Note: This is a long post, with a tl'dr at the end, but I'd recommend you actually read it.

Well, three things, which I’ll explain in parts.

Yes, I know that there are other problems in the game, like pvp, insane lag due to horrid engine, dead servers, but those are all known and discussed, so I won’t be talking about them here.

1. It isn’t a story driven MMO. Not at all. It is merely an average MMO with voice acting thrown on top of it.

Bioware has produced some of the best stories in video game history. KOTOR, Jade Empire, Dragon Age, Mass Effect (1 and 2) were all unique because the plot of the games drove the player towards the end. They were character driven stories, where you controlled a character whom you shape into who you want him/her to be, and see him grow. Your actions in game had a profound effect on the game world, and you felt a sense of accomplishment whenever you did something. Every action had a consequence, and that resulted directly in creating a living breathing world.

With SWTOR, the development team decided to keep the focus on a character driven story, but this came at the cost of making it feel like a solo game with people running around in it. What’s worse is that, despite being a character driven game, your character, even at the end of it, is incredibly plain and uninteresting. This is because there isn’t any breathing room in the story. It’s all incredibly linear. You’re always some slave turned sith apprentice, and you’re always some down on his luck guy that got his ship stolen.

Your character is also plain because the story you play has no influence at all on the overall. So you’re now done with the class story and you’re on the dark council? Good for you! That has no bearing whatsoever on anything, ever. It doesn’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything, because as soon as you leave your instanced story and step into the fleet, you’re going to see many many others exactly like you. All the class stories have almost no bearing or even any relation the main plot going around in the game, which is the cold war between the Republic and the Empire.

Well, you may argue that this is to be expected, and they can’t accommodate that many different choices in the class story, so they’re bound to have it similar to everyone, which is completely true. What should have been done, however, is to make the game plot driven. The game should have been focused on a central plot centered around the cold war, and the class quests should have been a bonus, coming of age side plot.

This makes sense, because in all of the stories, you start off down on your luck and evolve into a massive powerhouse “I can rule the universe so **** you” type. While cool, they are really detached from the main plot and themes of the universe at large. The game should have revolved around, you know, what was actually going on in the universe at large.

Making the plot revolve around the universe at large also presents better opportunities for roleplaying and cooperative play. It makes more sense for the story to push players into a goal of beating the crap out of the opposing faction than it is to play the warrior storyline for the billionth time.

This happens sometimes, but nowhere near enough. Take for example, Tatooine. The main quest in the planet is a treasure hunt, and it is wonderful. Here is a prime example of the story pushing you forward! What is this mysterious power? Where can I find it? How do I stop it? What does it do? Can I salvage it? That Darth guy sure is nice! It presents an interesting outlook on the universe, and can really bring players together.

The problem is that, when there is a worldwide plot instead of the single player class quest, it’s marred by bad design choices. The game just doesn’t want you to explore. Ever. I was incredibly frustrated whenever I get a warning when I go too far and start losing health. Why would you do this? This just separates the game into distinct zones, and there is nothing at all interesting in them except that there are random quests here. There’s nothing to take in. All that is available are quests separated by an insanely long walk that would be suicide without a speeder.

Taris is another example. While the central plot of that planet isn’t as interesting as tat in my opinion, the plot still drives it. In the empire side, you have this Sith chick who annoys the living crap out of you, and she really pushes you to doing quests. I’d do the insanely long bonus quests just to spite her.

Again, the planet has some horrible design choices. I’m looking directly at you, bonus quest in a heroic area with a wondering champion and a world boss.

Now you’re wondering, all the examples I’ve given have story and plot, so the game is plot driven! Your examples don’t connect with the title! Well, the problem is, these are few and far in between. The game is filled, filled with grind quests. Most of the game is grind quests. The only difference is that these quests, unlike WoW, are voiced. This does NOT make the game plot driven. If the quests in the game are all basic “go kill 10 rodents”, then they are not plot driven. You can add all the voice acting in the world and it won’t make these quests relevant to any meaningful plot.

