Edit: I feel this almost needs a disclaimer because some people are taking this way too far. This is an opinion piece, nothing more. It's an opinion formed on the culmination of my experience playing the game over the last year, as well as that of my fellow players and observations I've seen made. No, I am not trolling, I am simply expressing my opinion, just as anyone else is entitled to do. Let's keep the discussion along those lines. If you are not going to make intelligent, constructive conversation based on this, do not post. You are entitled to your opinion, and you are entitled to disagree. But please, keep it civil.

 

The title of my post is my belief of what our true "State of the Game" is. SWTOR needs something major to save it, and Makeb is not that something. There are a few components to this idea, and one of them is...

 

Makeb.

We've all seen the outrage threads all over the forums. I have never seen this type of backlash against an expansion except when MOP was announced by Blizzard. My wife and I have the disposable income to keep our subs going and grab the expansion without thinking hard about $10, but still like so many others, we look at what the deal is, then look at each other and go "Eh...really?". The amount of content of "one of the larger planets" but no new class story. 5 new levels crammed into a single new planet? You are talking about the same amount of content as a larger planet, but 5 new levels. When I roll those numbers around in my head, I don't see a planet the size of say even...Belsavis, having enough content to increase the cap by 5 levels. Along with that basically comes the invalidation of all current endgame content. How is this going to be handled? There hasn't been a single word yet, with a launch target of Spring. This worries me.

 

So it appears the focus of Bioware is "We need more content in the game right now, but we're going to monetize it". Whether it was your intention or not, you hit a nerve with this one. Right or wrong, people who are already subbed feel "nickel & dimed". It doesn't matter if this is true or not, the perception is already there. And therefore, the damage already done. Despite the on and off efforts, you have hands down the rawest, most jaded and cynical community of MMO players I have ever seen. You had to know that this was going to stir up all kinds of s*** on the forums. Which leads me to the first point...

 

Poor community relations

Someone recently had their own post asking what the poison pill of SWTOR is. Community relations may be it. I get that people go on vacation for the holidays, but come on. I'm an IT admin for a company of under 20 techs, and we support thousands of users worldwide. On every holiday, we have at least 1 person on call to handle important issues like server crashes. We, and consequently our client knows there's a problem within minutes. In fact, if the on-call person does not respond within 30-60 minutes, it's grounds for termination. In the midst of servers crashing a week or 2 ago, we saw nothing from a CM until the problem was fixed hours later. Even then, all we really got is "We'll look into it". I think CS replied to all of 3 threads in the CS forum over the last 2 weeks. The servers have been unstable this whole time and there hasn't even been a post about maintenance to address whatever the problem is!

 

This has been the standard since before the game was launched. Every now and then, someone like Joveth has come in and said "We have a new plan for CM, here's how we're changing" and so on, but it's still the same story with different wrapping. Hot topic threads go unanswered. In the rare event that someone does respond to a user thread it's usually "We have no new information", "Soon", or "Maybe". A lot of people will point to the Dev Tracker. When I look at the Dev Tracker since the start of November, I see very little engagement with the community and a whole lot of typing without actually saying much, if anything. Player's trouble tickets are often closed with no explanation or resolution.

 

Community relations is crucial to getting this game on track and it has been suffering badly. It breeds the attitude that Bioware really does not care what's happening which is bad all around. I'd say probably 75% of the negative threads would disappear if we got level answers on important questions. This really needs to be stepped up, and stepped up big time. The time for talk and half-measures is past. If you can't post specific details about features, at least do something like your competitors and explain your method of thinking. What is your philosophy about this aspect of gameplay? How are some of these long-standing issues progressing? Why or why are you not happy with how DPS classes compare currently and what's being done to address those concerns? What's happening with hood toggling? Chat bubbles (I personally couldn't care less about this one, but it comes up ALL THE TIME)? Your competitors at least take the time to give their players this much. That is very conspicuously absent here. This is especially important when it comes to...

 

 

Quality Control

The bugs. Oh...my...god, the bugs. New bugs are introduced with every major new patch, and then go unresolved basically forever. If someone reports a bug, that person is lucky to get a token response of "We'll look into it". The problem comes in when we don't see bugs getting fixed. One that drives me absolutely bonkers is the hood clipping issue. This bug was introduced with game update 1.2. That is 8 months ago. It's been reported several times before and yet here we are, 8 months later with the same bug. My Sith Assassin gets ready to look like a ****** and dons his Saber Marshal's Robe ready to tank a hard mode, only to have a bald head sticking through half of it. You guys created this bug with 1.2. Exactly what takes 8 months to fix this immersion breaker? How long has the problem with companion lightsabers existed? Do you know how much it pulls me out of your world and how completely stupid it looks when my companion bisects himself with his own weapon as I check my mailbox?

 

An even more significant problem cropped up with game update 1.4. The game client will randomly bail to the desktop without error. This is especially prominent when hyperspace effects are displayed, but has also happened at loading screens, in the middle of conversations to accept missions, flashpoints, basically other situations other than where there is a hyperspace effect. This is a bug that prevents people from actually playing the game correctly and it still hasn't been fixed. Why? Do you honestly have no clue? Your unofficial fix is essentially to alt-tab out when you typically expect this to happen. That would be fine if everything didn't have a loading screen. Still, do you even know what's causing this one yet? Why was this deployed live? What was the point of having the patch on the PTR? Especially when your Executive Director comes out and says "we have a team of hundreds of QA testers" looking for bugs?

