Who Swtor was made for.

1) MMOs that don't have "hardcore" players are MMOs that are dying. And the reason, in my view, is that ideally a MMO is a massive self-sustaining virtual world that really has no beginning nor end. (Obviously they do have beginnings and ends, but in the heart of a good MMO one can barely tell.) Anytime you have this situation of a self-sustaining virtual world, hardcore gamers will be there. When the content is endless, more effort and time is always better.

SWTOR's problem is that it isn't a MMORPG, it is a SPOG (single-player online game). It isn't a massive virtual world in which there is endless content and community driven activity. It is a single player game that, like all single player games, has a beginning and end. Consequently, it doesn't allow for hardcore gaming anymore than Mass Effect allows for hardcore gaming. All hardcore gamers manage to achieve is that they finish the game faster than everyone else.

2) I believe SWTOR represents the end of this "single player online game" design philosophy which has been the bane of the mmorpg world for almost a decade.

Since WoW demonstrated that most mmo players spend their time soloing, game after game after game has come out with this quest-based soloing design philosophy, each one failed, and each one blamed their failures on not pursuing this philosophy hard enough! "Grouping" became a bad word; "hardcore" became derogatory; and the well-balanced citizen with a job and a real life became the MMO ideal. These "casuals", as they were called, had too much real life to really want a virtual life, so developers figured that there must be something wrong with the "life" aspect of online games -- and that translated into throwing out the socializing aspects of these games and focusing instead on the solo experience. Solo experience for the tired citizens who comes home from work, sick and tired of people, and just wants to chill out in from of the TV . . . I mean, PC . . . for a few hours before bed. They want the SPOG.

Now they've tried it, now they've put every last cent into the ultimate SPOG . . . and the consensus: the game is failing. Perhaps you can blame it on the scifi genre, perhaps you can blame in on the lack of PvP (actually, that is a pretty valid concern), perhaps on the stability or performance, but all of these excuses -- which have worked for failed SPOGs in the past -- fall short because everyone knows this game was the ultimate SPOG.

The problem isn't the graphics, character customization, or too much advertising. The problem is that the SPOG philosophy doesn't work (well) and with that realization the dark age of MMOs (the WoW period) is, in my opinion, finally coming to an end.

No, WoW (that you keep talking about) in nothing like SPOG. When at max level, you cant do anything but group in order to advance your chars. All the story (the little one that there is), progresses in the raids. A game that Forces you to group, cant be a single player game.

This game, if it fails it will be because : a) after focusing on the relaxed players at the beginning (thus alienating the hardcore), it seems to turn its attention to the hardcore (with 1.2), thus alienating the remaining relaxed players, b) a lot of self centered "hardcore" people, screamed, whined and cried aloud at the forums trying to turn this game into something that wasnt at the beginning (a hard challenging game) and until their wishes came true (call me 1.2), they flamed it so hard that alot new potential customers run away. Funny thing is that they said so many bad things about this game, that even if it does turn to be almost as they want it, they will not come back because they 'd be a "SWTOR player"*.

SWTOR isnt a a SPOG as you call it. If it was, I d be able to solo all the content : all the heroic 2/4 quests, all the FP (solo fp's) and all the raids (solo raids). As long as this cant happen, this aint a single player game.

* This is fast becoming an accusation, a player description that defines incompetent players who succeed in a very easy game.

In the SWTOR vernacular and on a scale of 0-5, with 0 being a complete misfit & 5 being a perfect fit:

• Extreme (0): they live to pwn the game & its community. RL is an accessory to playing. Is either on the pro circuit or wishes they were.
• Hardcore (3): advanced player who studies, theorycrafts and practices in detail. Full tier end game success is a desired goal. Occasionally schedules RL around the game.
• Casual (5): intermediate player who studies, theorycrafts and practices enough to achieve team play competence. Eventual HM success & occasional OPs participation is a desried goal. Schedules the game around RL.
• Occasional (4): plays the game just to play with no set goals other than basic advancement, exploration & socializing. Plays when the mood suits them.

Cheers!

You can solo all the heroic 2 quests, and some heroic 4s can be soloed by stealthers.

(Yes I know swtor has traditional MMO combat and I hate it.)

The best MMOs I've played always made pvp the endgame where pve was simply there to fuel the endgame pvp in terms of gear, levels, crafting resources, and money.

The hook to those games though was that winning in the pvp of those games would then provide a boost to the pve side of those games. So winning in pvp would garner you more money from mobs, more crafting resources, cheaper store prices for armor etc.

From the description of what you've enjoyed in the past, at some point you may want to look into the Secret World when it releases Jun 19th if Swtor ultimately doesnt fulfill your gaming needs.

I hear this stuff and it's hard to believe; my group finds heroics very challenging and we aren't new at this gaming thing. It maybe easy for a few people but that doesn't mean it is for everyone...we all seen the disaster in Cataclysm with the "Dungeons are Hard" fiasco; millions of lost subs later Blizzard is scrambling to win people back.

We currently have a situation where so called pro gamers are crying that it's too easy while us mere mortals are wondering why we have to go through an area of 50 elites to complete a level 40 quest objective and "u r a bad" doesn't cut it when your casual base is lining up to leave after you have persuaded the developers that the game is too easy.

I think more fragmentation is inevitable, and not necessarily a bad thing.

The key to future success in my opinion will be providing content delivery against multiple smaller niches while leveraging social tools to stich together the various niches and segments into broader communities.

I envision a day when both of us can play content that is designed to excite and challenge us while meeting our unique wants and desires (which may be substantially different from one another), yet still be able to connect, share and socialize across our respective gaming environments.

I certainly don't want to lose the broader community and agree that a really good game has players of all types that interact and bring something that makes the overall experience better for all.

But who's to say that can't be something like multiple SW based 'games' that deliver content tailored to various groups that are all tied together through common social hubs?