If people want to claim that these quests are plot driven, then by the very same argument, WoW is a plot driven game. Pretty much every single quest in WoW that involves grind also gives you a backstory to motivate you. It isn’t voiced, but the meaning and intention is the exact same. There is NO difference between reading about killing 10 rats for the goodwill of the Horde and killing 10 republics because the guy you were talking to hates them. None whatsoever.

All BioWare managed to do is make basic quests like these infinitely more expensive to produce, and there are a LOT of them. They should have made each planet, like Tat, have their own plot that is in direct relation to the story of the world at large, and all questing should be related to this. If you’re going to argue that this takes a long time and is hard to implement, well yes it is. But that’s their job. This is what it takes to make questing plot driven. Having a guy tell you with VO to do the exact same quest that every game gives you does not make a story driven game.

I think of the quests in Guild Wars 2 and think that this is what should have been in SWTOR.

The main story of the entire universe, sadly, is told through irregular disconnected flashpoints. After playing the Black Talon and the Esseles, I thought that BioWare hit a homerun! PLOT! These dungeons were all story driven and incredibly interesting and different. They encouraged interaction, had meaningful decisions, and flat out rocked. I hated the Twilled ambassador in the esseles, and that’s okay. That’s fantastic, actually, because she’s an incredibly well written character. She made me feel something. She made me think she was an insane stupid idiot jerkface, and that is perfect. She made me feel connected to the game, made me feel like I was a part of something.

Even the bosses were cool. The stupid jerkface told you about this big tough guy Mandalorian, and your thoughts are, “Oh cool! This guy sounds tough. I’d better be careful where I go.” You’re given some backstory and info into a boss, and I thought that was very cool.

Unfortunately, the design is abandoned IMMEDIATELY afterwords. Each flashpoint after has nothing interesting whatsoever. The story driven style is completely abandoned, and the only thing you get in its place is a quick chat with Malgus or New Bastilla. That’s it. Oh, and the insanely cliche light/dark choice that you make that has no bearing whatsoever. It’s literrally only just there because BW remembered halfway that these were an important part of forming your character, except that meaningless choices like these have no impact.

The problem is that these have the most connection the world at large. These give you the most insight into what’s happening in the game world. The most that you can get into the universe is a quick chat with Malgus and Bastila before your mission.

This makes me feel that the whole design of the game is broken on a fundamental level that cannot be fixed unless it was completely rebooted. We have a story driven game that isn’t story driven that’s filled with cliche quests that have nothing to do with anything focusing on a single player story that has no effect on the universe at large and actively discourages grouping up as a result.

The game fails because it has a whole exciting universe build up, with tension and sith and jedi and everything a Star Wars fan could hope for, but it’s focused on all the wrong aspects.

2. They ruined the story of Revan forever.

Spoilers for Kotor 1 and 2, as well as the foundry below:

3.The class stories are not good.

I’m going to start this off by stating that the Agent story is one of the best, if not THE best, things that BioWare has ever done. Ever. This story is brilliant. Every single thing about this story screams classic BioWare, the ones that gave us Jade Empire, not the Mass Effect 3 BioWare. This story is so genius, I’m surprised BW even included it, considering how the Agent is one of the least played classes in the entire game, and has been nerfed to hell and back ever since the first patch.

Most other stories, sadly, are not up to par. The Sith Warrior story is pretty cool, and that’s it basically. Given that the they advertised that the game is story driven with epic plots, having most of the class stories ranging from decent (trooper) to outright terrible (counselor) is not a good sign. With most of the budget going to VO and story development, I really expected them to be better.

With the exception of the Agent story, none of these are anywhere near the quality of past BW titles.

The biggest offender in my opinion is the Jedi Knight story,

I didn't write much here, since this point is subjective, but I was on the whole disappointed with most of the stories.

TL;DR:

1. The game isn't plot driven, it just adds voice overs over the same quests you've seen countless times before, and focuses on the wrong aspects of the story.

2. Revan had no business being in this game, and is a complete contradiction to how he was portrayed in the previous games.