 

How about the problem with Crossfire users? I haven't seen a peep on this one. I've seen several threads on it and I don't think it's even in the known issues. What about the bug with scaling on player nameplates absolutely destroying performance? For me that's not a Crossfire issue. Whether I disable Crossfire or go as far as removing my second GPU, this problem is still there! Where is the fix?

 

But for me, here's what really takes the cake. Just after Mr. Hickman comes out with his post and mentions having hundreds of QA testers, we get game updates 1.5 and 1.6. With 1.5 we get f2p, the cash shop, and HK. Now, overall, not really a bad update, but marred by problems with mission givers in Section X. Even the cash shop was full of problems. The misprinting of the account-wide speeder unlock controversy, the problem of not being able to use rank 3 speeders at the new level requirement, ,some unlocks not working at all, problems with the new lightsabers in the cash shop not working correctly, among other things. Where was the testing then? Who approved this stuff to go live?

 

The worst offender by far is game update 1.6. The PVE cornerstone of 1.6 is heroic space missions. They don't work properly, and everyone knows it. New missions are either not available, or appear but cannot be accepted. Who exactly tested this? We're talking about basic functionality, and somehow it was pushed live in this condition! Come on! The only communication I've seen on this is "we're still gathering information". What information still needs to be gathered? The reports are all over the forums and in-game tickets. The feature is broken, and you have been told the exact conditions and sympoms. What else is left to "gather information" on? With game update 1.6, we also had the debacle of "Pay2Win Space Missions", which leads us to...

 

 

The Cartel Market

After being told for so long that the game would never be "pay 2 win" through the cash shop, we have the new ship parts which are important to completing the new missions sitting right in the cash shop. Undercutting crafters and ruining the market for these parts. You have created the apppearance that Pay2Win has already started, and is going to continue. We were then told that this wasn't the intent, however the parts are still there for purchase. The CC prices haven't even changed. Going back to my previous point which p****** me off even more, the missions for which these parts are intended don't work. I wasted a ton of commendations on the parts, but I truly feel bad for the people who spent their CC on these parts only to find that the missions don't work.

 

With the more items added that don't work correctly, including some that are in the shockingly bad Life Day Bundle, now we have people questioning the value of anything appearing in the cash shop. Some items are simply broken and don't work. One side of the Devastator's Lightsaber (and equivalent) stops working in the middle of combat, which makes your character look absolutely stupid when pulling a move like Assassinate, or even Thrash. Effects on single-blade sabers have similar problems. If you're going to do something to celebrate the holidays and it's optional, that's cool. What's not cool is making it cash only, I don't care how you slice it. It's a cash grab, and a rather poor one since even that pack has items in it that don't work correctly. So where's the value? And I'll tell you what really concerns me. If you consider my $20 to only be worth an old speeder with a terrible new skin on it and some lame baubles, what do you consider to be worth $10 for a game expansion? The questions of value lead us to...

 

 

The Subscription Model

A game going free to play is not a bad thing, and there's not really much I can say about this one. In my opinion, the methods and restrictions used to 'entice' people to subscribe are anything but enticing. As a subbed player, it feels more like extortion. Want to unify colors? Pay. Want to hide your hideous-looking head piece? Pay. Need more quickbars? Pay. Want more than 2 crew skills? Pay. Want more character slots? Pay.

 

Should the whole thing be given away for free? No, of course not. Should f2p get the same experience as a subbed player? No, of course not. Subbing should not feel obligatory to get the full game. In my opinion, it should be less about what is taken away, and more about the awesome things you get for subbing. More fun/useful perks for subbed players, and less quibbling penalties for f2p players. Free respecs for subbed players was awesome. Take that a step further. Get rid of the stupid mod extraction fees for armor. Do some more fun, creative things that are sub only. Speaking of fun/useful things, that brings me to...

 

 

Things to do in-game

The forums are littered with posts asking for more to do in the game. Pazaak, swoop, anything really. Here's the thing, leveling is so fast in this game, but why? There is this mad rush to the level cap at 50. Even running missions normally with no XP boosts, it's common to outlevel a planet before I'm even halfway through. And for what? Running heroic flashpoints or Ops? Okay, well that's fine. But it's not for everyone. Run dailies? Maybe, but honestly the dailies are dull, plodding and too time consuming, and the rewards are geared towards the former endgame activities. Again, not for everyone. Grind out PVP gear and hope you don't get farmed by the 'flavor of the month class'? Again, not for everyone. All we really have is to crowd around the fleet lagging the place up, waiting for our queues to pop, go run dailies, or run the gear treadmill. I mean, you can't even sit in a chair anywhere unless it's on your ship. People have been asking, in fact, begging for some other activities. There's no achievement system, no mini-games, no real exploration. Your players want something more. Your response? "Maybe".

