LF1 more for <heroic>", and people usually always repond. In WOW, I actually never saw something similar to Heroics.

On Fatman, you can actually find a body even for a single player missions.

6. SWTOR is a quite polished game. Seriously, in comparison to other MMO launches and many single player games SWTOR is shiny polished. I haven´t confronted any bug yet, only get stuck sometimes when jump from the cliffs which is quickly resolved with /stuck command. But I recognize that some bugs exist, I read in forums that some people have bugs. And some features present in WoW are misssing which will be solved with the upcomming patch.

7. Graphical presentation of SWTOR is stunning. As I already said environments are of the best. Some face animations and acting are even superior than in ME3. Right now, SWTOR is one the best looking MMOs arround. Well... if you have a powerful enough PC.

GW2 may eclipse SWTOR, but not so much. GW2 will not have voiceovers and cutscenes for every in-game quest.

8. SWTOR community is great and friendly. Go on Fatman you will see. The main public of SWTOR is the people who seek for pieceful cooperative experience. There is a guild boom right now, every one tries to create one. SWTOR is a perfect game for people who mostly played single player games and are affraid of MMO. There is no elitist jerks arround, at least by now.

9. With the upcomming path, we´ll get more PvsP content.

Well. Let´s analize now about the main complaints about SWTOR:

1. No end content for 50s.

Well... the solution here is just...waiting untill a new big expansion is released. Many 50s will unsubscribe for sure, but new players will come eventually too. SWTOR is one of the most friendly communities arroud, and very perfect for the people who want to try theirselves in a new genre. I was one of them.

Certainly 1.7 million population will drop to, let´s say, 1 million eventually. But still 1 million is good number for a starter MMO. Actually this reflects the real worth of SWTOR, not the hyped one. And it´s more than enough to keep the game alive and Bioware happy. And this number, 1 million, will be steady with all ebbs and flows of subscriptions untill a new new big full expansion comes out. After that, the community may be expanded to a few more servers and again stay static.

I am not planning to play SWTOR for years either. Eventually I will stop, but my place will be taken by someone else. It´s a natural thing. When a new real expansion comes one I will certainly resub.

2. World is not actually open.

Well. It´s not like WoW for sure. But areas are very big and extensive and every planet takes me some 20-30 hours to complete. The only difference is there is no gate to pass to another realm, But this is SW, you take a ship and travel to another planet. If you actually want SWTOR world be like WoW then the whole action must take place on one planet which is not ver appealing and plausible and characteristic for SW universe.

3. I will not discuss the problem with pop to avoid the closing of my thread. Just rerolled. Try a new alt. Or just wait for a migration tool. No other solution is available.

Rerolling is a natural reaction of SWTOR community for the self preservation. The most of SWTOR community in US is concentrated now on Fatman.

Please don´t discuss this topic in my thread to avoid the merge with other threads.

Ok...Now lets check briefly the main competitors of SWTOR.

I will put them in groups-

1. WoW. Terra. GW2

Here comes the biggest flaw of this trio. They are not ScFI. This is it. SWTOR already reserved for itself a big chunk of players. I know a lot of people who scpecifically need light sabers, blasters and and tech stuff, they will not come back to sword, shield and magic again.

WoW.

The people who still playing it will keep playing it. No big loss. The people who stopped playing it will not come back because of Pandas. WoW population will drop eventually to some 7-8 milllions. But WoW will keep the biggest population arround.

It will not affect SWTOR population at all. If you like Star Wars, you will like Star Wars. No pandas will change that. Besides new WoW expansion is all about the same. The same everything. Totally not ground breaking or innovative.

Terra.

Its like WoW but with Pokemons. Yes, and a better combat. The rest is the same: NPCs with excalamation sings floating overhead, text boxes for the missions, no voiceovers.

If you like Korean MMOs with pokemons go and try it, but people who are into Star Wars and ScFi will not follow you.

GW2.

Well it´s the strongest competitor. But is it really so ground breaking ? I watch so many video and read so many previews about it.

The main atraction is World vs World vs World. Yep. Cool stuff.

The graphical presntation is awesome.

