I hope BW/EA sticks with this game for years to come....

True that

this game needs to turn from a theme park to a hybrid of theme and sandbox.

if bioware really look at it they will see that it makes the most seance, u cant throw out super content every mouth it takes time, but with sandbox a lot of things like deco, player hunting ect help players create and shape the game around them while they can take their time.

We'll have to see first how F2P affects the game.

Come on.
Please don't play the "poor little TOR" victim card here.
This was a 300mill dollar game, with a built in audience from a successful franchise.
Everything was in it's favor!

I've been playing this game from Dec 2011 until now, and the reason I actually made the effort was BECAUSE of the positive press and reviews the game had. Even the game mag I subscribe to gave it a 4 page review and high marks.

THE HYPE WAS GOOD HYPE!
It simply didn't live up to it.

People like myself aren't disappointed with the game because "we just have to hate", we're disappointed because the game came out with an engine it wasn't optimized for (they were told this), unnecessary imbalances, a strange travel structure, lack of MMO basics that every beginner should have, terrible character design option, not much control over character outfits, poorly designed outfits, broken PVP/Open World PVP and a team that seemed unable to communicate with each other.

After a certain point, you're just standing on the fleet all day!
The game wasn't ready for release. It just wasn't.

Now after sinking our money to special editions and subs, the game is moving toward F2P, content I may still have to pay for, and $19 prices for the game I paid $75 for.

It's a joke.

Even BW/EA have acknowledged such problems so why do people keep insisting it's "just hate"?

I don't buy it.

I put time and money into this game for a reason and to be honest, it is disappointing when a cheaper game like GW2 can do things so much better than a game that ran upwards of 300mill. Even that last event was a waste of time because some of the more expense rewards were only for Vanguards and Snipers, and the final reward was a 90% broken looking speeder with a pet you ALREADY HAD, but without color.

Seriously?

So many avoidable problems, but they fell on deaf ears.
No wonder so many jumped ship.

- DH

For those of us with many years of playing MMORPGs, it was easily identified as a MMORPG with immense potential. Solid launch, good starting content, first content patch added quickly, first repair patch added quickly.....then all hell broke loose with players demanding a finished game and then leaving when they could not get that.

Honestly, I think its heading in a very dangerous direction at this point in time, but back then? I was shaking my head, perhaps as much as the original team was. I could not believe what I was reading on these boards, what people had to say about it, that people were leaving a brand new MMORPG 2 months in.

Regardless of what happens with this game I fear the days of the solid, growing, evolving MMORPG are over. Other businesses are looking at this issue. What we may very well end up with in the future games are cheap, fast, bloated, superficial content sitting in a cash shops, drawing every cent they can out of it.

Business follows the market. Most unfortunate that the "market" is made up of people that have no idea what they are asking for or where they are leading the industry.

As you've demonstrated, it did not "live up" to the expectations of the current crop of gamers. It did, however, live up to the concept of a MMORPG.

They designed an ongoing MMORPG, where an environment was provided for one to enjoy a game, build a community of friends and guild-mates. What players wanted was a an instant face paced shooter with instant grouping, addons, macros, "challenging dungeons", continual content spoon fed to be digested as quickly as was possible.

I fear the players are going to get just that, superficial games flooding the market with cash shops filled with content to be purchased.....but not an MMORPG.

You seem to be making a lot of broad generalizations.

I think a lot of the players who went for this game weren't just the "next gen" of gamers. They were fans of the KOTOR's in-depth series, as well as long term MMO gamers since before this project was conceived. Some were from SWG and that game wasn't the best looking thing out there. From what I saw it was pretty static, too.

Let's not be disingenuous here.
Depth wasn't a problem, even the people leaving stated that.
It was the overall structure of the game itself that failed it.

Having to run/shuttle/run through empty areas, sitting through longer than normal load screens, participating in broken PVP with terrible gear scaling, treadmill events for lackluster prizes, empty servers for MONTHS (I skipped SO many Flashpoints), an engine that makes you feel like tossing out your PC, poor customer service, and pretty weak end game content, it all inevitably can wear some people out.

Forget superficial, SWTOR looks better than GW2, how about just getting the game to run smoothly?

"It’s not productized yet,” we told Gordon. “There are whole sections of code that is only roughed in and not optimized for performance or security. And there are very few comments and very little documentation.”

He didn’t care. “We are going to have tons of engineers. We can finish it ourselves. We’re going to want to modify your source code for our special project anyway.”

That's from the creators of the Hero Engine itself.
Yet we were told it was our computers for months.

Mine was brand new.

I can't speak for others (and you certainly can't for me) but I bought this game because I enjoyed the depth of the KOTOR series.

If all I cared about was the superficial I wouldn't have wasted my time because some of the game designs when it comes to personal characters aren't that great and the way your toons end up looking, it's like you're playing an MMO not related to the SW universe at all.

When a Jedi looks like a Samurai or a Bronze Power Ranger, your Sith has a pointing hat with odd eyes that make you look like something out of cirque de solei, or simply a giant fan on your head and you still play the game, I think looks are really a low priority.

Cash shops don't ruin game depth anyway.
When SWTOR sets it's own shop up, and it will, will that change the stories they already have in place?

No.

- DH

It all boils down to the level of commitment BW/EA has to this game.

If all development now goes towards trickle content in form of a light-ish update every 6 weeks and towards the cash shop then that's just vegitation.

TOR needs to pull a WOTLK out if its hat. An expansion that "relaunches" the game.

Ok, for those of you that don't want to wade through the whole podcast, this issue is addressed 50 minutes in (but they discuss a lot of interesting stuff plot wise and where the galaxy stands at the end of everyone's story) so if you have an hour or so to kill, have at. Below is my interpretation of what Mr. Hood said. Your mileage may vary.

What lead writer Hall Hood says is that ideally (he did not commit to anything), his vision for future class stories in SWTOR would be based on "The Avengers" model. So, initially you had a bunch of full length movies featuring the players (Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, etc) that ultimately came together in one movie, The Avengers. In The Avengers, each character had individual micro-plots within the meta plot so they all got screen time. But, the focus was on achieving one goal. Ideally, this is what he would like to do.

Since it took 3 Chapters to get us from 1-50, it's not reasonable to think Bioware will provide another 3 to get from 50 to 55 or 60. One chapter would probably do it. And that chapter will likely focus on fighting the Dread Masters. So, while we were the "stars" of our own story line, in the next update, our personal story will be a smaller part of a larger group effort. Makes sense, since as this is not a single player game, no matter what choices you made, we all need to start from pretty much the same point to fit into a larger meta-plot. Personally, I would ~love~ to see cut scenes that would require bringing another class in to complete. Such as, Sith Warrior will need to have a Bounty Hunter with him on such and such mission.

It's not reasonable to think that Bioware has already decided to shelve any story updates, since story is what separates SWTOR from the rest. I think they'd shutter the game first before making it mmo-only w/o story, since the implementation of mmo-features was...lets face it. I'll be kind and say "rushed." 5 other games do it better right now than SWTOR. Hopefully, the bugs, crafting and balance issues will get resolved with future updates.

So according to the interview, what does this mean? Does it mean that we won't get another 3 Chapters for our toons in the next level cap update whenever that is? Sounds that way. Does it mean our stories are ending where they are now? Doubt it.

Here's hoping.

Fully behind this thread and really hope it just runs and runs and runs.