 

 

Class Balance/Representation

I have no fun way to segue into this one so I'll just let the heading speak for itself. Class balance is in a poor state. Operative DPS has received nerf after nerf since launch, and is now probably regarded as the worst in the game in both PVE and PVP (same for the Republic mirror class). I'll go ahead and say it: they were repeatedly nerfed because of PVP crying. I got ganked by them all the time at launch and didn't complain about it. I knew if I got jumped by one I'd have my hands full as an assassin and likely lose the fight. Granted, the 3 second knockdown opener WAS a bit over the top. Still, if a stealth class nails me with their opener, I expect them to have the upper hand and probably win. But they have been hit so hard that nobody plays them at 50 any more, and that's not right. Why take a DPS operative anywhere when you can have a Mara or Pyro instead? They had all of their burst taken away and left with no utility or even a gap closer and high DPS utilities remaining on long cooldowns/position dependant, while having to watch Marauders and Sentinels get buffed multiple times.

 

Operative healing when specced for it is the example of how a talent spec should behave and feel. The problem now is an entire AC basically has to spec one way to really feel useful, and even then, a Corruption sorc (or equivalent) is considered better in operations because it has stronger AoE healing. Did you know that the operative community is so jaded right now that they believe their healing spec going to be nerfed into uselessness, creating an AC that literally has no point? Aside from the 'bubble' controversy, Sorcs that spec Lightning are laughed at. The point is, not all talent trees 'feel good', or useful like sorc/op healing, or an assassin's Darkness. Did you guys know that most Juggernaut tanks feel that they are the worst-off and least-desired tanks in the game? It's all spelled out in class feedback threads that you guys created. Who is representing the Sith Warrior class or its advanced classes? Who took this feedback to the devs and said "You know guys, we've got a lot of upset players here"? It sure looks to me like none of that happened, because the last I knew NONE of the feedback threads received any kind of response. Not even an acknowledgement. Not even "we have enough now, we're taking this feedback to the devs and we'll get back to you". People are coming up with crazy hybrid specs because of lack of cohesiveness and vision in the talent trees and many top tier talents considered worthless (example: hardly anyone goes full Immortal as a Juggneraut or full Deception as an assassin).

 

 

PVP

Ilum. The f***?

 

 

Guild Features

Basically the same as PVP. Seems every time I try to ramp up and recruit even enough people to run some story mode ops to a guild, server population nosedives so I stopped trying. Having been GM/officer in other guilds, I can say the guild functionality in SWTOR...sucks. I really can't think of anything nice to say. I'm glad there's nobody left to manage, because the features are bad and non-existant. May be a real problem for some guilds. I honestly don't know because I've never seen one stay together for more than a couple months, even ones running HM Ops.

 

 

What next?

I don't know. But clearly, besides perception of the staff running this game, SWTOR has a lot of problems. The state of the game is not what it's made up to be. Everything is not unicorns and sunshine. Some serious changes need to happen with a lot of aspects of the game before things get better. What I do know is that unless Rise of the Hutt Cartel has some real answers to these problems, it's not going to save this game, nor will any other expansion. I'm still here and still subbed because (if I may quote ROTJ here) "there is still good, I've felt it". But I fear if everything keeps going along with this "status quo, business as usual" cavalier attitude towards how things are really going, this game will be closed within another calendar year and nobody will ever be trusted to make an MMO with the Star Wars IP ever again. We need a paradigm shift in the game itself and the attitude of management, not an expansion.

 

Fix it while there is still time, Bioware.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Cupelixx
Explanation to try and prevent trolling

Jeez. I feel really stupid for reading the email they sent me, and subbing for a 2 month non-recur to check it out again.

 

I'm copying all you said and sharing it with my friends, star wars fans, who were thinking about trying out their first MMO here. I feel like the host of a new years party with the car keys. There's no way in hell I'm letting anyone I know try this game.

 

Pretty sad, that even at zero dollars, the cost of trying this game is too great.

The title of my post is my belief of what our true "State of the Game" is. SWTOR needs something major to save it, and Makeb is not that something. There are a few components to this idea, and one of them is...

 

Makeb.

We've all seen the outrage threads all over the forums. I have never seen this type of backlash against an expansion except when MOP was announced by Blizzard. My wife and I have the disposable income to keep our subs going and grab the expansion without thinking hard about $10, but still like so many others, we look at what the deal is, then look at each other and go "Eh...really?". The amount of content of "one of the larger planets" but no new class story. 5 new levels crammed into a single new planet? You are talking about the same amount of content as a larger planet, but 5 new levels. When I roll those numbers around in my head, I don't see a planet the size of say even...Belsavis, having enough content to increase the cap by 5 levels. Along with that basically comes the invalidation of all current endgame content. How is this going to be handled? There hasn't been a single word yet, with a launch target of Spring. This worries me.

 

So it appears the focus of Bioware is "We need more content in the game right now, but we're going to monetize it". Whether it was your intention or not, you hit a nerve with this one. Right or wrong, people who are already subbed feel "nickel & dimed". It doesn't matter if this is true or not, the perception is already there. And therefore, the damage already done. Despite the on and off efforts, you have hands down the rawest, most jaded and cynical community of MMO players I have ever seen. You had to know that this was going to stir up all kinds of s*** on the forums. Which leads me to the first point...