The combat is new and fresh.

Its flaws.

It keeps being like WoW. Yes...more mature...better combat...choices affect the world but...NPCs have excalamation sings floating overhead, text boxes for the missions, no voiceovers, killing stuff by hundreds.

And it´s not SCFI.

Equally, this one is the best looking among all competitor and I will certainly try it.

2. Secret World.

A very shady horse. It may be a great success or another Age of Connan.

Its flaws.

It has standard WoW-like mechanics. No groundbeaking there.

Graphically it didn´t impress me.

Secret World lore must compete against STAR WARS. Every new lore has a huge risk to suck. This is a fact. Check the Kindoms of Amalur.

Well. This is it. This thread is subjected to further updates.

Update 1:

I am not saying that SWTOR is the best MMO ever. I am not bashing GW2, Tera, and Secret World.

But I just point to your attention that none of the upcomming MMOs will be ground breaking. They will not be enourmously superior to SWTOR, but only in some aspects, and in other aspects SWTOR will be better. This is it.

At the end, what MMO to play will depend on your fancies, there will not be a clear winner.

If you like swords and magic, you will certainly move to WoW, Terra or GW2. SWTOR just doesn´t have all allures to keep everyone.

But SWTOR holds monopoly on ScFi and SW, so a good chunk of players will stay with SWTOR .

Wait...

What game are you reviewing? I was pretty sure the title of your thread mentioned SWTOR.

Wait...

 

What game are you reviewing? I was pretty sure the title of your thread mentioned SWTOR.

Indeed, how dare the OP say anything good about the game we continue to pay for despite hating on it with a vitriolic fervor only outdone by religious zealots!!!

Everyone but the OP unsubbed FIVE YEARS AGO! that's how wrong his opinions are!

Indeed, how dare the OP say anything good about the game we continue to pay for despite hating on it with a vitriolic fervor only outdone by religious zealots!!!

 

Everyone but the OP unsubbed FIVE YEARS AGO! that's how wrong his opinions are!

Totally! I know, right?!

Because I know that I unsubbed before the game came out, anyone that waited longer, like after they removed content at the end of beta, only to try and push it at us as "new" in 1.2 is a derp!

Totally for sure, like, totally!

I think it's a great game but they should have launched with a lot of the things that are being added in 1.2.

Also the worlds (some anyway) need to be a lot more open and the species they made all look the same only different colors and some added stuff. But really they all look human for the most part...a mistake in my opinion and a stupid considering that there are pretty much unlimited species you could create in SW.

That said I like it a lot and look forward to patch 1.2.

Indeed, how dare the OP say anything good about the game we continue to pay for despite hating on it with a vitriolic fervor only outdone by religious zealots!!!

 

Everyone but the OP unsubbed FIVE YEARS AGO! that's how wrong his opinions are!

Along with religious zealots you forgot psychopaths and the tin foil hat crowd!

SWTOR is a great game. Voiceovers and the class stories, your own ship and companions, all of it makes it very nice (for singleplayer).

I had been away from the game for several weeks and recently got back, first thing I read was about the nerfs to my main character (sorcerer) I was angry at first, but after I had played a bit of my alts, I realized that going through the class storylines is still good fun. Its enjoyable as long as theres new content to go through..

SWTOR is a good single player game, however its a mediocre at best MMO. Certainly not living up to the pre-launch hype of a innovative next generation MMO that will last years.

Pretty much this.

4. SWTOR offer more chalenege. Heroics and Flashpoints are more difficult that the similar areas from WoW. You must group to complete them and this feature push people together. It´s good thing.

Complete lie. They are easier than anything in WoW. My guild cleared hard mode EV on our first try. You can skip vast sections of many flashpoints too, and only maybe Kaon requires any kind of CC to complete on hard mode.

SWTOR is the most grouping-friendly games I played. People are grouping in this game quite easily.

Also nonsense. When I was actually actively trying to group with strangers, it took me hours, upon hours, upon hours to find one as a tank. Then I gave up trying and just raid with my guild.

