This was my first MMO I actually got past level 10 in. All others I tried never really drew me in like this one did. The plot is well written, the full voice overs make ALL the difference as far as making this feel like a living breathing online world I'm being sucked into. PVP is fun what little I have tried

So I don't get it. I hated WOW because the plot was confusing, the missions where boring and the combat was a bit too slow to keep me interested. So I tried Tera with its action based combat, and again uninteresting story and boring dialog and missions.

I recently bought Final Fantasy 14 since now I know how much fun an MMO can be if you dig deep into it and I love the game. So many things it has done right, but a lot of features from SWTOR where done better than MMO and I was shocked to see FF14 didn't include anything remotely close to them. Like the ability to see what missions party members have even if they aren't shared with you, or shareable missions for that matter, story or otherwise. Travel isn't as easy as SWTOR, the map system in SWTOR is the only one in an MMO that was easy to navigate

But yet in that game and all others I play everyone uses SWTOR as the prime example of how bad an MMO can be if done wrong. I don't get it, what exactly has this game done so wrong to become the poster child for "crap mmo"

Is there something Im missing? I'll admit to not having done any end game content yet since I focused on having multiple characters just to see the story for each class, is it end game stuff that sucks here? is it the community? or is just this a F2P vs P2P argument and SWTOR catches the flak for being a subscription that "failed" so bad it had to go F2P to get players

Because as a free game I thought this one did a good job of going free without becoming "pay to win" unless im missing something. Someone please enlighten me

Reasons For Hate;

When the game first came out it was very promising, people were expecting a huge turnout followed by a fast buildup to rival wow. Unfortunately that's not the way its turned out. We don't really know whose responsible "EA" or "BW" the first year was filled with poor planning and bad decisions.

1. A massive build up in servers, leading to most of them being empty.

2. Very late additions of server transfers, leading to lots of people quitting instead of re-rolling.

3. Cut an pasts responses to tickets, with no actual solutions

4. Bugs that have existed since beta testing, some of witch are still not fixed.

....just to name a few early issues.

The long term players just got use to complaining. Even now that there is a large player base and BW's costumer service has increased by leaps and bounds, every little issue that comes up gets a huge response.

Yes its a FREEKIN AWESOME game, great writing, good combat and lots of stuff to do. But how EA and BW have handled things in the past,(and still some times do) has really lowered expectations and leads to a lot of disappointment. Fortunately a few change ups in both EA's and BW's management seems to be turning things around.

And just remember, if we didn't love it, we wouldn't complain

Ressone For Hate

 

When the game first came out it was very promishing, people were expextion a huge turnot followed by a fast buildup to rival wow.

 

Unfortinuatally thats not the way its turrened out. We don't really know whos responcibalible "EA" or "BW" the first year was filled with lost hopes and bad dicsiioons.

 

1.

So the game didn't live up to insanely high expectations, and years later ppl still hold a grudge basically? It has nothing to do with the game itself?

I ask because the only real examples I get are about it going free to play as proof of failure, or that it is "pay to win" which I haven't seen evidence of. Or they quote from the interview wwith the creator of Final Fantasy 14 who compares FF14 to SWTOR, but all he was doing was comparing two "successful franchises with different business models (f2p vs sub)"

just trying to learn whats important in an MMO to be considered a good one and if SWTOR was missing something other games had, because I again can't find the fault here aside from its payment options

Two words: unfulfilled expectations. I dont hate the game, but that is the answer to your question.

Still don't get it, I mean these games change as time passes to please the gamers or become better, few games of any other genre' do this any if at all. If thats really the only reason people are still against this game, so long after its launch, then thats not a reason its an excuse, and a pretty sh**y one at that

Guess that explains that then, not really the answer I was looking for (guess I expected more, ironic huh) but glad to hear I wasn't just a MMO noob who was missing something major

I don't thing people hate the game, or else they wouldn't be here. I think that people feel that BW cut a lot of corners and are frustrated at their seeming inability or unwillingness to correct things.