 

Poor community relations

Someone recently had their own post asking what the poison pill of SWTOR is. Community relations may be it. I get that people go on vacation for the holidays, but come on. I'm an IT admin for a company of under 20 techs, and we support thousands of users worldwide. On every holiday, we have at least 1 person on call to handle important issues like server crashes. We, and consequently our client knows there's a problem within minutes. In fact, if the on-call person does not respond within 30-60 minutes, it's grounds for termination. In the midst of servers crashing a week or 2 ago, we saw nothing from a CM until the problem was fixed hours later. Even then, all we really got is "We'll look into it". I think CS replied to all of 3 threads in the CS forum over the last 2 weeks. The servers have been unstable this whole time and there hasn't even been a post about maintenance to address whatever the problem is!

 

This has been the standard since before the game was launched. Every now and then, someone like Joveth has come in and said "We have a new plan for CM, here's how we're changing" and so on, but it's still the same story with different wrapping. Hot topic threads go unanswered. In the rare event that someone does respond to a user thread it's usually "We have no new information", "Soon", or "Maybe". A lot of people will point to the Dev Tracker. When I look at the Dev Tracker since the start of November, I see very little engagement with the community and a whole lot of typing without actually saying much, if anything. Player's trouble tickets are often closed with no explanation or resolution.

 

Community relations is crucial to getting this game on track and it has been suffering badly. It breeds the attitude that Bioware really does not care what's happening which is bad all around. I'd say probably 75% of the negative threads would disappear if we got level answers on important questions. This really needs to be stepped up, and stepped up big time. The time for talk and half-measures is past. If you can't post specific details about features, at least do something like your competitors and explain your method of thinking. What is your philosophy about this aspect of gameplay? How are some of these long-standing issues progressing? Why or why are you not happy with how DPS classes compare currently and what's being done to address those concerns? What's happening with hood toggling? Chat bubbles (I personally couldn't care less about this one, but it comes up ALL THE TIME)? Your competitors at least take the time to give their players this much. That is very conspicuously absent here. This is especially important when it comes to...

 

 

Quality Control

The bugs. Oh...my...god, the bugs. New bugs are introduced with every major new patch, and then go unresolved basically forever. If someone reports a bug, that person is lucky to get a token response of "We'll look into it". The problem comes in when we don't see bugs getting fixed. One that drives me absolutely bonkers is the hood clipping issue. This bug was introduced with game update 1.2. That is 8 months ago. It's been reported several times before and yet here we are, 8 months later with the same bug. My Sith Assassin gets ready to look like a ****** and dons his Saber Marshal's Robe ready to tank a hard mode, only to have a bald head sticking through half of it. You guys created this bug with 1.2. Exactly what takes 8 months to fix this immersion breaker? How long has the problem with companion lightsabers existed? Do you know how much it pulls me out of your world and how completely stupid it looks when my companion bisects himself with his own weapon as I check my mailbox?

 

An even more significant problem cropped up with game update 1.4. The game client will randomly bail to the desktop without error. This is especially prominent when hyperspace effects are displayed, but has also happened at loading screens, in the middle of conversations to accept missions, flashpoints, basically other situations other than where there is a hyperspace effect. This is a bug that prevents people from actually playing the game correctly and it still hasn't been fixed. Why? Do you honestly have no clue? Your unofficial fix is essentially to alt-tab out when you typically expect this to happen. That would be fine if everything didn't have a loading screen. Still, do you even know what's causing this one yet? Why was this deployed live? What was the point of having the patch on the PTR? Especially when your Executive Director comes out and says "we have a team of hundreds of QA testers" looking for bugs?

 

How about the problem with Crossfire users? I haven't seen a peep on this one. I've seen several threads on it and I don't think it's even in the known issues. What about the bug with scaling on player nameplates absolutely destroying performance? For me that's not a Crossfire issue. Whether I disable Crossfire or go as far as removing my second GPU, this problem is still there! Where is the fix?

 

But for me, here's what really takes the cake. Just after Mr. Hickman comes out with his post and mentions having hundreds of QA testers, we get game updates 1.5 and 1.6. With 1.5 we get f2p, the cash shop, and HK. Now, overall, not really a bad update, but marred by problems with mission givers in Section X. Even the cash shop was full of problems. The misprinting of the account-wide speeder unlock controversy, the problem of not being able to use rank 3 speeders at the new level requirement, ,some unlocks not working at all, problems with the new lightsabers in the cash shop not working correctly, among other things. Where was the testing then? Who approved this stuff to go live?

 

The worst offender by far is game update 1.6. The PVE cornerstone of 1.6 is heroic space missions. They don't work properly, and everyone knows it. New missions are either not available, or appear but cannot be accepted. Who exactly tested this? We're talking about basic functionality, and somehow it was pushed live in this condition! Come on! The only communication I've seen on this is "we're still gathering information". What information still needs to be gathered? The reports are all over the forums and in-game tickets. The feature is broken, and you have been told the exact conditions and sympoms. What else is left to "gather information" on? With game update 1.6, we also had the debacle of "Pay2Win Space Missions", which leads us to...