3. The actual class stories are not up to par with anything BW has done before, not including the Agent story, which is genius.

As for your #1

I think that, while yes, what you say is true. You have to consider the restrictions that are in place because of the genre. You can't have a meaningful outcome from a desision because life MUST go on in the world. You can't blow up Alderran because people still need to go there.

Against games like Mass Effect, SWTOR's story is a 4 / 10, but against other MMOs it's story is a 10/10 (IMHO). I forgive it's shortcomings because I understand the restriction on the writters, and Kudos to the IA Story writter for making the best of what he had to work with.

I'm glad they did what they did, and while some stories fall short, there are 100s of them. They can't all be great, but I appreciate the fact that they are there...considering.

Hi OP:

Well, I would say I agree with at least your first point, more or less in full.

Here's my counter-argument.... I loved KOTOR, and after a year or so away from it, I played it again, and chose the opposite path. It's been so long, I don't remember whether I did light first time through, or dark.

BUT, would I have played KOTOR through, let's say, thirty (30) more times, in rapid succession? I don't think so.

Like it or not, that's what an MMO is. Doing the same stuff, over and over. They build in layers of stuff to make it appear you are not repeating the same stuff, but.... you are.

These MMOs are, by design, rinse/repeat, grind up and redo things, over and over and over.

You can't do the same STORY over and over and over, can you?

Even if they made the best freakin' stories ever in the SWTOR class quests (which I don't necessarily care about in this game, but you, and others like you, did), would the average MMO player be interested in redoing the stories?

Not really.

MMO <> single-player story-driven game.

(typos, sorry...)

SWTOR tried to go halfway between single player and halfway between the MMO crowd, and (it would appear) have satisfied neither group.

SWTOR isn't all that repeatable, plain and simple. Even if the "stories" were the best stories ever, would you really want to hear them, over and over?

The first time I went through Esseles, I listed to all the dialogue, but the 5th time? Uck...

(and therein lies the problem for SWTOR)

Well, I respect your opinion, but mine differs.

My only regret is that I got to the end of the story with my Jedi too soon. I expected leveling to be more like WoW, where in five years I never got a character to max level. But they've said more content is coming.

SWTOR is KOTOR that I can play with my wife, which is exactly what I wanted. I am happy.

Hey MMornard:

I would use your post as another area the designers of SWTOR really messed up.

They should have made the levelling curve for SWTOR much much slower.

It took me maybe 6 months to hit level 60 on my first WoW guy.

People hit max. level on this game in like 3 days, which might have possibly been OK if they had tons of endgame content.

OP, you completely missed the point imo. It is impossible to actually make 8 different stories that appeal to everyone. The agent story appealed to you, and it alone was worth the box price.

Every story has a different flavor that is set to appeal to a different "crowd". So, working as intended imo.

As for your #1

 

I think that, while yes, what you say is true. You have to consider the restrictions that are in place because of the genre. You can't have a meaningful outcome from a desision because life MUST go on in the world. You can't blow up Alderran because people still need to go there.

 

Against games like Mass Effect, SWTOR's story is a 4 / 10, but against other MMOs it's story is a 10/10 (IMHO). I forgive it's shortcomings because I understand the restriction on the writters, and Kudos to the IA Story writter for making the best of what he had to work with.

 

I'm glad they did what they did, and while some stories fall short, there are 100s of them. They can't all be great, but I appreciate the fact that they are there...considering.

That's true. My point however is that they should have focused on the story at large instead of the character story. There should have been more Tatooine's imo, and that should have been their focus. I'm not saying that there should be life altering decisions like the Alderaan point you make, for instance, but that the main story that drives everything shouldn't be your character story, but the planetary story and the story of the universe at large.

OP, you completely missed the point imo. It is impossible to actually make 8 different stories that appeal to everyone. The agent story appealed to you, and it alone was worth the box price.

 

Every story has a different flavor that is set to appeal to a different "crowd". So, working as intended imo.

