3 Areas of development SwTOR could break WoW and every other MMO

and pretty much blow them out of the water.

1. MMOs have a massive problem with end game. What happens when you hit max level. Anyone who does raiding and enjoys it knows it gets old after a while, and yes, having new raids come up every few months, helps, but again it's old, wow's being doing that for years - people are looking for something more.

What ToR can do!
Create a completely thoroughly engaging second game. But based in space instead of land. With updated graphics, space exploration, space levelling, space combat both grouped and single, pvE and pvp. It is linked to your legacy, so accessible by all your characters, but it doesn't begin till your first character hits 50.

Imagine you've hit 50, and you have a whole new game to dig your teeth into, one who's levelling process can stretch fo a long time, because you'll still have the ground based game and new raids etc to occupy yourself well, but now have this very star warsy aspect.. no game provides this yet, its an aspect of Star Wars everyone likes, and it can work with the game.

Gain ship levels, that give you access to better ships any of your characters can access in addition to their class ship. Gain mastery over the 5 aspects of Frigate class space ships that need 5 players to man, or ones that need 2 players to man. You cand your companions can also man some 5 man space crafts -that character will need to have the number of companions accessible ofc, but what you can then do is switch tot the different companion positions in the ship during combat and hve them take over certain bits, you may need to do this to win some single player scenarios.

Yes you can now fly to enemy space, and attack their fleet, or they yours, run to you hanger bay, pick up your class ship or if you are high enough to access more offensive attack vehicles, use them to break off the attack board the attacking ships switching to land base and take out the invaders.. that could easily be a space Flashpoint

2. Vehicle combat. WoW messed this up in their WotLK expansion, never developed it threw it down. again, if ToR wants to gain subscribers, it has to provide significant gameplay elements totally unique to it that it's biggest competitors don't have. The great conversations and scenes are certainly one area. But they end at level 50, so unless you want people to go to 50 then switch to another game, to keep them you need other gameplay styles in addition to the usual to come in.

With a space 2.0 game that uses vehicles in spae, it won't be that hard to adapt that to in planet vehicles, and have misisons and occasions where the combat happens on a vehicle, either on the ground on some sort of speeder r, or your own speeder, or in the air where you take an air craft and attack ensuing ships in the area.

Imagine being able to fly up to those Imperisal ships on Korriban? yeah it may require a loading screen to access Korriban atmosphere for the air fight, but loading screens are a lot less annoying when or if cool cinematics roll in the foreground while the zone e.g. Korriban air space loads. The cinematic shows you climbing in your vehicle and taking off into the air /atmosphere to dock with one of the spaceships you had seen on the ground and commandeer them or if the mission just requires your ship to attack enemy fighter jets, then that's what you do. which brings me to 3.

3. more complete cinematics that will make the game appear to have no loading screens at all. Rather than have a loading screen, because ToR has many, and it uses them because each area is a separate zone, rather than all continuous like in some other MMOs, this currently makes it feel very disconnected, sometimes. A cinematic should roll that shows the actual journey while the zone is loading in the background.

e.g. your leave your base fleet to go Voss, rather than just see your ship leave the docking bay into fleet space, which happens when you click on the door, when you click on voss in the star chart, have a cinematic see you jump to light speed from space then hit orbit, when you click on the door to exit and Voss is loading up, the cinematic plays showing your space ship fly into the orbital station. Or if it was a shuttle from Blackhole to Section X.. you will see in the Section X load up, a cinematic showing the space shuttle take off from Coreilla spaceport, fly into space, jump to light speed, exit out of lightspeed over Belsavis and fly to a different section of the planet than the loading screen cinematic will show for taking the shuttle from Belsavis orbital station to Minimum Security section..as it is a different par t of the planet Section X is located on. Stuff like that.

Another area of massive disconnect is indoors in space stations or city planets like Nar Shaddar and Coruscant, you easily lose a sense of where you are. I have no idea if i've moved a level up in the fleet station when i take the elevator to homeworld departures, or interfleet transport, or mission deck.. no idea of where in the station from an outside perspective i am, totally disconnected. Same in a place like Nar Shaddar, have no idea that i'm in a massive tall skyscraper , i could just as well be in a wide open space mall, and stepping into those elevators tahtjjust make the screen black out and in, could easily just be 1 flight of stairs up.. it gives me no idea where I am.

Perhaps a short camera view of where you are in the building/base as you travel in to where you are going should be given, that really shows or give you a bigger picture of where you are.