 

 

The Cartel Market

After being told for so long that the game would never be "pay 2 win" through the cash shop, we have the new ship parts which are important to completing the new missions sitting right in the cash shop. Undercutting crafters and ruining the market for these parts. You have created the apppearance that Pay2Win has already started, and is going to continue. We were then told that this wasn't the intent, however the parts are still there for purchase. The CC prices haven't even changed. Going back to my previous point which p****** me off even more, the missions for which these parts are intended don't work. I wasted a ton of commendations on the parts, but I truly feel bad for the people who spent their CC on these parts only to find that the missions don't work.

 

With the more items added that don't work correctly, including some that are in the shockingly bad Life Day Bundle, now we have people questioning the value of anything appearing in the cash shop. Some items are simply broken and don't work. One side of the Devastator's Lightsaber (and equivalent) stops working in the middle of combat, which makes your character look absolutely stupid when pulling a move like Assassinate, or even Thrash. Effects on single-blade sabers have similar problems. If you're going to do something to celebrate the holidays and it's optional, that's cool. What's not cool is making it cash only, I don't care how you slice it. It's a cash grab, and a rather poor one since even that pack has items in it that don't work correctly. So where's the value? And I'll tell you what really concerns me. If you consider my $20 to only be worth an old speeder with a terrible new skin on it and some lame baubles, what do you consider to be worth $10 for a game expansion? The questions of value lead us to...

 

 

The Subscription Model

A game going free to play is not a bad thing, and there's not really much I can say about this one. In my opinion, the methods and restrictions used to 'entice' people to subscribe are anything but enticing. As a subbed player, it feels more like extortion. Want to unify colors? Pay. Want to hide your hideous-looking head piece? Pay. Need more quickbars? Pay. Want more than 2 crew skills? Pay. Want more character slots? Pay.

 

Should the whole thing be given away for free? No, of course not. Should f2p get the same experience as a subbed player? No, of course not. Subbing should not feel obligatory to get the full game. In my opinion, it should be less about what is taken away, and more about the awesome things you get for subbing. More fun/useful perks for subbed players, and less quibbling penalties for f2p players. Free respecs for subbed players was awesome. Take that a step further. Get rid of the stupid mod extraction fees for armor. Do some more fun, creative things that are sub only. Speaking of fun/useful things, that brings me to...

 

 

Things to do in-game

The forums are littered with posts asking for more to do in the game. Pazaak, swoop, anything really. Here's the thing, leveling is so fast in this game, but why? There is this mad rush to the level cap at 50. Even running missions normally with no XP boosts, it's common to outlevel a planet before I'm even halfway through. And for what? Running heroic flashpoints or Ops? Okay, well that's fine. But it's not for everyone. Run dailies? Maybe, but honestly the dailies are dull, plodding and too time consuming, and the rewards are geared towards the former endgame activities. Again, not for everyone. Grind out PVP gear and hope you don't get farmed by the 'flavor of the month class'? Again, not for everyone. All we really have is to crowd around the fleet lagging the place up, waiting for our queues to pop, go run dailies, or run the gear treadmill. I mean, you can't even sit in a chair anywhere unless it's on your ship. People have been asking, in fact, begging for some other activities. There's no achievement system, no mini-games, no real exploration. Your players want something more. Your response? "Maybe".

 

 

Class Balance/Representation

I have no fun way to segue into this one so I'll just let the heading speak for itself. Class balance is in a poor state. Operative DPS has received nerf after nerf since launch, and is now probably regarded as the worst in the game in both PVE and PVP (same for the Republic mirror class). I'll go ahead and say it: they were repeatedly nerfed because of PVP crying. I got ganked by them all the time at launch and didn't complain about it. I knew if I got jumped by one I'd have my hands full as an assassin and likely lose the fight. Granted, the 3 second knockdown opener WAS a bit over the top. Still, if a stealth class nails me with their opener, I expect them to have the upper hand and probably win. But they have been hit so hard that nobody plays them at 50 any more, and that's not right. Why take a DPS operative anywhere when you can have a Mara or Pyro instead? They had all of their burst taken away and left with no utility or even a gap closer and high DPS utilities remaining on long cooldowns/position dependant, while having to watch Marauders and Sentinels get buffed multiple times.

 

Operative healing when specced for it is the example of how a talent spec should behave and feel. The problem now is an entire AC basically has to spec one way to really feel useful, and even then, a Corruption sorc (or equivalent) is considered better in operations because it has stronger AoE healing. Did you know that the operative community is so jaded right now that they believe their healing spec going to be nerfed into uselessness, creating an AC that literally has no point? Aside from the 'bubble' controversy, Sorcs that spec Lightning are laughed at. The point is, not all talent trees 'feel good', or useful like sorc/op healing, or an assassin's Darkness. Did you guys know that most Juggernaut tanks feel that they are the worst-off and least-desired tanks in the game? It's all spelled out in class feedback threads that you guys created. Who is representing the Sith Warrior class or its advanced classes? Who took this feedback to the devs and said "You know guys, we've got a lot of upset players here"? It sure looks to me like none of that happened, because the last I knew NONE of the feedback threads received any kind of response. Not even an acknowledgement. Not even "we have enough now, we're taking this feedback to the devs and we'll get back to you". People are coming up with crazy hybrid specs because of lack of cohesiveness and vision in the talent trees and many top tier talents considered worthless (example: hardly anyone goes full Immortal as a Juggneraut or full Deception as an assassin).