SWTOR is a good game (not great, but good), but it lacks soul, and that undefined quality that makes you want to keep playing. I don't seem to have any problem staying away from SWTOR for 4/7 non-raid nights a week. I couldn't stay away from my last MMO for that long if my life depended on it - I always had something to do.

SWTOR is a good single player game, however its a mediocre at best MMO. Certainly not living up to the pre-launch hype of a innovative next generation MMO that will last years.

Besides the story they never said what your claiming they said.

The Kotor part was fun.

It needs jboots.

:confused:

1. SW lore is cool. This is it. It´s very difficult to make SW lore unintresting, and this is not a case. Bioware nailed quite well the overall look and feel of Star Wars universe. Environments and backgrounds are fantastic, really of the best looking arround. After Witcher 2, SWTOR environemnts are the best ones.

An objective review wouldn't include something as ridiculous as this as the first point of review.

It doesn't look like SW. It doesn't feel like SW. They removed the Wars part of the game in favor of standing on the fleet twiddling your thumbs. Pretty soon all form of lore will be thrown out of PvP, as it is there is really no excuse for factions to be competing against each other on Hutt Ball, but pretty soon we'll actually be fighting our faction over valuable resources such as void star and novare coast?

Sorry. But this doesn't look like SW, it doesn't feel like SW, and the LORE of SW has been completely disregarded in favor of forcing a half finished product on the MMO community simply to fill your publisher's pockets.

Your review isn't objective.

SWTOR is a good single player game, however its a mediocre at best MMO. Certainly not living up to the pre-launch hype of a innovative next generation MMO that will last years.

This is more objective. We would have been better served if they simply hadn't yanked us around under the belief we were getting an MMO when in reality we were getting a single player blend of ME and Kotor.

3. I will not discuss the problem with pop to avoid the closing of my thread. Just rerolled. Try a new alt. Or just wait for a migration tool. No other solution is available.

Rerolling is a natural reaction of SWTOR community for the self preservation. The most of SWTOR community in US is concentrated now on Fatman.

Sorry, but maybe they could have just not decided where people would play? That could have been a good move on their part, I played WoW from release until last year, I don't recall ever rerolling on another server due to pop problems. So I'm not inclined to believe it's simply a natural reaction. I pay to play this game how I want to play it, where I want to play it, not to be one of the hundreds of people giving up on three level 50s to re-roll on the fatman or zakkeg beast.

Your entire post comes across as this: "So the game is bad right now, just keep giving BW money, keep funding their game, and maybe, one day, they will stop stuffing their pockets long enough to throw you a *********** bone."

Apologies, but you seem like a door mat.

TOR isn't a bad game...just doesn't do anything unique...

1:dialogue options: ripped from ME series... with multi-player random roll added still just a copy and paste system.

2: combat is pretty much standard hotkey style, mixed with some Champions online features doesn't really do anything all its own.

3: talents are pretty universal in mmos now days

4: class system has been done, Aion one comes to mind off top of my head.

5: operations, hard modes, loot tables. ect ect ect we've done this before in alot of mmos...

Fact is most people are sick of old hotkey(WoW style) mmo style of games and are a ton are just looking for something new and fresh...unfortunatly while TOR does what it does rather well(bugs aside, and tuning aside) doesn't stand out from other mmos out there.

Games like...

GW2

Tera

DCUO

are setting themselves apart from other mmo's out there in some unique way is not just story, and dialogue choices. Which as cool as those are! and lets face it TOR does that really well and story is great! it takes something more then that to KEEP players interested in there game!

People constantly say things like! " BUT VOICE ACTING! TOR ONLY MMO TO DO IT" or " tor first mmo to be fully voice acted!" and " but TOR's voice talent is best out there!" and i want to slap you people so hard! First off! yes TOR has good cast of voice talent, but DCUO came before TOR, it had better voice talent, it is fully voice acted so all of these claims are false... people that use this as an excuse as to why TOR should stand out are wrong! TOR is #2 in this area...you can not beat Voice acters like MARK HAMIL and ADAM BALDWIN! just impossible!

