Why I'm not playing.

nice post! I 100% agree!

So are you one of the ones complaining because it's too much like WoW, or one of the ones complaining because it's not enough like WoW?

I got bored of WoW a few years back, you should too!

Pretty much spot on, and I agree with just about everything said. Some of it is a bit harsh, because I have a soft spot for BW, but sadly true.

I read the whole thing, OP. And while I commend you on your well-thought-out points, and your elocution, three things come to mind:

1) This is, ultimately, your opinion. While you are entitled to your opinion, and while I would fight to the death for you to be able to voice it, I don't think "You should not buy this game!" is a particularly impartial piece of advice. I love the game, and am quite happy playing it, and it's because of some of the similarities to WoW that you claim to dislike that I actually like it. Swings and roundabouts.

2) Is this post really necessary? It's massive. I personally wouldn't write something this long unless I was getting paid for it. By the word. And as well as being unnecessary, it's very subjective. It seems that to be an internet reviewer, you have to either gush, or damn. You have chosen to opt for the latter. You've also inadvertently drawn more attention to the game.

3) The game's been out a month, now. People are forming their own opinions, and have decided whether they don't like it during the first 30-day grace period. We don't need your opinion forcing down our necks. Just put it down to experience, "Hey, I don't like TOR. Oh well, onwards to Guild Wars 2/EVE Online/Whatever".

To summarise - I thought we'd stopped getting massive walls of text complaining about the same thing over and over, ranting about how it's too much of a WoW clone, and this and that and the other. It's really, really boring. Not only is it boring, in fact, but it's futile to compare a game that's a month old to a game that's been on the market for SEVEN YEARS. If you wanted TOR to be everything WoW is and more, then you'd have been looking at a 10-12 year development time.

The trouble with everyone who played WoW is, they want everything now! Now! Now! Now! There's no patience. You've had it sucked out by insta-epics and pandering. Chill out, play the MMO *alongside* other games. I play loads of games as well as TOR, and after a month I've only reached level 39. Why? because I like to take my time, I like to see the sights, learn the lore, and immerse myself.

I do not understand why people who don't like a game feel the urge to write an essay on it, unless they're employed to do so.

I linked this to a friend who isn't a gamer (I like to show my friends some of the more excessive hate threads for laughs occasionally.)

Her response was "with that much time on his hands, he shoulda just wrote his own game..."

It was intended as a joke but after trying yet again to slog through the post, (I failed) I believe this is actually great advice for the OP.

OP you should make your own game. I don't think any developer could satisfy your tastes.

Edit to add:

I'm serious here and mean no disrespect. Not trying to troll OP at all.

Just go write your own game.

Good post.

Although I'm enjoying the game right now and will probably bare it out until I hit 50, I'm 45 now I will not probably not continue playing when I do so.

One of the most obvious things I agree with this post is the way quests are ALL SIMILAR, hack n slash kill that, kill this, get that, get this.

My evil sith lord has to help ****** scum as soon as i step onto a planet, and all side quests and "heroics" are basically boring. And no, i can't just skip them, these are what gives you exp and makes you able to continue your class quest, or you will be too low level to advance.

It's like they hit a randomize button that created all of them in one go. Except with some "fancy" voice acting put ontop of it (which probably cost every penny they spent on this game. So they had to hire bums to do the coding and game design, sorry no offense meant to these people personally. Not to mention license a TERRIBLE game engine, heroengine).

The side quests are so dull and boring you just "space" through them all (and no I have not missed anything, I went through my fair share of them until i puked). All the money spent on voices for these side quests are money spent RIGHT into the thrash.

But... I just gotta get 50... must. Heck, seems I event paid the subscription for another month...

Really the biggest argument is the quests are all go kill or gather this? WTH? have ever played wow...I actually have fallen asleep questing in that game. I really enjoy killing stuff in this game lol.

I also dont understand those that are getting bhind by not doing heroics or bonus. I rarely do heroics on any planet and I only do the bonus's if I feel like it. I'm usually 1 or 2 levels ahead of the zone when I start. I also very rarely pvp.

TLDR: OP found out this game was a MMO and didn't like it. Doesn't like the fact that all class stories lead up into the player character becoming a champion for the Sith or the Republic.

I liked how in Vanilla, it was "go pick up so many piles of dung". In BC, "go pick up so many piles of dung". In WoTLK, "go pick up so many piles of dung." (I quit after that).....

Okay, no real problems here. Going to be typing above each quote when I feel you were being TOO subjective, or inaccurate and that sort of thing. It's important to, with a review, be as objective as is humanly possible. I know that in some cases you just can't help but be subjective, so I'm going to ignore cases like that. But when you're being TOO subjective, to the point where a lot of -- if not most people would disagree with you, I will be pointing that out in red.