I'm not saying they don't appeal to me. I'm saying that they are, in general, very poorly written and not up to standard to BioWare's writing in past games. Take, for example, the Inquisitor story. Without going into spoilers, I loved the premise, but I found the delivery sloppy and poorly paced.

Pretty much all of these stories are appealing to me (I am a SW fan after all), but most of them just aren't up to par is the point I was trying to make in my third point.

trussasp :

My point isn't that they're grindy. It's that the game isn't really story driven. Adding voices over cookie cutter quests and calling it story driven isn't really true. If that's the case, WoW is also story driven.

Hey MMornard:

 

I would use your post as another area the designers of SWTOR really messed up.

 

They should have made the levelling curve for SWTOR much much slower.

 

It took me maybe 6 months to hit level 60 on my first WoW guy.

 

 

People hit max. level on this game in like 3 days, which might have possibly been OK if they had tons of endgame content.

Well, I'm not a highly skillful player, so it took me about a month playing (for me) very obsessively -- I was on semester break all through January so I played several hours a day. I also did every side quest.

But yes, I wish leveling took longer, I agree. To some extent it was my own fault -- my wife and I play together, so we double-teamed every enemy we encountered. But still, leveling seemed to happen awfully fast.

Actually, I don't care if I level any more; I'd be perfectly happy with more Jedi story that didn't even give you any rewards other than playing through the story.

I had a debate with someone in my guild over #1. My point was yours: this doesn't feel like an MMO. It's me doing my story and a whole bunch of other people doing the same/similar in the same space. We went back and forth for a bit before I realized I was getting no where and went to solo low level flashpoints because I have nothing else to do.

This is true! How the game's focus is on the character quests is the issue I think. This decision by itself kills groups by story. It's never "the sith warrior and his ragtag guild do the impossible." It's "the sith warrior does the impossible alone by himself." Most of the people I talk to treat the class quest as a solo campaign basically, which is a shame considering that it's the main focus of the story.

Had they made the planetary stories and the main plot of the universe the central themes that drive it, I think it would have given better incentive to group. It makes more sense, and is more fun, to group up for the Tatooine tresure hunt, for example, rather than group up to do someone's class quest which you have no part of whatsoever.

That's true. My point however is that they should have focused on the story at large instead of the character story. There should have been more Tatooine's imo, and that should have been their focus. I'm not saying that there should be life altering decisions like the Alderaan point you make, for instance, but that the main story that drives everything shouldn't be your character story, but the planetary story and the story of the universe at large.

But why would a smuggler have the same story like a trooper? In Kotor you were a Jedi and that determined the story. I this game you can be an agent instead. If the planetary story would be the main story of the game, you probably wouldn't feel like an agent.

But why would a smuggler have the same story like a trooper? In Kotor you were a Jedi and that determined the story. I this game you can be an agent instead. If the planetary story would be the main story of the game, you probably wouldn't feel like an agent.

I'm not saying that they remove the class quests outright. I think they should have made the planetary quests the focus, with the class quests as a coming of age sort of thing. I'd probably still feel like an agent, because the agent has a different class mechanic and feel than, say, a warrior.

The character driven story worked with Kotor because it was a single player game. You were the only one there, so it catered to you and you alone. Here, however, you're playing with many other people, and the main story should accommodate everyone, so having the character driven story be the focus makes little sense in this context.

Great insights, OP. I agree with just about everything you've said over the last two pages.

Why thank you! I'm glad you share my opinions.

They took a huge undertaking and imo were mostly successful. It's true that the writing and execution of some stories isn't as good as others, but It's also unreasonable to expect that all stories would be at the same level.

Why is it unreasonable? Isn't it their job? I think it's completely reasonable to expect them to be good at it, especially when you consider that this game has the larges budget of any video game, ever.

Had it been like other mmo's with the focus not on the story, then I would have agreed with you. But considering that the main selling point of SWTOR is the story, having most of them being badly written is a pretty bad deal.

HI Dalekjs:

I want you to know that I basically agree with you with your "story not so great: comments.

The thing is, the people who left, and who are leaving, are NOT leaving for that reason.