For me, I think they did an absolutely horrible job designing the GTN. It's far worse than anything else I've seen, But people have been complaining about it since release and there really hasn't been any significant effort to fix it.

I'm also not a fan of armor and weapon mods. I hate micromanaging equipment, but they're never going to change that.

I also don't like linear quest chains. In theory they make sense, but in reality, people don't like being led around the game by the nose, being forced to do the exact same quests in the exact same order toon after toon. That's one thing that WoW has going for it, you are not locked down to a quest chain. you can go where ever you want and do what ever you want.

The guild system was poorly thought out. So many things wrong with it that I don't really even know where to start.

I also hate the level of complexity needed to travel from one world to the next. There's something like half dozen load screens involved, several needless hallways and orbital space stations...

Then there is the Cartel Market. I generally like the idea of being able to buy things, but they offer gambling packs that take advantage of people's gambling weaknesses as a way to make money. They also charge absolutely stupid amounts of money for some things, making it so that only the wealthy can afford some game features.

And the list goes on.

So the game didn't live up to insanely high expectations, and years later ppl still hold a grudge basically? It has nothing to do with the game itself?

 

I ask because the only real examples I get are about it going free to play as proof of failure, or that it is "pay to win" which I haven't seen evidence of. Or they quote from the interview wwith the creator of Final Fantasy 14 who compares FF14 to SWTOR, but all he was doing was comparing two "successful franchises with different business models (f2p vs sub)"

 

just trying to learn whats important in an MMO to be considered a good one and if SWTOR was missing something other games had, because I again can't find the fault here aside from its payment options

psst, I pressed enter too early, the rest of the post.....including spelling/typing corrections are there now too

So the game didn't live up to insanely high expectations, and years later ppl still hold a grudge basically? It has nothing to do with the game itself?

Mostly, yes. That's where the "hate" comes from. The game does have a lot of issues, but I still love the game, just wish they'd figure out how to release patches without causing 20 more bugs in the process, and that they would be more thoughtful about some of the decisions they make rather than have to "clean up" and apologize afterwards.

Mostly I think they shot themselves in the foot early on by not making sure that their engine could handle a lot of things that people expect from an MMO.

It was in a shoddy state on release and communication was very, very poorly handled.

Insanely high expectations was only partially brought on by the consumers, Bioware made a lot of promises and made a lot of quotes that they then didn't deliver or went back on. And people's perception that it's just turned into an EA cashcow, aimed at the lowest common Facebook gamer to generate money until they pull the plug doesn't help.

The game is solid, the PvP is more balanced than the vocal forum PvPers will have you believe, the end game raid content is challenging enough that only a small percent can farm it, and levelling up is fun for the most part.

It's not perfect, but it's a solid MMO with lightsabers.

psst, I pressed enter too early, the rest of the post.....including spelling/typing corrections are there now too

I understand now, but I dont get the free pass FF14 is getting so to speak, I never played the first version but know it was so bad the game was canceled and had to be remade into the new game I bought this go round, and it is off to a pretty sh**y start with not enough servers, no transfer option in site, lots of simple little features that should be common sense missing from day one and are slowly being added (like a blacklist option or auto logout for AFK) their list of problems continues and is still being addressed slowly

In other words it sounds like the two games have alot in common as far as launch goes, but when I bring that up to the people who who say things like "still better than SWTOR lol" they seem to "understand" that no launch and say to "give it time"

idk just urks me when I see that. I like both games, and know each one has its pros and cons, but why should we have to pick ONE mmo :-/ its as pointless an argument as the "console wars" other gamers get into. I own an xbox and a ps3, and still prefer my PC. But I understand I have the option to play whatever I want on any system I want, this whole company loyalty thing does nothing for the consumer or the industry, its stupid. Im a gamer, I play good games no matter what system, os, or device they appear on

SWTOR was a pretty big flop at the start. From game breaking bugs to overcrowded servers which lead to a massive server spike to ghost town servers that were left way too long...