4. Finally animations.. nothing speaks cool like animations, and in a universe like star wars with super human like Jedi/sith abilities and fancy flashy space-grade highly advanced society technology...show casing this through cool movement animations and having abilities like jedi/sith force jump, trooper/BH rocket launcher , agent/smuggler use of devices like grappling hooks would awesome. Here are some suggestions.

a) Move behind: A movement button, like jump, but allows your character to move behind the opponent. jedi/sith get fancy animations, sometimes a side step with spin around, sometimes a front flip over the head to the other side, or if facing away the animation will back flip instead. Trooper/agent won't have the fancy graphic, but can still swivel round.
CAn even get more elaborate versions on the sage/sorceror who would launch from range over the person to the same distance on the other side, give or take

b) toe to toe: is a toggle feature most useful on tanks that go face to face, or dps in solo fights where no one else is tanking and they can't go behind. toggle to toe on, and the animation will keep your character moving instep with the opponent, moving forward will rather then let yo move through the character, will push you forward and the opponent backward instep oit will do roll check to see if your forward wins against the npcs forward and decide who goes. or something like that. you can suppress toe toe with another key while it is toggles on to just run through the opponent as normal moving forward does, to either go behind them or run away. However you can use the move behind key to get behind them.

c) Jedi/Sith Jump: finally implemented a staple of all jedi games and a big aspect in all the movies/aniamtions etc: Jump, activates a small target reticule at your cursor you can then click on a location to jump to, be it up one of those tall elevator or jump a huge distance forward. how far or high you can move the reticule from your character depends on the rank of the skill. Alternatively it can be fixed pre jump whose distance and height are determined by the skill rank and the direction you're facing etc. - Datacron worries? well yes it will make some datacrons easier to get, not all though, but if you get this at a high level especially 50, then you deserve to have some easier to find, but also bear in mind that the expansion will take you having these abilityies into account and those new datacrons would have none made easeir by your new ability. Still i wouldn't let worry about accessing some datacron stop such a star wars basic jedi/sith force user feature.

Force Drop: This is falling from great heights. The animation if you use this will make your character crouch in a stylish stance, and you drop much faster than fall speed landing in a crouch, just like in the movies. You take no fall damage from this, unless you jump into areas that kill you instantly. but you have to use the ability and you have to have learnt it.

Troopers/Bounty hunters are not left in the dark. They can get a class rocket booster, that can be upgraded to do different things. It works differently from jedi/sith force jumps, rather than quick bursty leap, you engage the rocket launcher pretty much like the legacy boots, but it auto ascends to a height, now, you have some additional maneouvrebiilty unavailable to jedi, in that short of your boosters maximum reachable height you can stop your ascent nad you can move at that distnace for a short while.. Sure you can skip over some enemis that way, but beware though they only last a short while so you may want to use this strategically in combat areas.

Engage rocket booster while falling in a rocket thrust activated before you hit the ground will allow you to hover just above the ground and when it disengages you drop to ground taking no fall damage

Agents/Smugglers: You use devices there, to get up that long elevator to the top, chasing after the boosting Bh/Trooper or jumping sith/jedi you have your devices, hi-tech grappling hooks. the jedi might Yoda jump from rock to rock, and the bounty hunter just rocket boost the distance, but you use your ropes and hooks to achieve the same thing, and you can do something else to, yank them or attach to them to piggy back the distance, something they can't do.

When you drop to the floor you can engage a device throwing to the ground that creates small pad that cushions your fall,and it's not always the same thing either, one thing you have that they don't have is a range of different types of devices employed in the animation.



d) Other movement options can include crawl, climb - no reason why ToR can't have these, it is not a wow clone, it is a superior game, you can do things in here that you can't do in lesser games, all these things will help greatly distinguish it further in gameplay as much as it is distinguished in story telling, yeah, crawling and climbing may not have much strategic implications for combat, but like jump, just having them can be a cool addition, future expansion can have use for them to.. especially smugglers/Agents. A sniper can finally actually lie down at a spot to aim and crawl forward

What these do is provide extra movement functions to the game that others again don't have. Remember when people had jump added to an mmo, wow did that.. well why not force jumps, a move behind button, a toggable toe to toe in combat option making melee combat look really cool, a climb and crawl button that allows you to climb ropes or jump up to boxes or ledges withyour hands and climb up onto or drop down. None of these persay affect gameplay. The force jumping may do in terms of accessing certain areas, but i'm thinking in pvp warzones either this is diabled or at least its distance limited until warzones that compensate for this are designed. In wow they just diable new featurs they can't tie into their system, like they just disabled flying in battlegrounds, well ToR can instead limit it in the warzones already around, but design future warzones that make full use of this. Imagine Huttball 2.0 with force jump, rocket packs and grappling hooks?7

Well I gotta give you some credit for a long and definitely thought out post.

I am not sure if I agree with it, but jolly good job there chap on thinking it through!

I love this.

Unfortunately I'm at work so I didn't get to read all of it, but I'd love to see the animations for Jedi and Sith change depending what stance they are in. I just think of Ataru form, it's meant to be this acrobatic form of combat, yet the moves look the same.

But the space stuff, YES!

I'd also like to add building of the world experience to the list. There is an entire planet of catinas and casinos, yet you can't really do much in them. How cool would it be if you could go to Nar Shaddaa and actually play the game tables!

Some great ideas, but would take tons of money, time, and resources that, in my opinion, BioWare just doesn't have.