They're leaving because this game doesn't function so well as a repeatable MMO.

Economy, end game content, open world PvP, etc. etc., blah blah blah...

Even if they had written the most awesome STORY you could imagine, would that keep you playing this (supposed) MMO for a year?

In my humble opinion, they should have focused even less on story, and made this a more "sticky" repeatable MMO.

My evidence? The comments you surely see every time you run an instance. (more spacebar plz, etc.)

Sadly, the game doesn't really work as a great story-driven single player game, and it DEFINITELY doesn't work as a true MMO.

TLDR.... I agree with you, but that is not why SWTOR is circling the drain right now.

As for the stories I think a lot of you guys forget these class stories will continue with expansion packs.... The only criticism I might make was there should be at least two completely different endings of the class quest, I know that makes it harder for them with the next expansion pack as they have to continue both endings and eventually you end up with a lot of different paths in the story, but if they wanted to do it right thats how they should of done it. By making all the choices feel pointless and removing the consequences system they had with companions based on the choices you made in game it really made the story component feel bland.

As for the general MMO, yes they needed to make less linear content and make some dynamic stuff, Dailies should of been based around Public Quests (IE: Guild Wars 2, Warhammer Online, Rift) and not around linear quests that you would want to rip your skull out after doing a gazillion times..... To me this is where they blew it with end content for PvE.... as for PvP they just need end game content period... right now they have nothing and its causing a lot of people to leave..

HI Dalekjs:

 

I want you to know that I basically agree with you with your "story not so great: comments.

 

 

The thing is, the people who left, and who are leaving, are NOT leaving for that reason.

 

 

They're leaving because this game doesn't function so well as a repeatable MMO.

Economy, end game content, open world PvP, etc. etc., blah blah blah...

 

 

Even if they had written the most awesome STORY you could imagine, would that keep you playing this (supposed) MMO for a year?

 

 

In my humble opinion, they should have focused even less on story, and made this a more "sticky" repeatable MMO.

 

 

My evidence? The comments you surely see every time you run an instance. (more spacebar plz, etc.)

 

 

Sadly, the game doesn't really work as a great story-driven single player game, and it DEFINITELY doesn't work as a true MMO.

 

 

 

TLDR.... I agree with you, but that is not why SWTOR is circling the drain right now.

Hello!

Oh I agree that this isn't why people are leaving. I wrote in the beginning that I was not going to talk about all the issues with pvp and end game all everything. The point of my thread was, for a game that's this massively story driven, it really isn't, and the stories themselves are spread around, cluttered, and poorly written.

I disagree about needing less story however. I stated that I think they should make the planetary stories the main ones and condense them, so that all the quests on a planet are related to the main one. For example, Tatooine. The main quest is the tresure hunt. They should have made that the focus, and get rid of the random grindy quests and make them in line with the story. For example, rather than go kill the Exchange thugs quests ( I think there were like 3 of these to be honest), something that related to the plot would have made much more sense with what the game is trying to accomplish. Like, escort the expedition team through the desert, or collect source materials.

Sure these can and will be somewhat grindy, but they're intertwined with the main story instead of being completely random quests that have nothing to do with anything.

Also, I think that the reason people space bar is because, literally, the only story driven flashpoint they can run is the esseles/black talon, and they are one of the very few ways to farm social points. Had other flashpoints had actual plots, I think this would be less of an issue, yet still an issue, understandably.

Again, I agree that there are much bigger problems with gameplay, but my point was that this game doesn't do a very good job with it's supposed main draw.

As for the stories I think a lot of you guys forget these class stories will continue with expansion packs.... The only criticism I might make was there should be at least two completely different endings of the class quest, I know that makes it harder for them with the next expansion pack as they have to continue both endings and eventually you end up with a lot of different paths in the story, but if they wanted to do it right thats how they should of done it. By making all the choices feel pointless and removing the consequences system they had with companions based on the choices you made in game it really made the story component feel bland.