Lets just say Bioware didn't endear themselves to the MMO community much. On top of all that it was touted that this game cost 200 million to make and how awesome it would be and yet we all found out at launch that while the leveling was decent enough, you got to 50 and there was literally NOTHING to do. Like 2 Flashpoints and they were both completely bugged.

All of this stayed a problem for months after release and so people quit in droves because at the time SWTOR was a pretty bad game. Has it gotten better? Yes, but if you went to a new restaurant and the food was undercooked, the waiter took your order then never came back, and you had to wait 2 hours for the check - would you go back and what would you tell your friends?

Same thing as what happened to SWTOR.

Vanguard had the same exact problem...Vanguard is an amazing MMO now but no one plays it because of the horrible rap it got at launch (And well deserved).

When it launched this game was the perfect storm of several years of hype, general WoW weariness that is seemingly eternal yet doesn't harm that game and the fact Star Wars Galaxies was shut down for it.

BWs approach (on the back of Warhammer online trauma of promising features and not being able to deliver) of not talking about anything that wasn't set in stone kinda backfired cos they may not have added to the hype but that way they also failed to manage the community driven hype.

And when the game launched and people saw it was "mortal" not a mmo diety, and not only that, when they saw that other than story BW played everything *extremely* conservatively, failing to incorporate into the game the genre developments of the last half a decade or more, you had the inevitable blowback. In large part justifiable if we're honest. This game has to be the most static and compartmentalized mmos out. Its part the nature of space based games and part bad design choices but you're hard pressed to get the "game world" feel you get from WoW or say GW2. Other than the ilum open world pvp debacle at launch all the game mechanics are extremely rudimentary. In the years prior launch Rift and other games advanced approaches to dynamic content and when nothing at all like it made it into TOR that was and is still another strike against it. Etc. etc. etc.

The WoW refugees ended up moving on as they always do, adding one more punching bag to their repertoire. Galaxies diehards took it personally especially when the game ended up being nothing like theirs.

Add to that the fact the original dev team was completely lost post launch and we went half a year or more without any content updates to the barely functional endgame. Subs started to evaporate, servers emptied yet it took another half a year of neigh ghost town for BW to get its act up together enough to do server mergers and now recently transfers. In a time when games launch and basically enable people to hop servers as they choose TOR is the 90s wannabe game in oh so many aspects.

All added up to a giant rolling ball of bad rep and once you pick that up in the MMO world you're pretty much done for bar a complete redesign miracle FFXIV may or may not have pulled off.

The caravan moves to the next big shiny. From GW2 to ESO, end stop Titan.

Reasons For Hate;

 

When the game first came out it was very promising, people were expecting a huge turnout followed by a fast buildup to rival wow. Unfortunately that's not the way its turned out. We don't really know whose responsible "EA" or "BW" the first year was filled with poor planning and bad decisions.

 

1. A massive build up in servers, leading to most of them being empty.

2. Very late additions of server transfers, leading to lots of people quitting instead of re-rolling.

3. Cut an pasts responses to tickets, with no actual solutions

4. Bugs that have existed since beta testing, some of witch are still not fixed.

 

....just to name a few early issues.

 

The long term players just got use to complaining. Even now that there is a large player base and BW's costumer service has increased by leaps and bounds, every little issue that comes up gets a huge response.

 

Yes its a FREEKIN AWESOME game, great writing, good combat and lots of stuff to do. But how EA and BW have handled things in the past,(and still some times do) has really lowered expectations and leads to a lot of disappointment. Fortunately a few change ups in both EA's and BW's management seems to be turning things around.

 

And just remember, if we didn't love it, we wouldn't complain

Now. first things first, will precursor this by saying i am not going to defend the game to the extent to say it didnt have issues, lets be honest, the issues provided (too many servers, etc.) are valid problems that the game did have when it launched.

That being said, probably the #1 reason that this game receives as much hate as it has is due to the fact that people placed extreme expectations on this game, in reality expectations that no game would have lived up to.

