MMO vets what do you think Of Sw TOR

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Now THAT would be awesome I think, be alot of work perhaps for the devs, but then again, I'd be happy with even 10 levels worth for each planet. Oh, and be able to actually travel around the whole planet w/o exhaustion zones, I love to explore and see the "world" get tired of hitting the exhastion zones.

Been an MMO vet since 1997. Have just about played very MMO title out there.

There is a pretty consistent theme you see across these forums. The PvE crowd seems to think the game is fine or 'decent' (although they certainly have detractors as well). The avid PvP crowd, however, is pretty displeased with how things have gone and waiting for the massive exodus to take place once GW2, D3, Planetside2, Secret World, etc., etc. release.

SWTOR obviously benefits from the fact that, besides WoW, there are very limited options when it comes to mainstream MMO's right now. But, all that aside, the PvP design in this game is laughable and downright terrible in concept. Let me explain:

-They've gotten some classes right, but others are noticeably OP, and others are severely underpowered and baffling in terms of what skills are in their trees compared with other class type trees for other classes. (i.e. Ranged Tanks having both the Range AND DMG advantage, superior DOTS, etc.)

-The PvP maps are not in essence true PvP. They are PvE with some scrapping in between. I can understand objective based games, but the idea being PvP is actually Player --VS.-- PLAYER- not player vs. objective where all the maps allow for zerging. Its totally possible for one team to farm the other and still lose the objective race. The problem there is Bioware never instituted bonuses for actually KILLING other players in PVP...what a concept. Thats what we PvP for.

It's totally possible for one team to win a warzone without doing ANY PvP for a sustained period (Think about it before responding with a quick troll) and that's a core design flaw- and a HUGE one at that.

We constantly go up against teams that avoid our guild on maps and do nothing but run to where we are NOT and try to cap the objectives because they know they can't win the fight. Well, fighting other players is what we PvP for!!!!! Its a simple concept.

But unfortunately, each Warzone gives massive advantages not only to zerg mentality over PvP skill (Civil War and VS), and others favor certain class types heavily (Huttball pulls/speed FTW). Its just a poor design for true PvP players/guilds when Bioware is actually encouraging folks to avoid the battles.

We honestly have games where we have 60-90 kills to like 12-15 on the other team, and we still lose because puggers can't hold a node against one stealther if we're not there holding their hand. That should NEVER be the case in a PVP environment that encourages player skill. Objectives are cool, but the purpose behind PvP is to achieve success through killing enemy players. Objectives, much like in WAR, should be complimentary, but not an absolution. Encouraging PvE node hugging/running/sneaking on Warzone maps to give sub-par players an advantage for avoiding fights is...well...pretty lame.

Its the imbalance of classes, poor PvP design, useless and stupidly random gear grind for the months we've been playing thus far, and total failure of implementing Illum correctly that are the beginning of the end for SWTOR's PvP crowd. The only ones we know that are staying behind are those that are just Star Wars fans in general, and even some of those guys are now questioning Bioware's design on art assets and systems. (Anyone seen the new war hero armor for tanks?).

This is not space ninja's, cyborgs, cowboys, and samurai. Its Star Wars, and BW has begun to destroy the canon culture it's game is built upon. They are either going to have to do some serious re-thinking of their design ideology soon or I expect them to even lose some of the fanbois taking up for all of their mistakes thus far.

Overall, I think any logical MMO vet that travel in my circles has gotten a sense that Bioware is not an MMO studio, they have only half-learned the lessons of previous MMO failures, the large doses of voice acting are, for the most part being spacebared through, and that these guys are in a bit over their heads. The fact that this game is pretty darn close to a WoW space clone is concern enough for me to give everything this studio is doing a skeptical glance. Its 2012, and this title is outdated at least 5-7 years as it stands, including game engine and combat.

Good post. However, I think it is too late for Bioware to make improvements that will substantially increase or retain their customer base.

Some will say that we just need to give BW time. I agree that in a year or two, with continued development, the game will be more interesting. However, BW had plenty of time. They failed to execute.

The only feature that this game has to stand on is the Star Wars lore. And that'll be enough for fans of the movies. It will not be enough for fans of MMORPG's. BW simply made too many bad decisions on the design, mechanics, and development of this game. We all agree that it has a nice story but we also know that the story falls flat after a few weeks of play. And subscription based MMO's are supposed to be played for years.