Innacurate, Subjective.

Firstly, no, that does not accurately sum up every quest in the game. There are multiple puzzle quests, and cinematics don't "disguise" anything. Cinematics are VERY important, they can change the outcome of quests completely, they can change what you have to accomplish during the quest, and they can even change what quest you'll be doing entirely.

They're there to do two things:
Provide and engaging experience that breaks up the monotonous, repetitive, and ultimately inescapable fact that quests in MMOs (without introducing full scale phasing) are VERY limited in scope and possibility. Do you know what other type of quest could be implemented? Puzzle/Kill X/Talk to X/Collect X/Plant Explosive in X are the only ones I can think of.

To allow you to grow attached to your character, the quest givers, and the companions that travel with you. As well as to feel the urgency of the story. This draws you in, it makes you (when done properly) feel the urgency or the need to accomplish something. It -- on so many levels -- makes the game just so much better for those of us who see it for what it is -- as opposed to what it COULD be.

Those quests were few and far between, if you'd played TOR enough you'd realize that they have certain quests that feel the exact same as you describe. Except for the racing orcs on dragons (those mini game type of things will come later I bet), and the one that's a city-wide event.

Innacurate, Subjective.
You're comparing content that came out WAY later in WoW to SW:ToR content at release. Let me tell you, there are certain areas where it is fair to compare a game (accessibility, graphics, gameplay -- things that are expected at launch) but there are things where it is simply NOT fair to compare an older MMO to a newer one in (polish, bugs, amount or variety of content). Please, for your sake and mine, do not use the old argument "this is 2012, we haz better standards", because I can literally think of 3 long and painful ways to shoot that down off the top of my head -- please, just don't ):.

Additionally, you are INCORRECT, you do not know enough about the game. I will concede that most quests are the typical kind, but there are others that are not. There are more than two types of quests, play the game and get to them or else you're not qualified to speak about them (trying not to sound rude, because I don't mean to).

WILDLY SUBJECTIVE
Off topic, but I'll submit that even as it being some of the worst Bioware writing that has even been done, Dragon Age 2 is still leagues beyond a lot of other companies in terms of quality (Bethesda comes to mind).

Fairly objective.
He wasn't a full blown Dark Jedi, that's like saying a recruit in the military is a full-blown soldier because he used a gun, pardon my military terms, I'm really not that knowledgeable when it comes to military ranks and that sort of thing. He is not the bestest knight ever, he's respected, but he's FAR from the best on the council.

A game starts out typical... NO... WAY. That's how things develop, they start out not-so-unique, not-so-polished, then they're built upon. As things are added, they increase in complexity and increase in level of uniqueness. The Jedi Knight -- from the beginning -- was meant to be based on Luke Skywalker, which means that you're the ultimate super-powerful person in the entire galaxy (ask people who know how each class story ends, they'll tell you the Jedi Knight one is easily the most important). The story itself does get better.

As objective as it really could be I think.
You really should have played the Imperial Agent. Anyone who was following this game -- at all -- from the start would've known that the Jedi Knight was supposed to be the "I r teh saviorz of teh universz, stop in teh name of justicz evil dooer". Again, I'll say the story does get better.

Subjective.
Dude, this is not the spoiler forums. Spoiling this for people is not acceptable. I'm going to outline this for one last time, you are the standard posterboy superhero. That is what the Jedi Knight is SUPPOSED to be. If you wanted good and witty dialogue, you should have went Smuggler. If you wanted an interesting and unique story, you should have went Imperial Agent. If you wanted to be someone totally hardcore, you should have went Bounty Hunter. If you wanted a war story you should have went Trooper. If you wanted diplomacy you should have went Consular. If you wanted to be a manipulator and a schemer (and experience some uber twists) you should have went Sith Inquisitor. If you wanted to be the super powerful dark side version of the Jedi Knight, you should have went Sith Warrior (they really did make the Sith Warrior the most impressive Dark Side character, and the Jedi Knight the most impressive light side character).

It was all laid out in a common sense way, each class was meant to appeal to a certain audience. They all had their strengths, and their weaknesses. By making it that way, they ensured that A LOT of us will be rerolling to experience another story.

Inaccurate (to my knowledge), Subjective
Err, rewrites how? I can agree to an extent on this, I think they should have hidden his face somehow. But I don't think the story was THAT bad, I just think that some things are better left unknown.

Inaccurate, Subjective, ihateugodie.
Dragon Ball... DRAGON BALL? I have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. I will look for you, I will find you, and I will slap you, hard. Like really, have you ever been slapped by someone who's 6'4"? HUH? You're about to know pain like you've never known it before.