But DCUO proved that good story, interesting characters, big IP, and amazing voice actors do not make a good game...it takes something more! but at least DCUO tried to be unique... TOR on other hand played it safe, and while does what it does well... it doesn't stand out to me. Is nothing really jumps out and says " HEY I DO THIS AND OTHER MMOS DON'T! " when comes to actual gameplay... thus i personally only play TOR because my friends do... and while i love the story i've played all storys at this point so whats left? end game? its terrible... pvp? its badly done and poorly balanced...

TOR is a medicore game, and while i feel i've gotten my moneys worth of it...certainly not what they boasted it to be.

-Lokai-

Besides the story they never said what your claiming they said.

Oh my mistake I thought all the talk from the devs about how innovative story, companions, and game play meant that the game would be innovative. Its apparently also my mistake I thought the game would last long considering EA claimed this game would last at least ten years and have multiple expansions.

You Bioware fanbois are beyond hope.

SWTOR is a good single player game, however its a mediocre at best MMO. Certainly not living up to the pre-launch hype of a innovative next generation MMO that will last years.

But this is what I don´t understand. How more MMO it should be ?

The game push you together to be able to do heroics and flashpoints.

If you are on Fatman, you can easily find a buddy to quest together.

There are PVP matches...only 3 arenas but they will be expanded with the upcoming patch.

SWTOR doesn´t have auction house but it has a regular market with fixed prices.

And it works just fine. I am making 100k a day for crafting a lot of crap. Selling stuff on GTN is very addictive stuff by itself. There is some crazy economy in the game that responds to the law of demand and consume. And the upcoming 1.2 patch will make it even better.

The only stuff which is not so good is World vs World.

But tha actual issue with World vs World is that main SWTOR public comes for pieceful cooperative experience and due to disbalance between Empire and Republic. World vs World is not an impossible thing in SWTOR. I am even planning to stealth into Republic side in Nar Shaddaa and hunt down some republicans.

 

It doesn't look like SW. It doesn't feel like SW. They removed the Wars part of the game in favor of standing on the fleet twiddling your thumbs. .

Hold on.. didn´t they rather remove the "Star" part by not putting decent space combat in?

However, at least they got the lightsabers right... and the yellow font credits in the beginning.

SWTOR is a good single player game, however its a mediocre at best MMO. Certainly not living up to the pre-launch hype of a innovative next generation MMO that will last years.

That's your opinion, Mannayus

People don't like it because the devs lied about much of the content and there are too many missing features.

No one lied about anything, stop exaggerating things and maybe, just maybe, you might get better responses.

Just out of curiosity, what did they lie about again?

SWTOR is a great game. Voiceovers and the class stories, your own ship and companions, all of it makes it very nice (for singleplayer).

 

I had been away from the game for several weeks and recently got back, first thing I read was about the nerfs to my main character (sorcerer) I was angry at first, but after I had played a bit of my alts, I realized that going through the class storylines is still good fun. Its enjoyable as long as theres new content to go through..

Take nerf complaints with a grain of salt (a big grain). Nerfs are rarely ever as bad as some forum posters make them out to be. Only way to be sure is to test it for yourself.

But this is what I don´t understand. How more MMO it should be ?

Well first off, a MMO is suppose to make you feel like you are playing with "massively multiplayer online". Does it do that in this case? Somewhat. Maybe on the fleet, that's about it.

Everything is instanced so it seems more like an instanced game. Alot of instanced Heroics, instanced class quest, instanced spaceport, I mean really? Do I really need to load 4 times just to get to another instanced planet? I mean heck, there are 20+ planets, and ALL of them are instanced, which are filled with 4-20 players on each. Instanced PvP, no world pvp. Everything is instanced. Feel like an MMO to ya?

You say that there is no end game content!?!?

2 8 man ops (3 difficulties each) 2 16 man ops and what... 9 HM FP's? (correct me if im wrong on that number)

Think about it. SWTOR Launched with MORE endgame content than WoW Has NOW! an impressive feat. With more to come in 1.2

Stupid people are Stupid.

The only feature I see is the voice acting. It's really the only unique feature that stands apart from other mmo's.

First week or two the voice acting was pretty sweet, however on my next round of "Alts" i find myself smashing the space bar to get past it.