Well, Super Secret Space Project (SSSP) is still on the table and it is said to be in its Alpha stages. Plus there is also rumor of Guild capital ships unless this has been laid to rest I can pray for large scale battles involving capital ships.

well if Bioware are serious about competing against Wow, they have to do more than Free to play. So if i'm one of the 4-6 /10 million players that try F2play waht's gonna make me switch to subscritiion? having more or less at wow has? but with beer graphics and animaitons? or having extras that wow just desn't have, like cool space games snazy vehicle combat system, cineamtics over all loading screens that successfully hide them you feel like you're playing a movei

conversations and the story are great to grab in brand new players, i mean it's a fantastic expeirence hwa thtey've done, Free 2 play might actually gain more new to genre players han any mmo has managed yet. unknown potential there; but if they're not going to jump to a competitor like wow, what else are you giving at end game no one else is?

well how about a brand new space lvelling game kinda like 2games in 1? Meanignful progression at level cap, albeit on a different set o f controls. enter ToR, you can not only jump, but crawl and climb, you ahve button tha tlets you movebheinda target and it does a cool animation rather than a lazy places you behind automatically by teleporting you

not only would jedi jump etc be really cool i mean srsly all this would be amazine

innovate innovate innovate. That's the only thing that will work at this point.

idd, the onus is on ToR to provide something superior in every department to its competitor.

atm, it's a better game, but hasn't succeeded in capturing the share of the market it hoped for, which could be for several reasons. But it's clear not enough new subscribers are tuning ToR and not enough of the usual MMO crowd are either.

Subscriptions & Plalyer Base
1. New subscribers/players - is likely the monthly fee. so F2play should really help, but.. they need a TV advert and a game relaunch - and tbh, Space 2.0 game would be perfect to re advertise the game.

2. The lionshare of mmo players are playing wow. SwTOR may be a better game, but nearly everyone for them say it is not better enough, which means that for them, wow is close enough to cause them not to switch. F2play might tempt or coerce some back.. but the message is clear SwTOR needs to get really innovative with everything it does.


It means better in every department and for everything it does. It can't just rely on pushing out new content faster, wow can do that because they've got the big subscriptions - but wow has weaknesses, they do not innovate much, they are very cagey on adding new features, it means that after a while they can get stale to players, and nothing shows a game as stale as innovative big hit features being made available by its competitors.

The message is clear: Better Improvement, More Innovations:

1. Story: - This is ToRs biggest assets, they need to sell this with every game advert, WoW can't match this in anyway, and this is candy to new players, no way a completely new player should go to wow with ToR on the market. Unless they're introduced by friends.

2. Eliminate the irritation of the most annoying parts of the game. Opinions may vary, i do feel ToR has far less annoying bits than WoW cataclysm did, but WoW MoP has improved a lot of things about that game.

For me the most annoying things in ToR are the Loading screens & the feeling of disconnect when you travel from one area to another via Elevators/ship/shuttle to access places, - can't afford to update my 4 year old computer, loading times are much improved recently but still i take over a minute on too many. Looks like everywhere i go i'm faced with long load times.

Solution i provided in one of the 4 areas of improvement i posted earlier. IT is cinematics. You can't get rid of the loading screens, because that's how the game is designed, it's very module, it's not a smooth one entire massive mega zone like wow is for e.g. You have to have loading screens, however viewing a cinematic is so much better than viewing a picture. Any day any place any time. IF you must have loading screens, play cinematics.

1. Show shuttles or your ship:
a. leaving the planet you're leaving, (show the spaceport or are shuttle is get smaller as you ascend)
b. going through it's atmosphere out into space
c. In space (with the view of the planet/it's moons behind you, either show the shuttle dock into the orbital station OR show your ship from a space view jump to light speed
d. Show your ship or the shuttle you are using, come out of light speed at it's new location
e. Show the shuttle or ship dock into the orbital station or if it's like SectionX to Blackhole, by showing it descend into Coreilla's Blackhole section, yeah., Coreilla will have 2 entry point cinematics, one from ship to coreilla space port, one from ship to blackhole section. The shuttle outside coreilla spaceport that can take you to the blackhole, should show during the blackhole loading screen, the shuttle go into space, and fly round to the Blackhole section of the planet and land. (same for Belsavis that has minimum security point and Section X

2. Show Elevators travelling through buildings
This may be a 5sec or 10 sec clip max, you can escape it to cut it, you can turn it off in options, but it needs to be there otherwise you feel completely disconnected from the place you're in.
I have no sense of where in my fleet's main station the mission deck is from a n outside view, or the interfleet hanger is, or the class hangars are.. they on the smae level? different levels?

