Why non-stop alt leveling will fail.

Excellent! Because he's going to be my focus now that the event is over. I want to get more active on the Empire side. Kind of need a break from my goody-two-shoes Jedi.

Thanks for giving me the nudge and now I can hardly wait 'til server up!

I loved my BH more on Taris being a total s.m.a.r.t.a.s.s against Thana Vesh. Ow all the pretty ways I was thinking about to nuke her....

I personally am playing 8 characters (one of every class) and levelling them and their crew skills (I quite like crafting) such that they all keep each other supplied with eveything they need.

After getting over the initial "oh look, JEDI" and "ooooh, I can be a trooper" and "yaaaay stealth smuggler", I settled in to do just that. We're all contentedly cruising along, fully provided for at our levels with stuff. Then there's the ability to contribute to the guild and other players.

Is great fun!

So basically, lets assume the majority are casual alt players, then how do regular MMO players fit in a SW MMO?

The made a single playing coop game play as an alt game, like WoW, as a big money/time sink, and put enough 'MMO' content to call it an MMO, and draw enough people in. However, WoW has balanced classes, and better open world pvp, so the crowd they attracted with all the hype: 'open world on illum, 'exploration', tripple A MMO expectations etc, to make them disappointed because its more of a single player game. edit: However exploration is done well enough, but it should be better imo, and one way to do that is have a lot more off the beaten paths with a lot more interesting creatures, camps with an alien culture (the holding by the hand to quest areas ruins this, and these areas dont need quests, and maybe just area quests, or special exploration bosses with codex rewards), and datacrons. Some of datacrons are insane to find, since you cant even see them when in a certain area to be attracted to them and they are not even in exploratory areas for an average explorer. They need more of a medium for datacrons as exploration, instead of sloppily making it insanely difficult to find and calling it exploration for some of the datacrons. So my point is it will require ingenuity to navigate (back track) to a certain datacron and it should be easily to identify in an obvious area, or still obvious from an off beaten path. Yes, some should should be for the ultra achiever, but more of a medium should be present in such a large MMO (land wise).

I digress, 1.2 is shaping up to be more of an MMO, but thats 4 months after it was released. And its still not fully phased properly.

For an MMO there has to be good combat, which does exist in swtor, but also has to be balanced... which does not exist.
So balance for combat is a fail, thats the first fail in swtor as an MMO. Which means dueling sucks, arenas will suck, and people who stack the right classes will win ranked, or even unranked. But for ranked where it matters more to get the rank that people want, they might be the wrong class, with the wrong AC, and wrong spec to play properly to win. So they are expected to reroll. Thats unprofessional, and not the right reason to reroll.

The other parts of an MMO which are important is the community. This is created not just with competitive pvp, but with an environment that stimulates that. So crafting, open world, and a lot of social activities, and end game multiplayer replay-ability.

Crafting was a big failure at release, so that hurt the community at end game. And it still is hurting when they pigeon hole pvp classes to use bio chem instead of other crafts and depend on other classes to benefit from them for a price.

Open world, is hurting, because the quests are too isolated, and open world pvp has not been implemented properly. (has potential, but that potential should have been realized when they were making an MMO with 300 million)

Social activities. This is a big fail by BW. They claim there is a social atmosphere, but that only exists from FP/WZ?events and collecting outfits, pets, cars, and other nice gadgets which requires the players to role play. Not all MMOers are RP'ers. They need more than an outfit and fluff stuff in a room for them to socialize. Where is the actual social activities like mini games, or otherwise the fluff stuff is simply customization and the social activity is chatting in a lobby with my avatar. Its so easy to implement and makes a big difference.

End game replay-ability is something general, which involves warzones, mini games in cantinas, traveling to different worlds for events, or to actually do the war-zone from the planet by going to an entrance to the warzone, open world pvp, crafting that requires people to travel, player housing and pvp etc.. Generally, its having a large mix of things to do that adds end game value and makes the game into an actual MMO.

They did not invest their 300 million to make the game into an MMO which they could have easily. But rather paid over paid Voice actors, and put a lot of in game cinematics, and expensive trailers for the game at the expense of developing a greater MMO, with better balancing as well for combat.

Swtor has potential, but its first flaw comes 1. the engine and what is should be able to do. 2. class balance.

Then after that, it should be all great. Them adding the expected content to the game... but thats after failing to make an MMO. Which is a terrible game plan by BW. In a competitive market, and with standards of what makes an MMO an MMO, they should have put more into making the game into an MMO. Also, it would make playing alts much better for people who already enjoy playing the end game, to play end game with a different style of combat, or story from a RP/lore sense.

Easy, I'm a hardcore alt player.

LOL!

I guess I am too.

So lets assume the majority are alt players. Fixed it for you.

But you could or could not be the majority.

However, the point is, an MMO is not to play alts, and if that is what ends up happening, then its only due to the illusion of an endgame to draw people.

I think that works when the genre is still new like at the time of WoW, or earlier, and simple things like being a nice quality 3D MMO, was something that was amazing. However, now people spend their time recreationally with so many different gaming titles single or multiplayer, and an example if someone were to recreate a game from 1970s with simple arcade features, then its value would be little, and expected to be free, and its only value would be peoples personal enjoyment. Call it being spoilt, or matching peoples expectations with current trends, but its a business and people are aware of the market. The existing market sets peoples expectations to like the game or not like the game based on that as well. Also since its a SW game, it requires from a business perspective to do the game justice and live up to expectations, and not be a free 1970s game that reserves the rights for a SW MMO. They decided to make an MMO, and a SW MMO, so they should live up to those expectations of an MMO.

Since when? I've played MMOs for over a decade, and alt playing has ALWAYS been encouraged...

Not the sole purpose. After reading all that I have written, you did not get the hint I am talking about introducing more to the game other than playing alts?

Or do you like to take things out of context just to argue?

edit:

The last thing i said, previously.

MMO sets a certain expectation. So when BW devs say as an MMO the end game is playing alts, thats 1. not reassuring 2. not what people expect.

Also playing alts would not be so bad if the quests were more dynamic for side quests. Like area quests to trigger an effect, but it triggers the quest giver runs in to give quest.