For the millionth time, why so many players here say this is a single player game

I think it would be a large improvement to allow you to "recall" to other planets or even just your faction fleet.

Pointing out your faulty reasoning doesn't make me dense so much as it makes you look foolish.

You don't see more than "one to three guys on your map," an anecdotal statement but it's all you're giving me. Have you ever put forth effort into finding a group? Have you ever checked the upper left hand corner of your UI to see how many people are in your instance? Or like our favorite troll Shady did you hit 50 two days after launch and there for isolate yourself from the vast majority of the player base who chose to take their time?

Again, your perception does not dictate the truth.

He's saying that 3 people is not "massive"

There's not much room for difference in "perception" there; three is generally not considered to be a massive amount

Were you in RIFT at launch? that was epic, hundreds of players all doing zone events. nothing like seeing several full raid groups charging across freemarch as death rifts open everywhere and bosses spawn all over the zone.

Or scarlet gorge, when a zone invasion boss spawned in the middle on a pvp server, at launch you have whole raids of pvp flagged people meeting in the middle of the zone, it was anarchy...

Ah, happy memories.

Swtor: 2 is company, 3s a crowd,...

Until 2 days after the novelty wears off and rifts were just mindless zergs.

Yeah but do they like those "theme park" MMOs because WoW brought a bunch of single player RPG players into the MMO genre and catered to the style they are used too or are they long time MMO'ers (who started with UO,EQ,AC,DAoC, or M59?) who simply think the theme park style is better than the original MMO formula?

The problem with the current MMO market is that a certain ideal or play style led to the creation of open persistent immersion oriented gaming called the MMORPG and then it was abandoned because one half MMO (called WoW) brought in more single player RPG and battle.net fans that were originally playing the MMO genre.

In the gaming industry you have games that are like such:

1. (Diablo) Chat lobby - instanced limited multi-player game all with limited immersion factor

2. (Dungeon Siege) Chat or match making lobby - instanced multiplayer game with deeper immersion than an action RPG.

3. (Guild Wars) Persistent massively multiplayer "hub" - instanced playing zones and quest areas - same immersion (character building, crafting, etc) factor as number 2.

4. (Lord of the Rings Online / SWtOR) Persistent massively multiplayer world - persistent MMP leveling areas but also with instance playing zones.

5. (old school Dark Age of Camelot) Entire world persistent and massively multi-player. - Every questing and leveling zone open to everyone else on the server - As few loading screens as possible (any loading screen was mostly due to the limited technology at the time).

Note that these styles are not listed by their invention or release date. Only by depth and persistence world characteristics. I listed an example of each style but there may or may not be older examples as well.


Number 1 and 2 were around for years. A large group of people wanted an even deeper more immersive experience. The open world massively multiplayer persistent world was born in the likes of Ever Quest and Dark Age of Camelot. Very little instancing, very little "fast travel" or teleporting. All zones were open to everyone.

As you can see by the list of MMOs over time the shift has gone away from style number 5 and been slowly making it's way back towards number 1. The MMO genre is DE-EVOLVING. The majority of this anti-progress is thanks to WoW which brought in a bunch of single player RPG fanatics and battle.net players who didn't care about the immersion of the MMO genre they just wanted to play the new flavor of the month from Blizzard. As WoW started catering to these "I want a massively multiplayer lobby but I don't want to share my gaming world" people flocked to WoW, Blizzard more and more started catering to a style 1 or 2 game with instancing becoming more abundant. Because of it's large population other games and developers started to follow suit.

Long story short that's how you get to where we are today. People who know nothing about what an MMO was designed to be or should be using their massive population to destroy the genre or at least rewind it back to a less advanced and immersive stage of its development.

The reason the MMO industry is making this shift is not because the people who demanded an open persistent world with realistic travel times/ etc decided they didn't like their idea. It's because people who wouldn't like that formula to begin with started taking over the genre because of it's popularity increase with games like EQ and DAoC and then most famously WoW making headlines.

You hit the nail on the head. IMMERSION

It's what will keep people playing any game. Why do people play games? To escape the reality and hardship of what people call life.

Increased immersion = increased escapism!

I may get flamed for this, but it's why i would rather play GOTHIC 3 over OBLIVION.

Gothic 3 = constant changing world with no loading screens and pretty graphics, amazing story, what you do changes the game/story. (IMO, best game in the world, and i've been around the block.)

Oblivion = world changes with your level/quest progression, loading screens everywhere, ok graphics (too much bloom), fixed story with little or no changes depending on your choices. (lazy developers, cash cow).



SW:TOR has more immersion in terms of story, way more than any MMO i've played. It would be better if you could explore an entire planet, i.e. walk in a straight line and go around the world until you get back to the same point.