I have no idea when on Nar shaddar or coruscant, if i'm in one of those tall skyscrappers or in an internal park all happening on one level. I need more aerial shots/views, maybe a zoom out to location that will give me an idea of where I am, Elevator clip really needs to show me travelling up through the building..even if it's a holographic view of the building with e as a red dot, ascending 400 levels of the building.

maybe the elevator goes up and sideways too to get to my section, let me see that happen, maybe i travel through several skyscrapers being part of the section of Nar Shaddar i am in to get to the place i need to for the missions, . the lcip needs to show that i am going through different areas. maybe in the future more windows or out doors scenes for the city planets that really do make me feel when i'm inside a section for a long time, that i'm there

3. Gameplay quality of life perks. Oh you need to be quick on giving these, and giving better ones than wow does. You don't have to do exactly the same, but you need to give them, because returning players from wow for e.g. do expact a certain degree of quality of life they are use to on there.

you don't need to clone, you need to improve everything they get there, trust me it's not hard. but it needs to be done.

e.g. gear iwth mods was a great idea, imo it's much better than their transmogrification. and it works with Star wars lore whiles their's is a blatant slap in feature poor effort at putting into lore. Every time ToR ties new portions in that fit with the universe lore, and a convo showing it, they show superiority
b. Talents: Many peopel are expecting dual spec like wow has. Go one better, now subscribers can freely respec..great move, and legacy allows you to respec anywhere, another great move. Now give presaved talent configurations, and not just 2 like WoW does, give something like 6 or 10. I know you can respec during combat, which is interesting, however, i would disable preset talent switches in combat, but allow you to still do it manually - which means you're trading off effectiveness in battle so you don't get to unfair an advantage in pvp.. altho are you getting an advantage if everyone can do it? You decide bioware

but a feature like this is a massive quality of life boost over a game like wow.

c. Macros/addons: ToR doesn't have to do addon feature like wow does, however it needs to ensure that for every really major addon improvements users innovate for wow, ToR has a superior implementation: I love ToR's deadly boss mods sortof thing that is integrally part of the game.

Damage meters have been asked for, ToR needs to provide a game offiicial version, but go one up on the people who do those sort of addons for a game like wow. For e.g. in addition to having damage meters, threat, absorb meters etc and all the information you glean from combat....provide an effectiveness meter. which is a comparable point system that healing and defense effectiveness numbers can compare to dps.

e.g. if healing values are always 1.5 or 2 times larrger than damage values, you can convert healing into effective damage by dividing by 2 or 1.5, get one version for extra damage abosrbed, blocked,deflected, dodged and you can add tanks to the meter too, reward points for interrupting or indicate by changing the colour of the particular players bar or the colour of the number to display highest interrupt Gold gets the one with the highest. also deduct points or do something like put a symbol next to the player for being caught by mechanics that can be easily avoided. You can't really penalize players for dying when that could be poor healing. but when you have encounters with mechanics meant to be avoided and players do not avoid them you can also represent those ones, and it should be able to indicate how much you lost.

i've never seen this in damage meters before, but it is this sort of calibre i expect developer implementation to account for. if i die in the fire or energy lightning i was meant to run out, it shows the health lost to avoidable mechanics.. You need to go one up

d. Promises: Can pull up and pull down my hood: & promises: always avoid giving fixed dates for promises you agree you'll do for fans, cause when you don't it really annoys them. But always give an update on every patch you release on things you promised will come soon. . so hoods pullable up and down not available i 1.6? Say so in a develeper blog, we are still working on implementing pulling hoods up and down to show/hide features, but it won't make it for 1.6, we haven't forgotten though.

But please don't let it take 8 patches. fans are touchy over stuff like that. Btw..this feature shouldn't be hard to implement at all already you have certain head pieces that hide the hood, all you need to do is have an animation flick the hand over the head, and then the hood is automatically down and the head showing, you don't have to have an animation for the hand actually slowly pulling down the hood, the hand just needs to go to the head as if to flick the hood down, and go back to normal, and you just have the view switch from having hood to not,you don't even need to to show that.

e. Fun animations like changing and grooming shops. This is a quality of life issue characters badly want, and yes the competitor has it, and it is a big thing, so you must have it, but you must have it better than they. No most fans are not forgiving, they won't understand that you're only 1 year old, while they are 8 years old, that their barbershop didn't come till their 3rd expansion, barber shop customisations are in WoW, players want them here.

However wow's has terrible customisations, few and far between, you can do a whole lot better.
e.g. Fun animations, : Gear Change: Equipment Manager type feature to put on new gear, this was a user add on that was so useful several games incorporate a version of it, it is a quality of life improvement, ToR must have it off course, but have it in style and better than anyone else does,.. like have a wardrobe animation.
Basically your character puts up an energy version of those changing room partitions, and you can see your character actually take off his shirt, pants, and put on the new one. Make the animation, the animation is stopped if you move, and you are seen with the actual gear on, but the animation should be available.

Another alternative is you could have an Ironman movie- like changing tank -(you know when he walks through and devices just pull out his iron man suit - may have to watch Ironman 2 or The Avengers to see what i mean), just like players spawn that carbonite chamber, and basically mechanical arms detach your old gear and put on the new one. you can have it vary depending on which parts you change, having an animation for each part, for e.g. if your equipment manager slot only changes your head piece, then you character 's animation while have him remove the old head piece, it goes onto the rack, and picks up the new one. if its changing pants and chests, the big ones, then you have the full automated machine change occur.