 

As for the general MMO, yes they needed to make less linear content and make some dynamic stuff, Dailies should of been based around Public Quests (IE: Guild Wars 2, Warhammer Online, Rift) and not around linear quests that you would want to rip your skull out after doing a gazillion times..... To me this is where they blew it with end content for PvE.... as for PvP they just need end game content period... right now they have nothing and its causing a lot of people to leave..

I agree with the first point partly, but I don't think that having the stories expanded by expansions would have any effect on how they are viewed now. I think most are poorly written in general, as well as the whole bland feeling you get as you said, but I don't think that adding to an already broken story can 'fix' it. They'll add to it and hopefully the added parts will be better, but that doesn't change that the fundamental basics of the story, from levels 1-50, are still bad.

As for the second, I agreed completely. When I saw the GW2 dynamic quest system, my immediate thought was this should have been what SWTOR was like!

Hi Dalekjs:

Again, we're basically agreeing on story, but the problem is, you're talking about something that's not "fixable".

There's simply no way for what you would like to happen, to happen within SWTOR.

Especially given recent layoffs, etc.

I'd say to the devs, or whoever, tweak/fix the MMO/playstyle, it's about all they could possibly do to save this game at this point.

What you are saying is, essentially "get in a time machine, go back and and hire better writers"

At this point, somebody should focus on things that could possibly be addressed, is my thing...

I have a problem with your #1. You say that the "story" should revolve around the larger conflict and then you give the example of Tatooine, which is, in my opinion, the planet story with the least tie and impact on the larger conflict/story.

Also the side quests on the planet in most cases do not tie directly into the overarching story but they at least make a passing attempt at being relevant to the furtherance of your side's goals on that planet.

I won't comment on the Revan thing since I didn't play KoToR or KoToR 2.

You also mention that Flashpoints seem to be the only furtherance of the overarching story.

While I will agree that the agent storyline is exceptional (my main is a Sniper) and the others I have experienced to 50 (JK, SW and BH) are weaker by comparison, I don't necessarily have a problem with the ultimate bada** nature of the stories. You should feel heroic as your character.

Hi Dalekjs:

 

Again, we're basically agreeing on story, but the problem is, you're talking about something that's not "fixable".

 

There's simply no way for what you would like to happen, to happen within SWTOR.

 

Especially given recent layoffs, etc.

 

 

I'd say to the devs, or whoever, tweak/fix the MMO/playstyle, it's about all they could possibly do to save this game at this point.

 

 

What you are saying is, essentially "get in a time machine, go back and and hire better writers"

 

 

At this point, somebody should focus on things that could possibly be addressed, is my thing...

Indeed! I'm not saying they should fix them though, I'm just talking about my opinion on why the story is weak, and how it fails to be a story driven game. I've written in my main post how this has caused the game to be fundamentally broken, and that the only way to fix it is to completely reboot it.

Will they do that? No. But again, the point of my thread was to air grievances, not tell them to fix it . I'm just basically disappointed that the story telling is so poor. We're basically left with a run of the mil WoW clone, and with all the awesome games already available, and with GW2 coming out soon, there's really no reason to stay here other than the SW skin.

I agree that the best way to fix the game now and save it from dying is to fix the gameplay, release server transfers as soon as possible, add content, fix pvp ( I really feel bad for the pvp players), and everything that's been mentioned before, I'm just disappointed that it could have been so much more.

SWTOR is KOTOR that I can play with my wife, which is exactly what I wanted. I am happy.

This. I was expecting the game to be like this from day one. Not SWG2, not WoW2, more like KOTOR3 with multi-player aspects. I really don't know how people thought it was going to be anything else.

Hey MMornard:

 

I would use your post as another area the designers of SWTOR really messed up.

 

They should have made the levelling curve for SWTOR much much slower.

 

It took me maybe 6 months to hit level 60 on my first WoW guy.

 

 

People hit max. level on this game in like 3 days, which might have possibly been OK if they had tons of endgame content.

That you took 6 months in WoW is not a testament to that games slow levelling, but to how you played WoW.

Many people took way, way, less.