Remember when MMO's were worlds not games

That's such a daft strawman argument.

That there is clearly nothing between SWTOR linearity and Minecraft.



When in fact most of the the gaming potential availible actually falls between the two.

Essentially yes. I mean, I enjoyed the hell out of the sandbox games that I played, but essentially all of that enjoyment was because my friends and I enjoyed the game and came up with things to do. Further, to be blunt, I have personally never enjoyed a sandbox game that didn't focus on PvP as I find it to be one of the most community-building and enjoyable/dynamic aspects of gameplay.

I assure you I am not "missing" it, its just that games have changed as have the times. I mean I still enjoy TT roleplaying with my friends, but this isn't what MMORPGs are about by a long shot. Back in the day MMOs were a great deal more condusive to this. When characters died there were consequences, relationships meant something as a result since you had to depend on your fellow gamers to do things. But consequences and a dependency on other players, as critical as they are for a quality sandbox are practically anethema to "modern" MMO gamers. There is a constant push for more solo content, less grinding, more direction, less opportunity to make bad choices etc. I am not saying that I like any of this just that current mainstream AAA MMOs are probably not your bag if you are looking for this older school of gameplay.

I hate to say it but one of the things that brought me to SWTOR was that it was not SWG. SWG was the only MMO I have ever actually tried to return, and when I couldn't I just gave my copy to a friend. After playing it for a week I was so lost & bored that I couldn't understand what their thought was in the design. I remember having to kill rabbits or some kind of rabbit-esque rodent on the starter world and wondering "what the **** am I doing, this isn't Everquest, why am I shooting rats?" Nothing about that game felt Star Warsey at all to me, but then I was never a huge fan of the story and couldn't understand why the game would be based in the Jedi-less movie era anyway.

I (personally) am not a huge fan of Star Wars yet the story in SWTOR genuinely amazes me at times. I'm not a huge sci-fi guy and yet I find this game deeply enjoyable and different in some important ways from the standard themepark MMO (despite forum moans to the contary).

I want to be clear here, I would LOVE for there to be some more sandbox options for play in SWTOR at some future date. More (genuine) open PvP planets, the ability to build properties and have them destroyed, to fight over territory and more sounds great to me. I do not however hope that they change their design model to suit /only/ sandbox play. Take a moment to look at the PvP forums, all of the rabid ************ about Ilum, the core of people's arguments against Ilum are that it is Open world PvP. People don't understand this but that is what they are ************ about. Zerg vs. zerg, no safety anywhere, people making it hard for you to achieve your computer designated goals, that is sandbox to a degree. We can't just take the good and pretend the bad didn't exist guys. I loved sandbox gaming, but it is definitely not for everyone.

Does no one else do all of the heroic quests in this game? I mean, I've only done a few flashpoints, but, I have done every single heroic quest that I've gotten, which means I've grouped with tons of different people. And because I'm a guardian tank, I have to actually interact with these people regularly to coordinate CCs and also kill order.

I also constantly run into the whole "Remember me! We just did those Heroics the other day! How have you been!" scenario's as well.

This game can be as social as you want to make it. Join a guild, ask for quest partners in gen chat, etc. If you're skipping all of the heroics and solo questing only, you kind of have no right to say this game isn't a social experience. Grouping with others is a huge part of the fun.

Also, I loved EQ back in the day, but good lord... I don't have much nostalgia now for that game. All I remember is dying due to a train (Run! Incoming train!), losing my current level due to the massive experience loss with each death, begging for a port due to forgetting to bind and then dying again on the way back to my corpse.


So, thanks to someone pulling something and then running to the next zone, I die and then spend 2 hours trying to get my corpse back. All the while losing a good 10 hours worth of EXP and my current level.


No thanks.

Things you can fully focus on without need for endless grinding (aka leveling).

I think the above is ultimately all we're going through here. We played those games when we were younger, it was a blast, we have fond memories but maybe if we looked back in a reasonable light we'd realize that alot of things about those games sucked. Particularly if you weren't playing with an organized guild or lots of your personal friends.

I do miss the "good ol days" of penalties, challenges and grind. I do miss the "good ol days" when achievements actually meant something. But I also recognize that those types of games are still out there on the market in the 2nd and 3rd tier arenas of MMOing. There are open world sandbox games, there are FFA PvP games and in their own measure of success they are successful. However a game like SWTOR isn't looking for the same numbers Darkfall is. Does this mean Darkfall is a "failure"? Of course not, but it does mean that you shouldn't expect the same approach to gameplay here as you should there.

Some of my fondest memories in Shadowbane were likely the same memories that made my enemies quit. It is a great time when you are finally burning down the city your rivals took more than a year to create... it is not such a great time for them.

SWTOR isn't a world, it's a Universe baby!!!! Yeah!!

If you were a monk trains(to zoone!!!!!111111!!11) were perhaps one of the greatest spectator sports ever seen in online gaming.

Unless you hadn't been training your feign death of course. Then you'd just fall over and get killed on the ground as the mob ran by.


It's funny.. it was a skill meant for emergencies, but you had to click it every time it popped up to train it. Does anyone also remember swimming around and jumping off cliffs to train those skills too? EQ had some of the craziest trainable skills.

What specifically is stopping you from living and existing in SWTOR? I don't worry about the loot grind or the level grind or the theme park. I go off the beaten path often. I've made my own stories that don't include having the biggest numbers on my hat.

Yes, this game doesn't have all the sandbox features of SWG. But the only one keeping you from enjoying the world is you.