This Is How Competition Works

Again, the ONLY two things that you mention are story and voice acting. Non off it is innovative.
Want me to buy you an mp3 book from Amazon?
And the story is SMALL! The story is so small part of youre character it is not fun.
If you go from 1-50 trough PvE and questiong, how many non class story related quests are you doing compered to class story related quests?
If you make a 2nd character you end up doing the same quests all over again, just like any other MMO.
No, the class story is a nice thing, but you can not build a whole game around the small story it delivers.

I'm not fully disagreeing with you, since I said in my original post comparing TOR release to WoW release is simply a better comparison but not perfect, but I would like to ask: what do you think has actually improved for MMOs in terms of industry standards since 2004? If we look at all the MMOs released since then quite honestly the only thing that has significantly improved is graphics, and other things that you quite aptly put like quality of life etc. but even with a modern MMO I would not expect those things to be superior upon initial release.

That isn't to say I don't think certain things can be improved but the issue is that when you get into the meat of an MMO, the gameplay, the mechanics etc. what an "improvement" is to the community is entirely subjective. For example, to me, I would prefer endgame to require less dedication to be competitive and be based more on skill. As WoW has evolved it went from needing to fully dedicate yourself to like it was a job (40-man raids) to being able to play more casually (10-man) and/or let skill talk (Rated BGs/Arena). However, some people complain about these changes and think they're bad. Some people think you shouldn't be able to be competitive while playing an MMO more casually, even if you're a very skilled player. The issue is that the demographic for an MMO is so large and varied that what constitutes "improvement" is blurred.

In fact, if we expand this even further and consider it for all games: what has improved? I'd argue that between 2004 and now the main things that have improved in games is, again, graphics. There have been improvements to things such as polish/refinements making the games play more smoothly, some new gameplay mechanics introduced into games (but have not necessarily improved the quality of gameplay!) etc.

This is the reason why older games like the Zeldas or BG2 etc. still stand up today as great games, and why Nintendo is able to release Zelda game after Zelda game with essentially the same gameplay and it still covets great reviews: because not alot has changed. This is the reason why games like Dark Souls are sought after with more legacy-style gameplay because in today's market it feels like a great deal of games have simply created gameplay style niches (Assassin's Creed series for example), or dumbed down things entirely, rather than significantly improved gameplay.

And why is that? Because gameplay isn't something you can really improve. Some people still prefer to play a good old game of Solitare over a computer game because what is fun is subjective.

Ok, so I can see your general sentiments here but this is the part that ruined your post for me in terms of credibility.

First of all, I never played WoW so I never made the comparison. This leads to my second point where I agree with you and all the others you speak of. I do not think that this game should be compared to WoW at all.

I find it a shame that you start using terms like empirical evidence and then make a statement about "so many people are frustrated", which is entirely the opposite way of making a point. I would've preferred you stayed in the empirical area.

There are a number of people frustrated by various things. I see more often that people complain about things, functions, whatever that they had in a different game. I do not necessarily agree that all of these things should be a given. That's just something that certain people think. I don't.

What you should know is that, when we get factual data like 1.5 million people playing this game, that the actual amount of people complaining about these things here on the forum, is a mere fraction of that. If 100.000 people would complain about it in two weeks, it would mean about 7000 original threads per day. And that wouldn't be even 10% of the player base. Just saying.

What I would wish, is that people would stop overestimating the forum rants. They represent a certain amount of players, but that's as far as you can go.

Any game that starts has this problem. People start and it isn't what they expected. Of course now they complain about missing functionality and if it had been there, they would've complained even more about how this game is a copy of WoW in another universe.

The key element is always: do I enjoy playing this game or not. The answer to that question tells you whether you should be playing this game or not.

Any fixes or changes will take time. Why would you play the game hoping for changes if they are game breaking. It's good when people quit playing when they don't like it. This is a clear indication to a company that they need changes and which changes.

So, I like the game. I think it needs changes and fixes but at this time I enjoy playing it, so I stay. Those who have a problem with it should leave because it will make the game better...either because we have less people whining or because there will be positive changes as a consequence (or both ).

I can't agree.

SC2 is SC1 with better graphics.

it's 10 years behind the RTS genre.

Every RTS Relic has ever released has been superior to every RTS Blizzard ever released with the exception of Warcraft 3.

Warcraft 3 was Blizzard's best RTS game. SC2 actually is a step backward from WC3. Where's the heroes? Where's the creeps? The item shops? Being good at WC3 was like being good at SC1 and DOTA at the same time. SC2 is just so one dimensional.

WC3 was a massive innovation in the RTS genre, then they took a dump and released SC1 with a new skin.

The smartphone comparison is retarded.
You expect a 15year old athlete to compete with 22year old one? This is a *********** MMO, not the phone you use to like girls pic when you are skipping class.

SWTOR's launch ***** all over WoW's launch (and on every other MMO for that matter) on every single level, but hey there's no /roll option and to easymode LFG tool so the game is doomed and can't be compared.

SWTOR's foundations are good, whether or not the Devs will be smart enough to improve and make the game better is a completely different topic.

WoW is the facebook of gaming and the gamer-hybrid it has spawned is simply disgusting - and everywhere. You don't like the game? Don't play it, spare us the "game dev insight".

This is definitely the gambit, I agree -- it was clearly a design decision based on a strategy. I do think, however, that financial resources were finite enough such that they could not afford to do *both* -- that is, be a BioWare type 100% VA game *and* have a full-flight, including-all-doo-dads MMO, at the same time within what even EA was willing to spend.

I don't see how Ignoring people who acted the trot means I have rose colored glasses on. MY server didn't tolerate jerks and we ignored them as soon as they reared their ugly little heads.

What other servers did, or how other servers acted is not relevant to the community I was a part of. As I am basing my comments, on THAT community. There are no rose colored glasses there.

Yes, within 2 years of launch, EQ started going downhill (In my opinion) and never stopped it's slide into garbage. Even when it was most popular. My ignore list was almost always full, and sadly, I'd have to un-ignore some trolls, to add others.

By the time I quit EQ (about 3 years or so ago) I think I had probably ignored at one time or another, more than 10k people. But when EQ first started, MY server didn't tolerate trolls.

~Saitada

Disgusting and insanely profitable which is, you know, the whole point of making a product.

I understand what you are trying to say with the analogy of comparing goods from 2004 to 2011. But that is not what's going on here. What people mean when they compare is that anything new, that has not been done before (Star Wars Old republic MMO) will have some growing pains. Especially for a team that made their first game in an the mmo genre. And I think they were reasonably close to the ball with SWTOR, everything else is polish same was with WoW back in 2004 same is with SWTOR in 2012

It depends on how important the features are. Nothing SWTOR is missing is a deal breaker to me. /roll and a moveable UI would be nice, but it doesn't impact me enough to not want to play the game. Fun factor is what is important and it is MUCH more fun than WoW has ever been.

And other features are mistakes. Like random dungeonfinder. Adding something like that would make me immediately unsubscribe because it destroys games. By not including that feature its a HUGE positive.