I think thats also pretty spot on. Honestly- if we took the voice acting costs, programming, man hours implementing, etc. away from this game during the development time and focused on some critical core game elements that we are severely lacking that I covered in my post above, I think we have a more polished and refined game.

The fact that they spent SOOOOO much time and money into something that players just -spacebar- through after the first go round cannot be understated as what will likely go down as one of the biggest MMO development mistakes in history. Its sad, really- but quite true and we're already starting to see it.

I knew this would be WoW in space based on last summer's coverage and the beta. I was ok with that concept, actually. If SWTOR was WoW, but better and with the Star Wars lore? Sign me up.

However, the game is really a grotesque mockery of both WoW and Star Wars. Your point about the armor is well taken.

What BW tried to do (copy WoW), turned out to be a huge failure. BW didn't take a few good elements from other games and make them better. They made them worse. Since this is the PvP forum, simply look at how they failed at implementing a fun PvP game. Combat, PvP, Skills, Armor... all a major step backwards compared to other MMOs.

Swtor: it all about gears, setup expertise, pve and story.. Unbalanced professions. too many stuns and CCs. Way too much pve. no bounty hunting system. I dont feel any hardcore pvp here due to fleets and too many big cities. No cross faction social, communication and mail. I finished all Dailies then log out.. No Reason to continue playing. Bored. Ilum is dead. No pvp event here because of no cross faction communication and like I said too many big cities and separate fleets.

I played SWG for 6 years.
SWG: it all about PvP, skills, los, crowd control, bounty hunting system, and battlefield. Few CCs and stun abilties for medium and weak professions only. Very little pve and story which I dont minded at all. Under 10 buttons thats it very simply. Strong cross-faction social, communication and mail. Easy to communication and set up the date for Battlefield and PvP Anywhere and anyplace. tons of PvP Events. Small Cities but alot easier to find PvP. No fleet. Rori planet, restuss pvp city itself is which had been alive for 8 years and never dead like ilum.

I still liked SWG's pvp, battlefield, bhunting system and cross faction communication 10x times better than here.

I played Anarchy Online for 11 years.
World of Warcraft for 5 years.

Sprinkled in between were short sessions of EvE Online, Lineage II, and WAR. Prior to any of this I played a text-based MUD.

What do I think of SWToR? Devs shouldn't be listening to baseless whiners who know nothing of game balance. Also, Ilum implementation is full of fail.

Yeah- think about it like this guys. If you knew 2 years ago that this game would actually make you love, MISS, and value Raph Koster something terrible, would you have even subbed?

I know I sure as hell owe him an apology, as its become obvious that progressive thinking is a forgotten art in the MMO industry, especially under the EA label.

After playing AO (which is an underrated MMO) and WoW for that long, I would think you know a great deal about game balance. Don't undervalue yourself or other veterans in regards to their MMO knowledge and expertise- its actually quite significant once you give a lot of your personal life to playing and testing these games for 10 + years.

Over the course of the past decade, the biggest shift I've seen in MMOs has been the community. 10 years ago, MMO forums were helpful places, full of mature, respectable players. Nowadays, everyone feels like they deserve godmode for little to no effort. Every single little thing, no matter how insignificant, becomes a point of complaint. When someone loses in PvP, there's always an excuse, some broken mechanic or overpowered class. And players, more often than not, resort to bashing each other rather than helping each other. Even the "helpful" ones do so as an ego trip, rather than a desire to actually help anyone.

AO, for the most part, retained a level of respectability among it's community, but over the past year, it's gotten as bad as WoW, the game with the worst player community I've ever seen. The unfortunate reality is that type of community is becoming norm for MMOs now.

And it makes me not want to play the game, either, knowing that it is full of the same garbage people who inhabit the forums. That the developers have outright stated that they are going to do everything the players ask for with this game, is a huge red flag. Who here knows better how to create and balance a game, devs or whiners? If the devs are that lacking in confidence of their own capability, we're in a world of trouble here.

Mainstream MMOs will always have this kind of rotten community, and will always cater to them, since the ultimate goal, of course, is to make a lot of money. Good PR trumps good gameplay. I'll move on to a less popular game, by a company who knows what they're getting themselves into. Third time's a charm.