 

 

PVP

Ilum. The f***?

 

 

Guild Features

Basically the same as PVP. Seems every time I try to ramp up and recruit even enough people to run some story mode ops to a guild, server population nosedives so I stopped trying. Having been GM/officer in other guilds, I can say the guild functionality in SWTOR...sucks. I really can't think of anything nice to say. I'm glad there's nobody left to manage, because the features are bad and non-existant. May be a real problem for some guilds. I honestly don't know because I've never seen one stay together for more than a couple months, even ones running HM Ops.

 

 

What next?

I don't know. But clearly, besides perception of the staff running this game, SWTOR has a lot of problems. The state of the game is not what it's made up to be. Everything is not unicorns and sunshine. Some serious changes need to happen with a lot of aspects of the game before things get better. What I do know is that unless Rise of the Hutt Cartel has some real answers to these problems, it's not going to save this game, nor will any other expansion. I'm still here and still subbed because (if I may quote ROTJ here) "there is still good, I've felt it". But I fear if everything keeps going along with this "status quo, business as usual" cavalier attitude towards how things are really going, this game will be closed within another calendar year and nobody will ever be trusted to make an MMO with the Star Wars IP ever again. We need a paradigm shift in the game itself and the attitude of management, not an expansion.

 

Fix it while there is still time, Bioware.

 

It's a game. You'll survive.

Very well written, pin this

It's a game. You'll survive.

 

And it's a mmo, the game evolve continuously.

To bad they have been really sensitive today, someone copy and paste before they ninja delete...hell my post about zombies and nothing else mind you, got deleted!!

 

I guess they don't like true complaints and leave the white knight post as is.

And it's a mmo, the game evolve continuously.

 

That's not my point. It's has nothing to do with evolving.

very nicely written and brings up so good points.

 

I sadly suspect that the devs will ignore it and try and squeeze more money out of the community but I live in hope.

That's not my point. It's has nothing to do with evolving.

 

A mmo is not the typical game you buy, kill the last boss and it's over. This is why its the hardest type of game to create. It needs LOTS of ressources to please the community. The OP has some points, but I'm still confident Bioware has some hidden cards with RotHC.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Netwar

This is kind of depressing, I have been on board for this game for a long time but I have had very little money and was not able to get it. In fact when F2P went live I still couldn't play. I was very fortunate to get a laptop for Christmas so TOR was one of the first things I put on it. I have been playing for about a week as a Sith Marauder. Some of the stuff in the game is very confusing and limited on what information I can get, like Legacy items, no idea how to start acquiring them and Im lvl 2 leg already. So then I start hearing about friends who play and are running back to WoW as if it holds the MMO answers like it did in vanilla and I started looking for reasons why this game is being considered a failure. This post was very informative and thank you for highlighting all of this information. I am starting to wonder if I traded in all my xbox games for nothing to get a month of time. I can only imagine how many good end game players left already, because I was a heavy WoW raider. Also the PvP thing is sad because that was who I was in WoW, we crashed the server over our world PvP raids and even made the front page of the WoW news. I love the idea of team up with a band of gamers and wreaking havoc, win some or lose some, it was really fun. I guess my whole winded point is to ask, is there even a point to playing TOR if there will be no one left to share the fun with. Thank you very much for the post /bow

He was constructive, and brought up lots of points. Not sure how you could say otherwise. Anyone who's been here since the game launched or previously must be frustrated - 2 events...really? I've been crashing to the desktop since 1.4...really? Those two new double bladed sabers that came with the f2p cartel market and packs - one side is just not showing up...this has been going on since 1.5..really? List goes on...

 

Two events?

 

Problem is, the only points he had got lost in the hyperbole and selfish opinions.

I rather like the huge wall of text, and am nearly in agreement with all of it (though PvP could use a bit more issues. So how about that cross server pvp? Would be pretty snazzy to have, right?)

 

Personally though, I don't think this game is doomed, even with the current lack of attention the developers give to customers. It's still a half decent MMO.

 

...and only half decent. I doubt they could do anything more with the horrendous game engine, the lack of creativity, and the blatant inability to really care about the customers.

 

Oh yes, they claim they're listening, just follow the link provided! ...which just leads to the main page. Sums up the customer relations, really. Someone complains, just point to some page full of vague statements without even acknowledging there was a problem in the first place.

 

...why, yes, yes I have unsubbed, actually. Got a month left, and really not too sure what I'm going to do with it.

Excellent post. Agree with most of it.

Problem is, the only points he had got lost in the hyperbole and selfish opinions.

 

Using big words doesn't strengthen your point when you don't appear to comprehend the meaning.

 

Normal statement: This box is pretty heavy.

Hyperbole: Dude, this box is so heavy it seriously weighs like 600 trillion pounds!

 

Or, to use another idiom, hyperbole is roughly analagous to "making a mountain out of a molehill".