C2-N2/R2-V2 can also spawn and change you - this can apply in particular for Sith & Jedi, especially Inquisitors and Consualrs, i can't see smugglers/agents allowing a robot to change them, Hans solo would never let that happen, but an Imp Agent might, not a hard call to make though.

however this is can example of a fun animation, that just makes again SWToR stand out so much more you look at that and you say, WOAH !! this is so cool, you go back to wow, and you can't help but think how lame is this , they can't even be bothered to do this or do that.

Animations mean a lot to players, you see your player more than you see new zones and worlds, so while new zones are definitely important, you need to be having things like this show up every patch. You can't call it the barbershop off curse, but features it can have that outstrip wow's version, is changing skin complexion - it allows hair style changes, hair colour changes, tanning/peeling so you can change your skin tone, even eye colour changes. This is the future afterall, they can do this sort of things. It is always in the medical bay.;

1. you can buy cosmetic designer droid for your ship and unit allowing you to implement cosmetic changes to yourself on your ship.. Otherwsie it happens and is accessible at all meidcal bays.
2. For a purchase with cartel coins, you can also change your face and scars, and gender: Specialised ship now, and it is like a character model change service, but this one requires you to pay. You don't want people to have to use cartel points for simple changes like hairstyle/skin tone, skin colour or eye colour, but bigger changes like character face type though or gender is a much bigger thing and it is understandable if you can only do that with cartel coins.

f. Funnily enough the Cartel Market is exactly the type of innovation. You can do character model changes through it, and use cartel coins to purchase server transfers, it is different, and better than wow, cos you can access it from in-game even though server transfer will take effect once you meet requirements that you will give in the future and log out, but you can make the request via in -game.

g. New feature. Character swap. Multiple character inventory. Managing alts can be an important thing for established mmo players, here again you have to BLOW your competition out of the water, with new features to make this so much easier. Quality life improvement here, will make games like WoW look really really ancient. Already, Legacy and purchasing XP boosts is a great innovation by the ToR team, but you can go even further.

1. The ability to view all your characters equipment and their companions. This will be so helpful in so many ways.
2. The ability to view the chat channels of the locations your other characters are in, How often have i been on Section X, and wanted to see if their were groups looking for an Ops i really needed to go to? don't want to spend all my time on the fleet, my guild only does 1 or 2 days of raiding, but also need to do dailies.
3. Ability to switch to character directly without logging out. I can pull up my character list while on any character and select that character to switch to, and i don't need to return to the login screen. I only see login screen when I first log into the game, or want to switch server.
4. Access to other characters mail, inventory and cargo hold
5. Able to send your alts companions on missions, now this can be a legacy perk to be bought, or part of the legacy level reward.

a feature 'd like to see available is to view all your companion equipment remotely.. now we can have use for some of those vanity items, where it pulls up the information in your crew manifesto or database. Access to non-active companion and alt character character sheets to view gear could have a different UI than yours, one that makes it clear you're using a remote interface: uni colour cool looking etc,. be very helpful.

f. Conversation playback. This will be so helpful, sometimes you miss what has just been said, Conversations having a playback button or a rewind button that can skip through to the previous option... so you don't always have to escape and start from the very beginning to hear a bit again or make a different choice. Whiles this is unique to ToR only, it is certainly a quality of life issue improvement.

g. Travelling: what's the difference between a Tirsa Elite and a much smaller bike? Here is another area Tor can go much better than wow. how Has all their mounts the same except for 3 speed settings, and they have no vehicle combat system, they tried a woefully inadequate one in WotLK and it failed. Star wars has o many vehicle fights on planets, in planet atmospheres and in space use them.

1. Massive vehicles, should not be useable in smaller outdoor spaces, like spaceports, the fleet, Bikes yes, players will have a bike before they gain a monstrosity like the Tirsa Elite. Vehicles like that can have:
i) super speed boosts when used in outdoor wilds, out on the planet like Tatooine, or Alderaan or Voss, or the wide streets of coruscant and airways.
ii) You can use your Tirsa Eilte or type vehicles instead of taxis, basically you can use them to join the taxi route, where they will go at a faster than normal speed, but not as fast as the taxi.

2. Why not have fast lanes in the fleet, fly mid air on a fast lane, that allows you to take a taxi from combat quadrant to Galactic trade market quadrant, , this will let your character join a thorough fair that is in the air of the base, and the AI guides you at a much faster speed swinging you round to the next section, once you get off you can mount your BIKE. to move faster between the shops. if you have a big vehicle TIrsa elite like you can join the speedway at any point it travels though and alight, if not there is a point in each quadrant and at each of the four ends. so in the middle of the quadrant and at the end near the elevators.