The game has received loads of hate simply due to the fact that people were expecting an MMO with everything, on day 1. and when it didnt live up to it (which no MMO will EVER do) people began the bash party, and it really hasnt let up since, as people will always find something else to talk about that they want to be mad about, and if they cant find something current, they will go into the past and find something there.

TLDR is the game had some issues of course but unrealistic fan expectations and social media attribute to 95% of the hate this game has received, not the "Bioware lied to us" that most people will throw in the air from time to time.

Deathwitch, TOR has done something that is considered blatantly evil int he MMO world...it is too linear. This is one of the biggest reasons it is talked about with such hate in other MMOs. Every level range gives you exactly 1 planet to go to, and only 1 location within that planet to go to per smaller range. If TOR was more a proper built MMO you would have 3 planets to choose from for each level range, or atleast 3 planetary locations spread around the planets available. Give people the option to spend 10-15 levels on a single planet if they so choose, heck give us 20 levels worth of content on every planet. THAT would be less linear as we would have options and alts would see new content. Right now...if you play republic one and imperial once you have seen 90% of the game, the rest is just individual class stories.

I love TOR...but I get why there is hate.

1. A massive build up in servers, leading to most of them being empty.

Better than Error 37 & SIM City.

Now. first things first, will precursor this by saying i am not going to defend the game to the extent to say it didnt have issues, lets be honest, the issues provided (too many servers, etc.) are valid problems that the game did have when it launched.

 

That being said, probably the #1 reason that this game receives as much hate as it has is due to the fact that people placed extreme expectations on this game, in reality expectations that no game would have lived up to.

Pretty much this IMO.

The one factor that complicated it was the series of new MMOs launching right behind it. Each one was declared to be the "salvation". So there was a larger then normal nomadic quest for perfection in MMOs in 2012. None were. There are a lot of people expecting a WoW replacement and with unrealistic expectations really.

Plus.. a lot of SW fans want the game to be their personal embodiment of SW fantasy and we had a whole host of Kotor3 seekers that got pissed that this MMO was somehow not Kotor3.

Also..there is a general decline in the MMO player base over the last couple years. All the new ones moved to a flexible business model and WoW has bled out between 4-5M subs in the same time frame. I think a lot of MMO players were brought into the genre by WoW and are exiting the genre with WoW. These people never knew other MMOs...especially not like "old gummers" in the genre do.

I personally believe that majority of the hate comes from the fact that this is a great game but it is not (Insert your favourite game name) here.

Many people cannot get over the fact that SWG is no longer available and instead they have to suffer SWTOR

Well they don't but they chose to. Fact is this is the only SW universe mmo available and that is where a lot of hate comes from. Don't forget the fact that this game is nothing like their favourite game (insert the name here).

Reasons For Hate;

 

When the game first came out it was very promising, people were expecting a huge turnout followed by a fast buildup to rival wow. Unfortunately that's not the way its turned out. We don't really know whose responsible "EA" or "BW" the first year was filled with poor planning and bad decisions.

 

1. A massive build up in servers, leading to most of them being empty.

2. Very late additions of server transfers, leading to lots of people quitting instead of re-rolling.

3. Cut an pasts responses to tickets, with no actual solutions

4. Bugs that have existed since beta testing, some of witch are still not fixed.

 

....just to name a few early issues.

 

The long term players just got use to complaining. Even now that there is a large player base and BW's costumer service has increased by leaps and bounds, every little issue that comes up gets a huge response.

 

Yes its a FREEKIN AWESOME game, great writing, good combat and lots of stuff to do. But how EA and BW have handled things in the past,(and still some times do) has really lowered expectations and leads to a lot of disappointment. Fortunately a few change ups in both EA's and BW's management seems to be turning things around.

 

And just remember, if we didn't love it, we wouldn't complain

This.

/5char

Why does this game receive so much hate?

I like the game too, but it gets 2nd or 3rd place depending on my mood.

