This Is How Competition Works

Go to a vendor and try and filter the items it has for sale by "usable". Nothing happens.

There is a 100+ page thread on this same forum about the combat lag, it's not just me and it's not related to latency or computer specs.

The AH sucks. You can't search for armor by slot and you can't just type an items name into the search field without going through 2-4 sub menus first.

The point is, even if these things are "on the way" they should have been in the game on day 1. They are basic level things that every MMO has had for the past 7 years.

I'm not asking for an instant end game here. If you can create a fully voiced MMO you HAVE to be technically able to code a functioning vendor filter.

Are you really that stupid, or just trolling?

TOR offers full voice acting, not just for quest NPCs, but for you, your companions, other players, and even random NPCs out in the world. No other game offers this. It is a truly innovative concept to offer a FULLY voiced MMO.

Story? Really? TOR is one of the first MMOs I've ever played that grabs you and pulls you into the story, making it feel like you're a true part of the world you're playing in. Are you a Sith Lord? All the NPCs are going to treat you as such, and when they don't the game offers you the ability to put them in their place. Are you just a Bounty Hunter? Don't expect the same measure of respect the Sith Warrior next to you is going to get. Little variations like that draw you into the story, something no other MMO does.

Warcraft's Lore has been shot to hell ever since they added the Draenei in Burning Crusade. It was a sloppy, last-minute job, and their story has never been expanded on. The only quests that ever made you feel you were part of the world in Warcraft have since been removed (Scepter of the Shifting Sands, The Missing Diplomat, etc). Rift tried to tell you a story, but they never really brought you into the world. I always felt seperate from everything going on, which is why I quit playing. TOR works from its established Lore base, builds on it, and so far hasn't jumped the shark on anything, and seems to remain largely in line with the greater Star Wars universe, which is a major accomplishment on its own.

So yes, TOR has its faults, which I freely acknowledge, but to say it hasn't lived up to being "innovative" in any way is just plain ignorance.

Oh, OP, expecting logic from TOR fanboys. You so funny.


On this I disagree and strongly. There are enough people who hate WoW , especially after Cataclysm or whatever the hell they did to it, that it is *not* a targeting goal for "quality".

Allow me to explain. WoW has a certain feature set. A great number of people now see that feature set as "standard". Like cover systems, quick time events and dialogue trees in other games, the "mainstream" sees having these as "requirements".

Some people are actually turned off by these features. It is a gamble to push a model deliberately stripped of them, but that is the only thing that makes sense. Bioware is not stupid. They may have been rushed, but it would not have taken long to incoporate LFG/LFD, brackets, etc if these things were ever wanted.

Unfortunately, since most people are from WoW, they define "quality" as "identical in feature set to WoW and building from there as a baseline".

This , I hope, has very little to do with loyalty. Anyone who is loyal to a corporation in the 21st century needs to go on medication. Period. There is not a single company out there who's devotion to it's customers or to quality is greater than it's devotion to it's stock price, and unless you're a shareholder , loyalty is just them making a sucker out of you.

Far worse than loyalty , though, is fanboyism -- the illogical and irrational support of something because it makes you feel emotionally good.

Again -- I do not think they should be conflated. I won't play WoW. Period. Ever. Non-negotable. I know dozens of people who won't. Ever. Period. Non-negotable. It literally doesn't matter what sort of quality level it boasts, for us the "current state of WoW" puts it in realm that is not even remotely accessible or fun.

For those people, TOR is something that will evolve over time into something with the "quality" of WoW but without hordes of morons, a storyline butchered by incompetent writers, and endless meaningless grinding. In that light -- and in ONLY that light -- a comparison can be made in saying "WoW took X number of years to get to Y features, so TOR should take less", etc.

It's done all the time. Cheap cars compete with luxury cars. Advanced technologies compete with simpler , cheaper versions. Indep and freeware games compete with polished products.

Is it wise? No. Are these comparisons 100% valid? Never. Are the markets comparible? Not at all. But some pithy moron will catch you out on the point, nonetheless.

The bottom line is not "Is TOR competing with WoW" , and everyone arguing along that bottom line is missing the point.

The point is this:

They clearly had the money and development time to match WoW. They chose to focus in a different area. They are gambling that a certain group of players will chose this OVER WoW's more polished results for the simple reason that some people cannot and will not stand playing WoW.

Is that a valid choice?

You had me until you used lack of /roll as your only example (and you were so close!)

Luckily, your overall assertion that the game lacks polish in more than a few hundred places is correct.

You need to compare two other games, SC2 is way better than CoH. And yes, I have played both.

"WoW is the best! Anyone who disagrees is a mindless fanboy."

Get it?

If the game isn't the way you want don't play it. It couldn't be simpler.

As for offering advice to one of the most successful game companies in history, let me ask you this: how many games have you shipped in your career, Raein? 'Cause I'm guessing zero.

No they didn't, are you kidding me? People hung on the words of people like Furor. I think the FoH website was one of the most popular EQ related websites there was. His input was so valued that Blizzard took him in on the development of WoW. He now makes a fine amount of money off the fact that he was a jerk of a raid leader that did world firsts and knew encounter design well.

Again, rose tinted glasses. You don't want Bioware to make the game like EQ, it would fail hard.

Post moved.

Right. If the car you bought has a problem, you take it to the dealer shop and respectfully say "Hey guys, I think there's a problem with the radiator."

So the dealer shop who gave you a warranty will take it in, and spend however long it takes them to fix the radiator.

You don't walk into the shop and start crying on the floor about how your 7 year-old Honda hasn't had a radiator problem in years, and that means it's a better car, and why are you people doing this to me??!?!, Mommy I want my blanket!!!!!

I've never had to use the vendor filter and I'm almost level 50, so I'm sure it sucks it doesn't work, but I also don't see the purpose of using it if I've managed this long without it.

And if they allowed you to search by name without filtering first, you'd cause more strain on the server. You ever seen what happens to a server in WoW if you get just a couple people to do an AH scan with Auctioneer at the same time? You can actually increase the server lag using Auctioneer.

So I have no problem with making you filter results before using the name search, as that has a purpose to it.

And my point is, yes, they left out some very basic functions... basic functions that technically aren't required to play the game and enjoy it.

Missing a few basic, though ultimately minor, features does not make a game bad.

And as for "several page posts" of people complaining about issue a or issue b, I stopped listening to the masses a long time ago. I don't care if there's a million page thread on a subject, most members of the human race are stupider than some animal species, their opinions or experiences are of no value.

The combat is smooth and responsive for me and every member of my guild, so that's all that matters.

The fact is, SWTOR is an amazingly fun game with a lot of minor flaws, but every flaw is minor and, so far, hasn't detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

Even with all the flaws, SWTOR is a superior RPG to WoW.