Judging the game too harsh

TBF, what DM and Andryah are getting at as far as "the nomads" has "some" validity. From a WoW perspective this nomad phenomia is not as big a problem compared to other games. The community has changed. All people that play MMORPGs nowadays are not the same MMORPG players of old. MMORPGs have become more accessable as an entertainment type so many that didn't participate in MMORPGs before are now doing so. I suspect that this nomadic migration is the result of the normal market cycle for any product ( not just MMORPGs or games in general). This will always be the case as people deside what to do with their limited resources (in this case time and treasure).

WoW will always be the exception to the rule unless something HUGE comes along to take it down a peg or two. WoW is an example of right place and right time. To be fare to SWTOR, it was introduced after Rift, and during GW2 and TSW and now it has to fight against MoP. Things ARE going to fluctuate. I think that SWTOR could have done better if it payed attention to it's beta testers and not it's "focus groups", not release last Christmas and waited until it had Legacy Finished.

The same thing happened when EQ was in its prime. Every game that followed it was a clone of it and the players would try out the new game, decide it offered nothing different and then go back to EQ because they were already established in it.

Eventually technology catches up to any game and even the exact clone of it becomes more appealing because it makes the original look old and dated. WoW's secret to longevity was in targeting non-gamers in the first place who didn't have the PC's to run most of the competition. It will catch up to them eventually too.

GW2 is a hard, group-centered game?

GW1 was sold as the anti-MMO. It was way more FPS than MMO so I highly doubt they reversed that in the sequel. That would be like Blizzard making WoW2 more hardcore than Everquest.

Hard? Maybe not but no MMO is, Group centered? Yes, you're forced to play with other people in Dynamic Events and World V World is one giant zerg fest.

The things that people want in TOR are in GW2 yet people still left it.

Wasn't GW2 hyped to be TNBT in PvP? And it turn out not to be TNBT in PvP after all so people left. Pretty sure GW2 rise and fall was due to the "promise" of PvP goodness (we saw mainly a drop in PvPers in SWTOR at the realese of GW2).

It's because they're crap tbh. That's my theory at least.

Um, no. WoW's first year was far more spectacular considering their subscription numbers went up in the first year and they didn't have to develop a F2P model to keep the game afloat.

Yeah, WoW had 7 years more time for development, but that doesn't mean ToR should be 7 years behind. They knew what people liked, not just from WoW, but from other games such as Rift: Cross-Server LFG, Cross-Server PvP, easy transfer system to another server, wardrobe tab, /random, ready check, customizable UI, bug-free raids, optimized performance. How many of these things are really off the check list? I see 2, maybe 3 if you count the wardrobe tab (I don't). Now let's look at Rift, rift has all of these things and they got them all up and running within the first 6 months. Well, you can argue bug-free raids as new raids will always have new bugs, but EC HM is still buggy... and how long did it take BW to fix Soa's double-ticking lightning balls? C'mon... really?

If WoW launched as was in today's MMO world it would be one of the biggest MMO failures ever, that game at launch had SOOOO many flaws when compared to the recent 3 (RIFT TOR GW2) that have come out. Its number went up because it was the only MMO worth checking out with its casual friendly gameplay when compared to EQ2 not to mention all of the Blizzard fans.

There was a poll back in pre-launch that asked people what kind of dungeon finder people wanted. Cross realm finder came in at only 25% IIRC. Everything else you mentioned comes with time and most other MMO do not release with (frankly I like the current "wardrobe tab" we have with mods.".

Classic time travel paradox here. Since there was no WoW until "now" there would have been no RIFT, TOR, GW2 to compare it too. Setting up the old "apples and oranges" rebuttle. *all said in a Dr. Sheldon Cooper Voice*

I still maintain that the "meme" of "people behave more badly in cross server X" is rubbish. I maintain it is the same regardless because there really isn't any "community" anymore like there was "back in the day" because the type of players that play MMORPGs are NOW just "standard gamers" with no investment in playing the entity know as an MMORPG. That said. Cross Server (anything) should be part of EVERY MMORPG in the future. Maybe even dynamic cross server "zones" like WoW is doing currently.

So true!!!

SWTOR is competing in the MMO market as it is TODAY, not the market from 7-8 years ago. They KNEW what their competition was, what it had, what people liked/disliked from it (had they taken a moment to listen). Instead, they got so caught up in their own inflated ideas that they forgot who they were making the game for and went as far as mocking people who wanted 'free roam space'...they insulted the very people they needed as customers. They believed so strongly in their vision, that they closed their minds to any alternative views.

To be fair, the voice acting in this game is outstanding!!! And it's most certainly a HUGE part of the 'draw' for people...but that's where the novelty ends. I feel as though there's a very solid foundation here, it just needs a lotta work to bring the game up to where it should have been.