Reasons for hate

1) the huge development budget is a source of scorn for many. i,e, "Tortanic"

2) The Wow killer designation naturally attracted a lot of hate from Wow folks

3) "We are building our MMO on the neglected pillar of story" is another. I love class stories etc. but the mechanic led to 4...

4) Game that plays like a single player RPG. I don't have the same fun grouping as I did in other games like the original Guild Wars and City of Heroes. And as many folks say, that kind of is much of the point of an MMO.

And of course other people will talk about bugs, Pvp, etc.

PS - I never really liked the world design either. It's too narrow like the old Guild-wars, where most places feel like your walking down a corridor or moving through a maze or labyrinth.

Simply put?

The beta phase where the playerbase feedback was generally ignored.

The launch state of the game, failing to meet unfair expectations coupled with failing to meet what many consider modern MMO standards.

Draconian out-dated design standards that could not appeal to the game's target audience.

Refusal of the original dev staff to make changes demanded by the game's players, while occasionally directly insulting those players in public.

A lack of basic understanding of how players consume content, and how fast that content would be consumed by the playerbase.

Game was not designed with alternate gameplay modes that could appeal to casual players.

Game was not designed with end game play that could appeal to hardcore players.

A sea of servers that were empty for far too long.

Ok, maybe that wasn't simple.

Unfortunately first impressions are lasting ones. You have to fight three times as hard to overcome a bad launch, and this game had bad launch in spades. It's reputation was undeserved in some ways, absolutely fair in others.

The game today is very close to the game that should have been launched IMO. Still needs a bit of work, but it's getting closer to what I think it should be.

Unfortunately MMO gamers do not forgive...and rarely forget.

Why does this game receive so much hate?

 

I like the game too, but it gets 2nd or 3rd place depending on my mood.

 

Reasons for hate

1) the huge development budget is a source of scorn for many. i,e, "Tortanic"

2) The Wow killer designation naturally attracted a lot of hate from Wow folks

3) "We are building our MMO on the neglected pillar of story" is another. I love class stories etc. but the mechanic led to 4...

4) Game that plays like a single player RPG. I don't have the same fun grouping as I did in other games like the original Guild Wars and City of Heroes. And as many folks say, that kind of is much of the point of an MMO.

 

And of course other people will talk about bugs, Pvp, etc.

 

PS - I never really liked the world design either. It's too narrow like the old Guild-wars, where most places feel like your walking down a corridor or moving through a maze or labyrinth.

I agree.

This was my first MMO I actually got past level 10 in. All others I tried never really drew me in like this one did. The plot is well written, the full voice overs make ALL the difference as far as making this feel like a living breathing online world I'm being sucked into. PVP is fun what little I have tried

 

So I don't get it. I hated WOW because the plot was confusing, the missions where boring and the combat was a bit too slow to keep me interested. So I tried Tera with its action based combat, and again uninteresting story and boring dialog and missions.

 

I recently bought Final Fantasy 14 since now I know how much fun an MMO can be if you dig deep into it and I love the game. So many things it has done right, but a lot of features from SWTOR where done better than MMO and I was shocked to see FF14 didn't include anything remotely close to them. Like the ability to see what missions party members have even if they aren't shared with you, or shareable missions for that matter, story or otherwise. Travel isn't as easy as SWTOR, the map system in SWTOR is the only one in an MMO that was easy to navigate

 

But yet in that game and all others I play everyone uses SWTOR as the prime example of how bad an MMO can be if done wrong. I don't get it, what exactly has this game done so wrong to become the poster child for "crap mmo"

 

Is there something Im missing? I'll admit to not having done any end game content yet since I focused on having multiple characters just to see the story for each class, is it end game stuff that sucks here? is it the community? or is just this a F2P vs P2P argument and SWTOR catches the flak for being a subscription that "failed" so bad it had to go F2P to get players

 

Because as a free game I thought this one did a good job of going free without becoming "pay to win" unless im missing something. Someone please enlighten me

Because people expect a new MMO to have the same ammount of content than another MMO with 7 years in his shoulders.