 

 

It's an opinion piece, so I fail to understand why you resort to trolling in the first place. Now, text is a poor medium for communicating emotion, but please demonstrate an example where I brutally exaggerated a point in such a manner for more dramatic effect, especially to the point that "everything else is lost" (who is using hyperbole again?). And 'selfish opinion'...I don't even know what you're trying to say there. No, I was not friendly and praising with the whole thing and yes, it is opinion. But, selfish? How?

Very long post. Typically I hate posts just for that reason. Hit all the nails on the head IMO. Well thought out and there's not a lot I really disagree with.

 

EA/BW has pretty much put themselves behind the eight ball with this game. Rise of the Hutt Cartel has to be massively successful in every possible way. It has to be a commercial success and sell a ton of copies. It also has to be a technical success and creative success and be virtually bug free while delivering amazing, nearly groundbreaking, content. It has a lot to live up to.

Thanks for a REAL state of the game post. It was a good read and I agree with you.

 

I personally don't think that there is anyone left on the dev side to fix things.

*********** support and bug solving is what we need to save the game. Too bad BW dont give a ****

Problem is, the only points he had got lost in the hyperbole and selfish opinions.

 

Agreed, even if some of his arguments are valid on some level, it's completely exaggerated into his own little version of reality.

 

The title of this thread alone is enough to know that this guy just doesn't have the guts to say: I don't like this game because....

 

Instead he needs to exaggerate and talk about "saving the game". Seriously the OP needs to get over himself and realise that it's perfectly fine to have an opinion. For example, I also think CS is pretty crap here, but I also know that it's sadly not exceptional. I've had similar experiences with other game companies...NcSoft comes to mind.

 

The problem for me is that even though there are issues, like poor cs and bugs. I don't know of any MMO that is bug free and has great cs support. So to make it sound that this is so unusual that the game must be saved is just a load of bull.

 

Let the arguments speak for themselves and stay away from blowing it out of proportion or making ridiculous conclusions....non sequiturs if you will. It's not the big words that make the difference but the OP just concludes things from his arguments that are not supported by those arguments.

I have a hard time disagreeing with any of the OP's comments. I have to agree with pretty much everything.

It's a good post, but I can't really see Bioware/EA taking any heed from it-- or any other post, for that matter. Both companies seem like they have lost all passion and inspiration of this game and no longer enjoy its existence, and they seem to only be trying to squeeze any money out of the players they can before the inevitable closing of the game.

 

If a company doesn't act like they care about their own game I'm not sure how they expect players (their paying customers) to care about the game, either.

One that drives me absolutely bonkers is the hood clipping issue. This bug was introduced with game update 1.2. That is 8 months ago. It's been reported several times before and yet here we are, 8 months later with the same bug. My Sith Assassin gets ready to look like a ****** and dons his Saber Marshal's Robe ready to tank a hard mode, only to have a bald head sticking through half of it. You guys created this bug with 1.2. Exactly what takes 8 months to fix this immersion breaker? How long has the problem with companion lightsabers existed? Do you know how much it pulls me out of your world and how completely stupid it looks when my companion bisects himself with his own weapon as I check my mailbox?

Hood clipping is my sore spot as well. It just freaks me out how they defiantly show how they don't care about it at all.

Let me elaborate.

As you've already said, hood clipping was introduced with 1.2, 8 months ago. For many months not a single word was said about it, it never appeared on the known issues list. Though at some point, not long ago, they've suddenly fixed the said bug for 2 robe types (elder and sorcerer's). In my opinion that happened only because the robes of the said types were introduced on the Cartel Market. A fact that they didn't fix Saber Marshal's robe type, which was not presented on the Market, strengthens my opinion. It makes me mad how they can discover a bug affecting certain gear, fix it only for the pieces which are going to be on cash shop, and completely ignore the remaining ones.

One more example. Their Revan's set clips really bad on body type 3. Of course it wasn't fixed yet, but that's not why i mentioned it. Take a look at this page:

http://www.swtor.com/buy#cartelcoins?intcmp=sor_bwa-mkt-t-us-hp-015

The said ugly clipping is clearly seen on an ADVERTISEMENT picture on the OFFICIAL site. I'm simply speechless.

 

Speaking about companion lightsaber bug, i didn't see it even once when leveling my first assassing. That was prior to 1.2 though. What stops them to reverse the lightsaber behaviour to pre-1.2 state, or to beta state (i heard when you pulled your weapon out and back in, companion did the same), is beyond my understanding.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Trollokdamus

If I could comment.

 

I'm not sure the game needs saving, but it certainly could use another kick in the pants (I think the cartel market gave it a pretty good kick).

 

Here is what I think the game needs over the next year...

1) BF2 style space battleground, persistent, with PVE and PVP elements, as well as inclusion of Multiplayer ability for current space feature.

 

This is the single most important improvement that can be made to the game IMO.

 

2) Improvement of GTN and group finder features.

 

GTN needs to have broken search options removed, ability to filter results on the fly. Group Finder needs a list of folks qued for the tool, with chosen role and desired flashpoints listed.

 

3) Name change, Legacy name change, Appearance change, server transfer and Group leader summon added to Cartel Market.

