First wall of text I actually read all the way through.

 

Good suggestions, now lets hope BioWare acts on it. They seem to be so wrapped up in getting new players to join that they're forgetting us

Good suggestions! Disputable sometimes, but I really like it.

 

/sign

It could be that they are listening but just not informing us that they are working on some of the issues you spoke about.

 

The Warzones do need a good overhaul and perhaps an entire rethink on how to do PVP for SWTOR is needed.

 

We need things like:

 

1. CTF maps, yes more than one.

2. More Huttball maps, in the current Huttball map sorcerers can shine with the pull friendly ability, maybe other maps could allow other classes to shine. This would make it a lot more fun as well, endless Huttball map possibilities exist.

3. Take and Hold (T&H) maps that do not feel dull, flying in on the speeders is a fun idea the first time a player experiences it but it soon gets irritating. 3 capture points in T&H doesn't seem to be enough.

4. Warzones which focus on killing enemy players and no other objective to achieve victory.

5. Speed, running around while stuck in combat is just too slow.

6. PVP designed in a way to encourage the losing side to continue participating.

 

And I really love these ideas! Nicely done!

agree with all points but 2- and 8 confuses me

You know there's a "hide Dark Side Corruption" option, right?

You know there's a "hide Dark Side Corruption" option, right?

 

That doesn't change how my avatar appears to others, and it shouldn't appear to others. MMO failure at an epic level to not appreciate how players deem to convey their avatar to others in a social (MMO) environment - the very fundamentals of MMO design tenets, and akin to the epic surname failures. Further, it doesn't stop me seeing undead Troopers and zombie Smugglers in my groups. The hide corruption is an epic failure in addressing an epic failure - and that's not a redundant statement.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Verdan

What's also holding SWTOR back is this frame of mind from the devs:

 

(article on Daniel Erickson on digitaltrends.com)

 

“What we always say is, before the game came out it was our game. As soon as it launched, it became the community’s game,” Erickson added. “The number one request we get with a bullet [in terms of] what people want more of, is story. They just want their story to keep going. They want to see more of The Old Republic, they want to see how the galaxy is developing, and they want to do it with their prime characters.”

 

If they think all they need to do is add more of this story element, players will just burn through the content and return doing dailies again. They'll be extremely bored, tell off BioWare that you're releasing too little content or releasing it at such a slow pace, and possibly unsubscribe.

 

It'll be an endless cycle because BioWare thinks an MMO can survive with a majority of it being a themepark, story-based MMO.

 

I'm convinced Mr. E. is the next person on the chopping block (atop the lastest round of chops [eg. Vogel]) for the shortcomings of the game in delivering on expectations. As for story-based MMO, noting rollseyes in your quote of course, the story falls flat, as the OP leads into as the first headline - epic failure in story development via lack of an ensemble cast and recurring characters.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Verdan

I'm convinced Mr. E. is the next person on the chopping block (atop the lastest round of chops [eg. Vogel]) for the shortcomings of the game in delivering on expectations. As for story-based MMO, noting rollseyes in your quote of course, the story falls flat, as the OP leads into as the first headline - epic failure in story development via lack of an ensemble cast and recurring characters.

I really do think all of the things you mention here are great and could even be its own Star Wars MMO that could definitely be a WoW killer.

 

I just think that the stories don't need to go, but really need to be lessen and improved by adding many of the general MMO mechanics, features and content players are looking for. Star Wars MMOs really just need to have a lot of sandbox-type of features, too because in Star Wars you'd want epic space and land battles that would mean something. You'd want a dynamic world that is controlled by the players letting everyone know which faction owns what planets and who could possibly be the strongest players that could mean something for each faction.

 

This game being ruled by a majority of a themepark, on-rails, story-type MMO wasn't the way to go.

Verdan here. As mentioned, cancelled 3 of 4 household accounts, and Verdan was one of them, so carrying on with this account. Full of optimism, had 6 month subscriptions, and the time was finally up.

 

Well, burned out on the gear grind (Section IX of OP), so have been leveling a Bounty Hunter with the remaining account. Thus far, none of the foundational issues of the OP have been addressed, and nothing in the latest video talking about a new player race, new planet, or new instances indicate that they're being addressed. Little hope for improvement in gameplay and satisfaction.

 

Regarding Bounty Hunter, confirmed that Section IV of OP, Companion Affection is still an issue, still not fixed. Got to about level 20 and had a quest pop up for level 32, that stopped Companion dialogues. Got almost to full 10k Affection by the time I got to level 32, and like before, got a wave of dialogues all in a row, until it appeared gated again. Got to level 42, end of Chapter 2, and it seemed to unlock the gate again, and got a slew more of dialogues all in a row again, then a quest for level 48. So still all a broken experience. No surprise eh?

 

No Progress. Will see what happens when level 50 hits on the latest avatar, but losing hope. Where's Luke?

P.S. Playing tonight, to Section V of OP, the Forums grossly ineffective... almost daily I run into a quest that needs some fix. Tonight, Erasing Evidence, Voss.

