Has this game turned you "off" to MMOs in general?

I've played a few MMOs Some I was forced to leave (ie:SOE killing MxO) some I just kinda drifted away from (ie:WoW).
Some I couldnt even finish Beta b/c they did nothing for me (ie DCUO) Still others I still pop into now and again (Fallen Earth.) Others I waited with baited breath to come out - The Agency (Canned) STO (didnt like) TSW (coming one day). I did play SWG but was not so caught up in it as some were, then SWTOR came along and o/c friends were planning on playing so I jumped on.

Has SWTOR turned me off MMO's No, not anymore than WoW or MxO or SWG or.... did. The games have changed since I started with MMOs but so have I. Do many games have what I like yes, do they have things that bug me? Yes Do some companies' Customer support/ticket resolution work better than others? Heck Yes !!

But as the Architect said "Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness. "

I keep hoping the game I am playing gets better/fixed etc and I keep hoping the NEXT MMO I'll play will be just like ___________ and have ___________.

So even while I play this I look for other possibilities b/c its a game and when i get tired or pissed off or its no longer fun its time to gracefully leave and find another MMO that will engage me. I even remember playing Zork - PC & Text based - Graphics were awesome b/c they were all in your head.

Follow the hand holding breadcrumb quest trail is AAA? Are you serious?

Dude..... If you had a 38 Druid and couldn't kill a skelly.. It wasn't the games fault you ran for your life.. It was YOURS.. Know how to play your class.. Ever heard of the spell "harmony"?? USE IT!!! Plus, you had SOW and couldn't lose agro from the mobs? Please....

/boggled

Solo play was introduced because finding a group gets tough after the first few months thins things out.

But solo play is silly in an mmo context.

The nenxt huge mmo will be the one that finds a way to force group play out of necessity while making finding a group easy.

The early days of EQ were he most fun I've had, and aI don't think it was because the genre was new.

I'm not so sure about that, Gorgor. I think the "must group" train has left the station. Too many people with reasons to not group and too much money out there to not provide them with what they want.

I do think it would be GREAT if a company could come up with what you are describing but I don't think it'll be huge.

The problem is that your "being read to" analysis is bogus. First, you are assuming incorrectly that people read through text based dialog. If they are space barring through Voice Overs in this game, they are almost certainly space barring (or the equivalent) through text based quests in other games (or ignoring the subtitles in this one).

Second, it is not just being read to. It is about the acting, and there are points you reach where you hear the dialog even if you are space barring through most of it. Even that gives you a context you don't get in games where there is nothing but text. Likewise, you are also falsely assuming that, just because people may space through dialog they have already gone through before, that means they space through all dialog. That simply is not the case. For instance, the Smuggler responses differ from the Trooper and Consular responses, so even though I may have done a quest on my Commando or my Shadow, when I go through those same quests, listening to the Smuggler responses gives a different flavor, and even on the same character, hearing the response can be amusing, even on dialog you have heard before.

For instance, I regularly run with someone I have been gaming with for more than a decade. We do the dailies together on our 50s. Do we space bar through most of the dialog? Of course we do. We have done those dailies on multiple characters many, many times each. However, there are certain responses I will listen to every time, like the one where the dialog text choice is "Shut up. I'm in." On my Commando, I listen to it because he says the line with such a lack of conviction. With my Shadow, I listen to it because the Consular response is "It's better than putting up with this guilt trip," and the way he says it is perfect. For me, those responses don't get old, primarily because I would not react that way, and, therefore, would not read those tones into the text if it were just me reading the text. In the same way, I don't have a Smuggler at that level yet, so it is often fun to listen to my friend's dialog choice responses when he wins the rolls because the choices I make with my Trooper and Consular are typically the lawful/good type responses which are sharply contrasted to the more chaotic/neutral type responses from my friend's Smuggler. The voice acting provides a flavor and a context I would not get because I would read into the text different things.

Similarly, we were on Esseles last night running through what had to be the fifth or sixth time each between different alts or rerunning it to help guild mates. After getting through the part of the story where you "save" the Engineers, the Ambassador gives you a warning about the next challenge you are facing, and my friend chose the option which caused his character to say, "I'll kill anyone who gets in my way," and he won the dialog roll, so his line was acted out. Had this just been text based, we would have likely glanced at the text and spaced through it. In this case, because his dialog option won, we got a scene with him saying that line with conviction. For the next few dialogs, someone would say something wishy-washy, and, because we were on Vent, we were making comments like, "Unless you get in my way" or something to that effect. That simply would not have happened if the dialog was not "read to us."

The bottom line, dismissing the Voice Overs as simply having the dialog "read" instead of reading it ourselves is nonsense. The Voice Overs are acting, and they add character to the game that does not happen when you read it yourself.

I know, right? It's quite ironic that neither of us like each other (on a general sense). I've never totally understood why MMOers feel that console gamers had any real effect on MMO games, but whatever.

My PS3 is much better than my PC and it's actually more recent as well. Console games are also made on a level playing field, which makes the experience equal assuming you have the proper display (an HD one). I don't have to worry about watching SW:TOR videos and wishing that my game didn't look like crap.

I totally agree with the specific point you're making - when the lines are delivered well. If that were the case on the regular, I would move on to the larger point, but I feel like an alien because everyone's like: "wow, the acting is so amaze in the face!" And I'm like, uhhhh. I'm trying to think of a single quest where the voice acting delivery added to the quest. Maybe the one time is that little girl on Coruscant who asks you to rescue her brother and then calls you her second-best friend. But that's not because the acting was great, it's just I'm a sucker for little kids.

I have no doubt that there must have been other lines that were delivered perfectly. I just can't recall them ever making an impact. That says volumes to me.

The larger point is this: great voice acting can certainly add to a game - I can quote huge segments of Mass Effect dialogue strictly because the tone was perfect ("Metal in tank an excellent iron supplement for maw's diet!"). I still remember: "hey ya, it's me! Imoen!" because the tone was memorable and conveyed something about the character. The original Starcraft units had amazing lines ("Ssst, oh, that's the stuff." "...and dispense some indiscriminate justice!").

But of all the fully VO'd games I've ever played, the only game I would ever say I played *strictly because of the voice acting* was the Mass Effect series (and only as Fem Shep). That might not even be a true claim, either, but I'm willing to exaggerate because I thought Jennifer Hale did an incredible job, there.

So: people really will *only* play a game if it's voice-acted. Ok, cool. I get that, if well done, it can add a lot to the experience. But as the deciding factor?

The only thing it has done is cemented the fact that BW and their products are better left on the shelf. ME and DA started the ball TOR has turned me off the company for good. As to MMOs, I'll beta test any I get invites for. Discovering and helping build something new is more of and a refreshing challenge.

As long as they keep up with a stream of content than this game has a healthy future.

The problem at launch was the PvE content was too easy and full BM gear only took most people 2 months after launch to get. Being limited by how many bags you can get a day caused people to just log on, do dailies, and log off.

This is sort of what happened at WOTLK launch with face roll Naxxramas and an arena system dominated by triple Death Knight + 2 Holy Paladin teams.