4) Refinement of ability trees to 3 distinct roles (healer, tank, dps) and the ability to save an alternate spec and switch on the fly.

5) Ability to earn limited amount of Cartel Coins in game for subscribers.

6) Add an item to the Cartel Market that allows any single armor piece to be converted to an empty level 1 adaptive armor piece.

7) Allow customization of Starship exterior with color, patterns, etc, as well as interior using SWG housing decoration mechanic (no hooks, free movement of items)

8) Add random mission generator to the game (see my sig).

9) Difficulty slider that reduces or increases your level (the level at which mobs see you) and adjusts rewards accordingly.

 

This would allow players to increase or decrease challenge, reduce perceived level to avoid penalizing other lower level players when they group with them, allowing the running of old flashpoints with appropriate challenge and also allow true solo play if desired.

 

I also believe a few abilities should be added to the game to spice up play, but I wont relist them here. They are listed in my post history.

 

I reserve the right to add more later.

Jeez. I feel really stupid for reading the email they sent me, and subbing for a 2 month non-recur to check it out again.

 

I'm copying all you said and sharing it with my friends, star wars fans, who were thinking about trying out their first MMO here. I feel like the host of a new years party with the car keys. There's no way in hell I'm letting anyone I know try this game.

 

Pretty sad, that even at zero dollars, the cost of trying this game is too great.

 

What I find interesting is that someone will take some random forum dudes opinion on something and pass it to their friends as a universal and objective truth.

 

Many of the gripes the OP is true among most MMOs. "There's nothing to do at endgame" is such a worn out ***** I can't take it serious anymore. This game has as much to do at endgame as WoW. This game is WoW with a Star Wars skin and voice acting.

 

The last thing I'd do is come to the forums and trust people's opinions. That'd be as stupid as watching MSNBC and expecting to hear something critical about Obama. I quit this game for nine months cause I didn't feel it was worth my time or money. I came back a week ago and am enjoying this game and the changes that have happened since then. Is the game perfect? Oh hell no. But I enjoy it enough to pay $15/mo. Form your own opinion.

Agreed, even if some of his arguments are valid on some level, it's completely exaggerated into his own little version of reality.

 

Example?

 

The title of this thread alone is enough to know that this guy just doesn't have the guts to say: I don't like this game because....

 

I pointed out exactly what I don't like, and what a number of common complaints are. Your response is...you object to the title?

 

Instead he needs to exaggerate and talk about "saving the game". Seriously the OP needs to get over himself and realise that it's perfectly fine to have an opinion. For example, I also think CS is pretty crap here, but I also know that it's sadly not exceptional. I've had similar experiences with other game companies...NcSoft comes to mind.

 

You honestly think I wrote all of that as part of some self-righteous crusade to "save the game"? Holy crap man, don't be so obtuse. Again, opinion piece. Are you here to discuss the ideas and opinions presented, or to perpetuate ad hominem nonsense? If you want to discuss it, then do so. If not, move along. Calling me out to "get over myself" for voicing my opinion accomplishes...what?

 

The problem for me is that even though there are issues, like poor cs and bugs. I don't know of any MMO that is bug free and has great cs support. So to make it sound that this is so unusual that the game must be saved is just a load of bull.

 

You're stretching way too hard. Try Yoga. Did I say CS has been garbage from the start? Absolutely. Did I state my opinion that better customer service is key to helping the situation? Absolutely. But, would you kindly point out where I stated what a shattering revelation this is? Would you kindly point out where I said that bad customer service is unheard of in this game? Would you point out where I expressed that I figured out something that everyone else didn't already know by now?

 

Let the arguments speak for themselves and stay away from blowing it out of proportion or making ridiculous conclusions....non sequiturs if you will. It's not the big words that make the difference but the OP just concludes things from his arguments that are not supported by those arguments.

 

Do you even know what non sequitur means? I don't think you do, since you somehow draw "non sequitur" from a freaking opinion piece, which you have taken to grading as if it's a term paper.

 

Since you somehow managed to miss the entire meaning behind my opinion piece, I'll make it very simple: Bioware should be worried about customer retention and fixing existing problems with the game before slapping more content onto it and calling it a day. Was that simple enough to understand?

This game has as much to do at endgame as WoW.

Don't talk about something you have no clue on, please. WoW has tons of end-game content, that game is centered on it. TOR's end-game, on the other hand, is nothing more but a tiny fraction of what WoW has to offer.

Many of the gripes the OP is true among most MMOs. "There's nothing to do at endgame" is such a worn out ***** I can't take it serious anymore. This game has as much to do at endgame as WoW. This game is WoW with a Star Wars skin and voice acting.

 

And here is the problem with expressing your opinions on a forum. No offense meant at all, but you misunderstand. I'm not personally saying there's nothing to do at endgame. The entire thing is opinion. Some of it is original and some of it is incorporated from what I've seen in the last year of playing this game. Personally, I'm not bagging on TOR for "having nothing to do". I run endgame. If I get bored with that I PVP. If I get bored with that I start a new alt. Etc. It is my opinion however that they should get with the trend of other games and provide more alternatives to the 'typical endgame'. Especially if they want to hook and keep more casual people.