Again games like wow don't have this , it's a cool feature that makes travelling in the faction base faster. and also more realistic, i'ts a massive space station. should be exciting and can be very helpful to new players, not to mention Cool. Your stuff needs to be cool each time and better.


Class Improvements
Innovation in character is definitely the way forward, at the start of the topic i discussed the movement improvements.
Move behind, toe to toe, crouch & crawl, climb - movement tools that do not affect gameplay but are quality of life and animations wise look cool.

toe to toe really always your character to move instep, no reason ToR has to have the same outdated old movement mechanics games like wow has or bioware's predecessor NWN had, Innovate, improve, while you don't want to change game mechanics, toe to toe is a movement option you can toggle on, as explained earlier keeping you toe 2 toe while moving. it makes little sense to have this toggled on in pvp, as players can run round you, but can look really good for pVE, and youc an always toggle it off and have no change to combat movement, or occasionally hold down the also added T2T suppress key to access normal movement. Move behind is an excuse to have a really cool animation to do something everyone needs to do, move behind a target, but rather than always clumsily and unrealistically move through the target which you can do still, move behind will not prevent this, using the move behind makes you do an animation that takes your character to the back, as explained earlier on.

now other games don't have this, this is combat related,, it is innovative and it looks cool. You can't move behind if you're the only one fighting the mob cos mobs will always turn to face you, however even if you're not a tank you can use toe to toe in that situation, in pvp, move behind will only be for animation because players can simply run round you so it hold s no advantage or disadvantage, just looks cool, it's in pvE when your companion is tanking or another player, that you can use move behind to position yourself directly behind the creature, very useful for creatures like balls of fire who's front and back are very hard to discern, or funny looking creatures not use to.
climb animations , if it's a ladder or rope, your character will do so, press climb and if he's within reach of a ledge he will jump up, and lift himself up. Now admittedly there wont' be much use for that now, but for expansions this can lead to more interesting missions and interesting things to add to your missions to do that again your competitors don't have


Force Jump/Rocket pack /Grappling hook really cool new abilities that would be a great addition to the game, again, MMOs like WoW don't have this, besides how can they? it already looks silly that an orc or human can do heroic leap which is there force leap clone, if they were a sorceror and had magic i could understand or if they were maybe Elves/Trolls/Worgen the really acrobatic races, i could buy that, but human and orc? laughable, but in ToR users have the force, there is technology USE the universe to give unique advantages to your game your competitors cannot match. Can you imagine being able to play around with a feature like force jump or rocket pack an then have to go back to wow.? Quality of life.

Training and Dueling:
The amount of times i've wished to test my skills against an appropriately geared opponent, either players don't, or never in the right time, and there are no NPC options, why can't that change?

Training Jedi Academy on Tython & Training Sith Academy on Koriban: You can duel many of the Masters/Lords there, they'd be at all level ranges and difficulties, especially at level 50: where there would be various NPCs in the different ranks of pvp gear you can challenge to dueling contests and drill yourself.

Jedi and Sith can get automatic passes to Tython and Korriban respectively - so they can shuttle there whenever they want, and return to previous location option: Transport is on a cooldown off course.

Troopers/BH and Agents/Smugglers instead have training academies on the Capital worlds where they can duel NPCs, this is better than duelling a dummy that just stays in one place and has no way of testing your defensive skills.

Sage/Sorceror:
I bring this class up cos it's one i play at max level, atm, - but for class improvement i'd love to see some more lightsaber action.

1. How about an ability that the lightsaber duels an opponent by itself while the sage/sorceror using his force abilities from range? This force master can both use the force to let his lightsbber duel while he pelts them at a distance.
Whiles this ability is active, the sorceror/sage can use lightsaber abilities independently of what he is casting. I.e. i can be casting lightning bolt/Telekinetic throw.. and while i'm casting use my lightsber swing abilities without interrupting my casting.. my lightsber will be on its own meleeing the opponent. Lightsaber is kinda of a temporary companion. think of its damage like Dot but one you can increase by using your melee abilities - essentially a companion who's abilities are all your lightsaber melee moves.. after the duration ends, the lightsaber returns to your hand.
a) like this you can finally add some shadow/assassin lightsaber moves to the sage/sorceror - it always seemed unfair that shadows/assassins had the lion share of consular/inquistor force spell visuals but the other class had none of the shadow/assassins lightsaber moves, this way, now there is a use for it, they can.
b) you get some more lightsaber action and it doesn't interrupt your usual force casting, this is a new ability, and you don't expect a sage/sorc to stop using his powerful abilities just to force control his lightsaber, he must use them in tandem, He is a Force Master afterall, that shows some excellent force mastery

2. Lightsaber throw should be available to all force/users however Sorcerors/Sages can get unique version in a new ability that does damage to weakened targets.