Decent, somewhat objective.
I'll agree to this, inter-galactic errand boy.

Innacurate, Subjective.
Dude, it's a MINI GAME. No, it literally is not the same 4 missions repeated. There are more, though some are reused as far as setting. Also, the station 1 station 2 thing, was really incorrect :P.

Subjective
That's because, they're very careful on this one, you do nothing that IMMEDIATELY changes the world. They may say something like "you've won the war for us this day!" but that doesn't mean that the war is over, or that Imp scum do not remain to fight. Just that you've given them a serious blow they can never recover from.

Subjective
The problem isn't that they're sharded, but instead that there's too many of them. So many people spread out across so many planets, not to mention so many warzones going on, things like that. Also, you rarely run into more than 1 instance of a planet anymore, they eliminated the low cap for making a 2nd instance a LONG time ago I believe.

Inaccurate, Subjective.
Sorry, got to say this. WoW IS NOT THE INDUSTRY STANDARD. As someone who has played MANY MMOs (F2P AND P2P), MOST games have problems like these if not worse than these in the UI. Now, I will concede that a game like this should not because it had so much put into development, and so much time spent on it. But just because popular MMO A has feature X, that does not mean that it is an industry standard. I've played popular MMOs, I've played MMOs that failed and shut down months after launch. I've played MMOs that had LITERALLY NO ENDGAME, I've played MMOs that have so much endgame you'd be stuck playing them for months straight and the end wouldn't be in sight. Yet MOST of these do not great UI, or even modifiable UI.

Inaccurate, WILDLY SUBJECTIVE.
No, they really aren't, but okay.

Objective.
WoW had these things put in AFTER launch, not before. Polish comes in AFTER a game launches, rarely before a game launches. You're only comparing it to the MOST successful MMO in the history of MMOs, try comparing it to average MMOs to be fair. I'll concede that the UI is bad, but I refuse to say that having a super slick and functional UI is the "industry standard" because that is flat out untrue.

WILDLY INACCURATE, Subjective.
The Hi-Res textures will likely be implemented in the future. Bioware isn't TRYING to make everyone miserable, they don't do things just 'cus. They'll implement the systems when they think it's ready.

THE MOST SUBJECTIVE THING OF THIS ENTIRE POST
You actually do need them at level 50, try doing Belsavis dailies without them. You clearly don't have the same appreciation for them that a lot of us do, but let me sum it up like this: I like them, tons of people like them, you don't, sorry to hear that.

Inaccurate, not your fault but you shouldn't spread rumors that you have no way of knowing if they're true or not.
Bugs are getting fixed left and right, the design is not HORRIBLE, it has some of the best boss fights to date in actuality. They're just nothing that blows peoples minds. That issue of them camping the Republic was fixed ages ago. Some boss fights have problems, and the hardmore/nightmare mode implementation was pretty weak, but the bosses themselves are usually very good.

Fallacious
Ya, now you're trying to come up with reasons to hate on the game. That is perfectly normal AND understandable. This is not a democracy, you don't have ANY rights, you should be thankful people are allowed to post at all. Also, the system is not inadequate, do you know what the definition of inadequate is?

REALLY, REALLY INACCURATE, REALLY, REALLY SUBJECTIVE.
The ability delay was mostly fixed for me (someone who is definitely a hardcore PvPer, I know my stuff), and MOST others. In a thread, I did a count, and only 20% of people said it was not fixed, and people come to the forums TO complain, not to say "thanks guyz", so it should be higher. Anti-Aliasing IS in and it DOES work, the issue where for some people it does not work is being resolved (or was it already?).

Inaccurate, Subjective.
Ugh...

Subjective, Harmful to everyone in this game.
So tired of this...

I'm pretty well known for typing WAY too much. You typed WAYYYYYYYYYYY TOO MUCH.

The review started out somewhat okay, I wasn't mad and I had no real negative opinion of you. I started out with a "this guy doesn't like the game, may as well see why he objectively thinks it's bad". Little did I know I would find that everything I like would be attacked and downplayed, truths hidden, misinformation coated with an ever-so-thin layer of truth. You sounded to reasonable to start with, you're clearly an adult and an educated person who's not necessarily mean or a jerk or anything. But dude, you take every small problem, blow it WAY out of proportion (the UI, the GTN, that sort of thing), and you say that every positive feature is IN FACT a negative feature.

I'm trying to sound as... well... not mean as possible. But it really is hard. There are tons of inaccuracies, tons of super subjective statements, tons of things that may in the end harm the game since this was posted as a review on Amazon... I just really can't help but respond in the only way possible.

Please, ignore the typos. I rushed through this because it was so long.