WOW really made me appreciate SWTOR

Not gonna lie, I wasn't big on them putting voice acting in the game, but they won me over. It really makes a big difference, even on daily quests I pick up everyday and quests I've done on alts before. Funny how in WoW I had no clue what was going on, never read a quest text, just powered on through to find X amount of mobs to kill. In SWTOR the quests are the same types of quests, but it doesn't feel like it and I actually know the story line of every planet I went to. I really think people underestimate the impact of having a solid story and voice acting.

Ao as you stated World of Warcraft has
and Star Wars: The Old Republic has
I would like to point out that the 2 raids has 2 difficulty levels since you mentioned the difficulty level for WoW, 16 Hardmode Flashpoints.

As it stands I don't see much difference with the amount of content for end game.
How much people actually took part in it has no baring on the amount of content available.

I thought the same thing when I read the OP's post. I'm also glad to see a new player joining the mmo ranks, but in my opinion the whole genre has become way too simplified. I prefer the old way of earning what you got without it being spoon fed to you. It took me 7 months to get to level 50 in DAoC (playing at least 6 hours a day/7 days a week for 98% of that time), a process that helped me master my class and group tactics. And with the way DAoC was/is structured, a whole new game opens up for you once you can focus strictly on the realm vs realm play.

Now, though, there's really no need to group with anyone if you don't want to, and you can reach the max level within weeks if you play a lot. So, you lose the whole social aspect of what made older mmo's great and you get to the endgame much sooner with only repetitive quests left to do. That might be a blast for some, but I believe a majority of mmo vets from the "golden days" are flat out bored with how dumbed down today's mmo's have become. We're like teenagers who saw a beautiful car we wanted, but to get it we had to get a tedious job, work long hours, save every nickel, and were finally able to buy it. We got in it, smelled the new leather, reved up the engine and smoked the tires as we headed off down the road with no idea what lay ahead, but the potential for lots of adventure. The new games just hand you the car keys, a limitless gas card, but leave you sitting in your new car inside a showroom with no exit.

There's obviously a market for games that are extremely casual friendly. They just don't have much lasting appeal for players who prefer a challenge. Will SWTOR develop into a more challenging experience? It may, but I doubt it, and that's ok. I'm just passing through while looking for my next hot rod.

I've said this before, say it again...in revenue, WoW makes the equivalent of a blockbuster movie every month. Where does that money go? Straight into the pockets of the corporate heads. With that kind of cash, they should be rolling out content nonstop. Instead, they're pillaging their playerbase and laughing all the way to the bank.


I've tried WoW on two separate occasions. Just could NOT get into that game. I felt dumber for playing it to be honest.

I find this overimportance on judging the performance of others to be....disturbing. While endgame is an important part of the entire MMO experience, it is not the only part, despite what you might believe.

Believe it or not, not everyone plays a game for the same reason you do.

Getting top level gear in WoW was not a matter of invested time. You clearly haven't read the fact that less than 2% of the population of the game has cleared Dragon Soul on hardmode. That means, less than 2% of the population has gotten the best gear available.

WoW raiding is far more than just an investment of time. It's a serious measure of not only personal skill, but situation awareness and the ability to multitask.

Two raids with 10 total bosses, a muddy difficulty overlap that doesn't totally reward the player and does not add a significant change to the fight mechanics.

Some hardmode flashpoints, don't recall the number that don't offer the correct type of gear progression since entry level operation groups have access to better gear and don't require heroic flashpoint geared players to complete. These also have a lockout of 1 per day while WoW allows you to keep running them if you're gearing up.

Nothing else.

Not necessarily true.

My first MMORPG, back in 1999, was AC.

My favorite MMORPG to date is DAoC (pre-ToA).

You're right, I forgot to make a note of Rag 1.0 specifically. Beyond that thought, we're talking about mostly minor glitches, not major bugs, getting feared under the world was not as common as you make it sound. As far as first content available goes, I felt it was relatively bug free. Not perfect by no stretch, but rather bug free. Certainly nothing like master loot = no loot, the pylon strategy guide details how to not bug the encounter, not how to actually beat the encounter because that part is trivial, Soa needs to be taunted if the tank gets mind trapped or he despawns oh wait nm he resets agro constantly now, oh wait nm that's being fixed so who knows what he does now, etc.

You're right, Ony and MC were part of 1.1. Of course you forget one minor detail. Retail WoW was version 1.1.1, so Ony and MC were already there at the time WoW released. Foot, meet mouth.

All this tells me you've never done WoW end game, SWTOR end game, or possibly either. The only way anyone could ever think that current SW:TOR end game is more challenging than heroic dragon soul is an extreme level of fanboism. Even then I think it would need to be paired with brain damage.

And the devs in WoW were any better?

Just because this MMO launched years after WoW doesn't mean the devs have any better idea of how the player base will play, react to, feel, appreciate, hate, want more or less of in a brand new game that has massive differences from WoW.
Besides, WoW's devs have been working on it for years. This is the SWTOR devs first MMO, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that they will be able to anticipate and/or calculate the effects of whatever they do. Once they do get a feel for it, like WoW's devs, things will move much more smoothly and efficiently.