 

Most often there's a quest that is inconsistent in that it offers a bonus . . . you know, the "kill X mobs" bonus, right? And usually you can finish the primary objective and still have the bonus active to finish it. Some quests, however, all too often, when you finish the primary objective, it wipes out the bonus objective, and that's nothing short of maddening. While also inconsistent to have most keep the bonus active, the few that don't happen all too often.

 

I'd love to see a Quest/Missions Forum (as any other MMO does), as mentioned in Section V of OP, so that I can post the name of the quest, and the issue. But not here at Bioware Tor. I suppose they want us to create a Ticket, but no thanks, that's not how it's usually done, and B) with the Bioware ticket system, if I posted a ticket for every quest quirk, my ticket log would be endless because there's no way to clear all the closed tickets. No thanks. There's already a landfill called the forums, don't need to add to it with a Ticket landfill in my interface.

 

Maybe some day they'll bother to fix the forums instead of perpetuating Forums landfills, and then maybe we'll bother to let them know all the problems we run into.

Edited August 22, 2012 by BlueDestiny

VIII

Travel

 

I'll get on board with those.. much else I can wait on while they do their normal updates.

Quality of Life tweaks ...

 

None of the definitive issues of this thread have been addressed to date. Zero.

 

It brought a tear to my eye to see most of the issues with SWTOR brought together in a single post so efficiently. I really hope Bioware is paying attention to this thread.

 

My biggest fear is the game is always going to stay the same as far as foundation goes, and only get added onto with story. It'll be only for people to sub up a few months for new players until they complete the stories, and resub once some new story content comes out only to take another extended break.

Edited September 23, 2012 by odericko

Quality of Life tweaks ...

 

None of the definitive issues of this thread have been addressed to date. Zero.

 

not true! surnames are no longer unique!

 

not true! surnames are no longer unique!

 

 

Biggest feature for RP'ers in awhile. And I doubt it was a planned feature so to speak, they only did it to make mergers less difficult.

Here are some of my suggestions too, I agree we should be able to name our ships and yes i think we shouldnt all get our mega ultra pro ship at lvl 10 and feel like you didnt earn it because you didnt do anything! Everything else is basicly a yes from me!

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=519964

Great read. Agreed with most of it. Bump.

 

Edit:

Btw, Bioware was involved with a game called Dark Age if Camelot in about 2003 that had a clothing dye system. There were standard colors available from an NPC merchant and specialty colors that craters could make. No idea why they couldn't just implement this system in TOR.

Edited September 26, 2012 by bahbahbooey

I've been leveling alts while waiting for Bioware to address these issues. Our household remains down from 4 accounts to 1. The 1 account is going on haitus, as there's been little to no progress on these fundamental issues, and for another reason that is very disappointing that I've mentioned time and again on these forums - that being:

 

Back when this game started, the devs drew a line in the sand, a line that I knew wouldn't be sustained (being illogical to player's MMO fundamentals). This line was forcing player's avatars (in total, alts) to be bifurcated by faction from being in the same guild, interacting by mail, bank, or trade. This made zero sense from the concept stage, I hated it, and knew it would not last. However, the guild I was with at the time, and then the next guild, too, insisted that because of that design, we'd have an alt guild on another server "because why take up one of the 8 slots on the same server for other factional alts when there's no interaction, when it can be used for alts of diff advanced classes or storage alts." They insisted, I left one guild over the lack of dialogue on the topic, and another followed.

 

Then, of course, as I expected, Bioware backtracked almost 180 degrees from this factional sacred cow and introduced Legacy perks, and most recently a forthcoming HK story line, that all promotes and benefits players having their avatars of both factions on the same server. Great, right?

 

Except that my Rep alts and my Emp alts are still trapped on separate servers, and so I still can't enjoy Legacy perks, still can't enjoy interacting and trading between alts, and won't be able to leverage them for the HK story. I've said this time and again, the ability to transfer servers is standard in MMO's, and I still can't remedy this rediculous server situation that was brought on by early dev sacred cows and fundamentally is in my face day in and day out.

 

So, with the server services failing to deliver remedy, the fundamental issues in this thread still not being addressed, and other things to do... I'm again downgrading my participation with TOR for my 1 remaining account to be rarely active.

 

What a waste.

I skimmed through it and thought most of your ideas were good. I'd like to talk about the voice chat idea. I'm okay with it, as long as it's optional. I would prefer not to reveal my voice, especially since I probably won't have met most people, and I'm sure others agree with me. Other than that, your ideas are mostly good. I didn't actually notice any other ones I disagreed with, but as I said, I skimmed through it.

Hi Agent,

 

I cancelled 3 accounts, including the one that OP'd this thread, so I recreated the thread under the remaining active account, please see sig below and that thread for my reply to your post about the chat issue.

 

Thanks for considering the material.

 

Mods, please feel free to lock this thread, in lieu of the other noted in my signature.

Edited February 6, 2013 by BlueDestiny