3. SAge/sorcerors don't have many visual force abilities, the animations re cool, i like the effects the healings do too, but i have craved more offensive force abilities and some interesting new ability visuals. the ability animations are fine, they look life like although 1 or 2 more can be added, but more offensive abilities
a) Sage telekinetic throw BADLY needs some form of improvement, either:
i) a complete change to light side force lightning, which jedi have used before in lore, or
ii) a new sister channelled ability instead of a replacement of TK, lightside force lightning or something else quite cool
iii) just replace TK throw with something cooler.

Some have suggested that sith who go lightside should use sage visuals and sages who go dark side sith visuals, i disagree, the classes do need their distinct differences you can't look exactly the same, which is why if the sage gets force lightning it should be more blue than purple and maybe triangle like cone.
iv) What can happen is that lightside sorcerors can have a different colour to their abilities, maybe a lighter blue, and darkside sages can have a different colour to their abilities like a more purple disturbance.

Sorceros should not have any spell visual identical to the sage, so i would recommend changing the ones that look like the sages to something else, keep them unique. I wouldn't mind sages not having light side force lightning if a much cooler visual than a pebble throw was used for TK throw.

Legacy Improvements:
Like crew members, cartel market, conversations, this is another area, ToR is much better than wow, and needs to really make this novel feature more prominent, We spoke earlier of being able to access all your characters inventory and character sheet from any active character, and directly switch characters without logging out and also access the chat locations of where they are logged out off, those should really be given freely rather than as legacy perks, but the Legacy system needs to take another boost or jump in effectiveness to really consolidate it.

Legacy level could do things like reduce the cost of materials, vendor repairs, mod swapping etc, and make it significant drops per legacy level, and something that is free with the level.

Some legacy perks as well could seriously allow your companion to join you in battle in a Op or Warzone in a heroic moment, so Heroic moment will summon your companion and allow your legacy abilities for it's fixed duration, you can always tune fights to compensate for that.

Another free feature of legacy level is allowing a second companion to join you. it doesn't have to be permanent, could be for your heoric moment. Every 10 legacy levels, you get an additional companion able to join you during your heroic moment

At legacy Level 45 you can have your alt appear on the scene. the AI controls him, he has his gear/everything intact, and will attack or heal or tank based on his active spec at the time. Also he will normalize to your level, so if you're level 37 character uses it your 50 alt will be at level 37, his gear converted appropriately, for e.g. level 61 gear, campaign gear, is 11 levels above normal level 50 gear, level 50 artifact gear, so his gear gets nerfed to level 37 artifact quality, but 11 levels higher, so he would have item level 46 artifact grade. Vice versa, your alt is only level 9 and you use the legacy ability on your level 50 toon, the alt appears at level 50, his gear graded up too, so he will have his gear have temporary equivalent premium/prototype or artifact level gear at 50.

Legacy really allows more use of companions and alts on your main toon in a way that affects fighting.. Heroic Moment should be more accessible when soloing, but if it snow accessible in PVE flashpoint and Ops, then it could be an enhanced heroic option that has a shorter duration than the normal pvE solo version.

Using your alts companiosn to craft can be a very useful thing without switching to them, and can be a feature you purchase on your legacy and only accessible from Legacy level x it again is a quality of life issue.

Space:
Spoke extensively about this int the opening post. Space view is a major innovative feature and game feature other games do not have. IT provides the opportunity for levelling outside the character max. Legacy level really hasn't provided any real combat abilities to make it worth pursuing, it is fine with providing things like abilities from your other classes etc.

No one has that option available, a levelling experience for a different aspect of the game but related to it, almost like 2 separate games, yet one game because Star Wars is both on land and in space. The land game might be the focus, but why not use previous Star wars resources like JTL and really add a new dimension to the game.. and you get all this for a sub fee $15 a month? who would want to play wow? Again at every turn you must provide what your competitors have but much better, and you Must innovate, innovate, innovate.

2. Vehicle fights: spoke about this in the opening post, once you have 3-D space fights vehicle fights become easy to do, they are just smaller less complex versions of the ships you will use space combat, and people who don't have access to space combat can at least enjoy land based air vehicle fights.


New Worlds:
This i do expect in the first expansion. But something to note that annoys me of the current worlds,
1. you can't fly or swim in them
2. the interior architecture throughout the game looks too similar the only first really different interior section was Asation in 1.4

Whiles i can understand not remaking existing worlds to allow flying and swimming, (for those you can have what i suggested in the vehicle fight section of the first post - air fight on korriban or alderaan, innvolves a loading screen, but at least you get a cinematic so it doesn't feel that way and you get to fly in the space of an old planet). What you can do is have the new worlds allow flying and vehicles like Tirsa Elite can finally take to the air.

Note though you don't have to do it free flying like wow, it can be more like Coruscant, AI guided lanes, or it can vary depending on the world, so when you're in a new city world you do AI guided lanes, on a new world like the Wookie homeworld, you can do free fly.

