Interesting article on SWTOR

Well, I didn't read the article, but since you have chimed in, I'm assuming it wasn't very favorable to the game.

Hence, why you agree with it. Broken record is broken.

Edit: Ah, I may have misspoke; he must lambast the community in the article (again, I haven't read it). Yes, the forum community is horrid. But as the Internet ages, and things like Facebook and Twitter propegate, more and more people feel it is important that the entire world know everything that is in their minds, no matter how ignorant it might be.

IMHO, the article was more favorable than derogatory.... The gist of the article is that players expectations were too high from their own imaginations and that people expecting it to be better than WoW after it has 10 years of polishing and added content and that SWTOR actually has as enough of some content that other games have (like PVP) and more "raid" content in the end as most just release one raid.

Then went to list some of the cons of the game, one of which is the community forums are suprising hostile and full of anger and hate...Some bugs and glitches not really game impairing, and things like that.

Summary, SWTOR is Good and has lots of potential to be better and even great with refinement and content. The hate comes three camps of people, SWG people, WoW dethroner hopefuls, and Star Wars Fans..... Each with a different gripe... which makes it sound like one huge gripe...

So all in all, people should give BW time to refine and enhance their product...

Don't presume to know what my expectations were or were not, or anyone else's for that manner.

You admitted that MMO's never come out finished. I asked you why that is the case. Answer the question at hand, not the one you conjured up out of mid air.

Why? Are we as consumers not entitled to MMO's being released when they are ready? Where is this unwritten rule that says that MMO's are all supposed to be released early?

Essentially, software development is a series of choices: leave this in or drop it. As time passes, feature lists always change. Games start out with a proposed list of features that the designers think will be nifty, and the marketing people take those ideas and start to publicize them. So now there's a public expectation that the game will launch with that list of features, but they aren't yet implemented. More time passes, and designers come up with (or receive requests for) yet more features, while still working to implement the old ones. Inevitably, some of the features planned end up being far more complex than expected, so they get pushed out. The designers want ALL of their nifty ideas in the game, never doubt this. But the publishers are the ones who provide the money, and they set the deadlines. Make no mistake: publishers are all about profits, and they will not just pour money into development indefinitely. Sooner or later, they will require the game to be launched, ready or not. Additionally, the public expectation, formed early on by those marketing people, pushes the publishers to release the product.

All this pressure results in the game being launched when it's "ready enough". This happens 100% of the time; I have never yet seen any game launch with a complete set of features and bug-free content, and I never expect to see it. I do expect and require a baseline of quality, of course, but that's not the same as a wholly unrealistic expectation of a "finished product". MMOs develop over time - all of them do. Devs launch with whatever they could include, and then they add more features and content and fix more bugs.

Everytime someone insists that a new game has to compete in content and features with a seven-year-old game, I sigh. If that's your standard, you should prepare yourself for a lifetime of disappointment, because this is never, ever going to happen.

not bad write up and some decent points to be sure but the writer falls in same trap that everyone else seems to now a days.

He doesnt understand what a MMORPG is at its CORE so doesnt truely understand why SW:TOR is not a MMORPG but infact (as named by someone else but best discription Ive ever read refering to TOR) a Massively Single Player RPG (MSPRPG).

Hes right though,

Most players compare this to WOW. Its what they know. You work your entire life at a McDonalds, your not going to be able to accurately or intellegently develop or analyze a 5 star restraunt. So for me, I tend to tune out anyone speaking of WOW as a reverence point as they lack the education and knowledge and understanding to seriously converse on the topic. Not their fault, its all they know, but equally not my fault and im not paid to educate them.

I think he vastly over rates the SWGers impact. Mostly I see the same 100 names posting 1000 times a day. Lots of posts but still just 100 people which is about the entire SWG community anymore. Sandboxs fail so stopped paying attention to them as well

3rd, yeah ALLOT of people over estimated what this game would be. Ive seen that since day one of the forums, some really out there concepts that were in no way based in reality or what was said. Expectations were very high! And EA failled to match expectation at any level.

FOR ME THOUGH, My expectations were grounded in whats been done already (but with slight changes). I really convinced myself EA RPG division would take the time to educate themselves so they knew what worked before, what didnt, why, how to make it work. I really thought they would take it slow (and they took it very slow time wise) and develop a fully fleshed out game on every station. Be it PVE, Raids, PVP , Crafting, RPG.

Thats all on me, I should have looked at Mass Effect 2 and seen the new mentality at work here. Instead I convinced myself this was the old pre EA Bioware working on TOR and the post EA moves wouldnt matter here. I WAS WRONG.

As I said before, I was miserable once Launch hit. Right out of gate they screwed things up and showed how disinterested they were (Pre Launch debackle). For the next 2 months I was miserable seeing a game I had such high expectations for crash and burn badly while (just like for ME2 and im sure DA2) the fanboys plauged the forums with flat out lies and massive spin jobs to cheer on the mess up.

But after 2 months of banging my head I realized it is what it is. This is what we got and its probably never going to be what many want. I look at the guild summit and see clearly that EA has no clue and is still completely missing the boat on the MMORPG front. Oh I dont hate the Guild Summit ideas. Many should have been in at launch and some are great fluff (and im a big fan of fluff in RPGs), but nothing they listed makes this a better MMOrpg.

So Im playing this game as a Massively Single Player RPG and im loving it now. As a single player RPG, this game delivers on all fronts, hits "almost" all points and is just a great experience.

When someone asks me about TOR I now tell them.

"Listen if your expecting a lively and vibrant community and setting like you see in Star Wars movies, thats not going to happen. Most days during prime time hours you will play for 4-5 hours and see maybe 5-10 lines of text over general chat at most. If your looking for a PUG, those are few and far between. You can join a guild but guilds today are mostly 10-20 players divided into pre set groups so your not going to find instant access there. Simply put, If your looking for a MMORPG experience, you probably should try a different title."

HOWEVER

"If you go into TOR with a single player (with limited multiplayer options) mindset, this game will deliver on almost every front. The only areas it really comes up short right now is those areas EA limited to encourage grouping. Because in their minds they were making a MMORPG. I suspect over time they will either add the required material to develop the community and interaction (though currently they dont seem to understand what that is much less how to obtain it) or they will embrace the single player idea and make the current group content soloable. Im now hopeing for the later. Id love to be able to summon 3 companions at once and takle a 4 man heroic solo cause finding a 4 man PUG next to impossible."

"If you understand that stuff, TOR can be a hugely positive experience. If you expect a active and vibrant community that interacts and laughs togather however, you will find yourself on the forums complaining in under 30 days period."

As for article guy, he seems to not understand that calling this a MMORPG is part of the problem that creates a false expectation that has not been met!

I am not a game developer, so I cannot realistically answer your question. Programming, despite what you might believe, is a complicated process. Few programs are ever complete when they are released. MMOs are constant works in progress. They release with a shell, then add stuff later as the game progresses.

I understand this. You posing the question to me as to why consumers shouldn't be entitled to a game coming out complete tells me that you do not. Perhaps the MMO genre is not for you.

By all means, encourage developers to make sure their games are flawless before they ever release. No game will ever release again (and this isn't just MMOs, by the way).