2. really alien looking worlds. for all their beauty, Hoth, tython/drumond kass, voss, coreilla, tatooine and aldeeraan could all be different parts of planet earth, even Belsavis. Only Ilum truly looked Alien
Need some real alien looking worlds, with alien colours, purple leaves, pink sky, green sky, different unique architecture too, Alderaan defintiely had unique architecture good going, Coreilla too had different to Drumond KAss, different to Coruscant - go on e step up from those, i hate to do this, but look at wow, Blood elf Silvermoon architecture is completely different for Draenei architecture int urn completely different from Night elf architecture in turn completely different goblin, completely different from human etc.. in fact so much so that going from a night elf forest, to blood elf Quel'thalas, then to orcish Orgrimmar you feel more like on a different planet than the same.

but ToR needs more distinction in their worlds, Do weird looking plants, , land formations.. have an energy world only, have a completely sea world, nothing but water, have a gas giant world suspended flaoting city sure, but very unique architecture. Let the new worlds come really be diverse. i know blizzard artists are really really good, but Tatooine looked far better than Tanaris and Tol'vir deserts ever did, but they need some weird looking things, like a city in the sky on the one hand then mud huts or a completely different civilization on the ground.

1. Very different interiors think more Asation, like
2. Use night/day well - i'm fine with planets you visit having a night and day section, but i love the example of Taris, where empire visited night time, and Republic day..off course both sides could have operations at a different section of the planet, one while the sun is up , the other while down, it gives diversity to when you switch characters too. Hey we both go to Tatooine, Alderaan, Taris and Balmorra, well lets see different views to it, night and day. I do like how warcraft idd outland - Zangermarsh and Terokkar forest succeed in looking very alien.

Now their is an explanation for Tatooine/Alderaan/Coreilla/Tython looking so similar to earth, they could have been terraformed. However there ought to be planets that really do look alien. so more interesting stuff pls ToR does the modular thing a lot better than wow, i mean Zangermash and Nagrand and Terokkar Forest, Blades Edge mountain an Netherstorm could all be different planets, wow ends up looking unrealistic when all those zones are on the same land, however they are very distinctive and that's the lesson. Star Wars universe has some great examples, but in this case the best one would be doing things no one has ever seen.

Beautiful forest with waterfalls but colour scheme is pink/white instead of green, or a moonlit world, like Ilum but with forests.. how about different topography? is their only forest/water/ desert/rocky to do? how about unusual combos..upside down world? the see is above, and the air below instead. .
keep it coming though

but i expect that to come in years with 2 or 3 expansions.

Races:
I don't see why WoW should have a more diverse selection, Star Wars universe has more races than wow could conceivably have int's Azeroth world and still remain an authentic middle ages type of adventure setting. Just look at the Star wars movies and the two cartoon network clone wars, both the old ones and the new ones, the old one had these really cool panther like people with tails and all, they looked SOOO cool, i'd love them as race, it was the one in which Anakin gets a vision of his final trial and possible dark side conversion, the males off those tribes had been warped by massive bio engineering on the part of Count Dooku, and For his final trial to become a jedi, Anakin saves them..but those panther folk are an example of what could be an awesome new race.

Some races guys can not be player races, too much involved i'm afraid, i'm looking at you Geonosians for e.g. however, doesn't mean we can't have some of the more exotic types as companions though, if you can't actually play em as a race the next best thing is companions

Company Resources:

Advertise, many wow players have no idea some of the innovative differences ToR has, the cinematic conversations are a huge plus, the whole Crew member /companion thing is also massive, as is having your ship, i had no idea about these features when i started playing ToR, not to mention a space game. People need to know what you bring to the table not just in gameplay but also in these other things

2. Use EA resources, need a space game? outsource the work to the team that actually does a game out of it, let them design the combat the graphics etc, in your space 2.0 , this will allow you to get so much stuff in much faster.
Space game could be one off pack addition, not an expansion, but an add on pack, all new SwTORs will come with it, but you either buy it as a non-subscriber or you subscribe for 3 months and you get it free.

While your team focuses on the ground game, commission other teams to help you, this way you can get the extra content in much faster.

The point is now is the window of opportunity! Wow will become very very vulnerable in the next 6 months when the fad of the expansion goes, they know that so they have their STarcrat 2 game coming, great chance for you to have features like space combat ready to go next year, space 2.0 and another quality of life improvements coming in, so players who come just have a hands down much better experience.

A couple thoughts:

First, at Legacy level 50, I think you should be allowed to summon and run 2 companions.

Second, because of the 2 companion ability, the class storylines for Chapter IV should be significantly harder. Perhaps on the scale of Heroic-4 area's (making it tougher, but not impossible to run through), which they could add to each current planet so we'd have a reason to go back and explore those planets.

So what you are saying is you live in a fantasy land where a better game than most out there can't succeed in capturing the share of the market it hoped for....

If SWTOR was even an average game it would be doing far better than it is now.

You have to realize this game is broken from the ground up. This is not a marketing problem. This is not a bad press problem. This is a 2.4 million people tried it and the vast majority left because it is an inferior product problem.

Its great you like this game but you are trying to pee and tell everyone else it is raining...most of us know the difference.