Linearity and Easyness is getting annoying

Has this game delivered more choice then any other mmorpg?
I would say yes.
Is this the first completely voice acted mmorpg?
I think so.
Are you upset because your unreasonable demands for player freedom is not being met in a game not tailor made for just one storyline?
Yes I think you are.
This is the most story thick mmorpg to date, according to me.
Oh and on another note: "...so I shouldn't expect WoW's endgame after one month (crappy excuse considering we're in 2012 not 2004, but whatever...)"
How you lack to see that the graphics, the voice acting and the diversity of content far surpasses Wow and may affect certain parts of other areas is beyond me.
Maybe Blizzard had more time to wrap up their endgame quicker due to the fact that they did not need to produce several gigabyte of voice acting material? Or introducing a completely new game mechanic such as group conversation?
If you are unhappy with the priorities of Bioware feel free to leave at any time and let Blizzard know that a game need not produce groundbreaking material to get your business.
The hardcore mmorpg raiders may flame but those of us who have actually have played rpg games enough to value plots, story, skilled voice acting, etc will hopefully stay around.

This game is a lot more linear than WoW, in WoW you can choose to skip zones entirely if you out level them via some other means, multiple starting areas, PvP or dungeon level entirely if you like. You can't skip zones in this game due to the fact that you HAVE to complete class quests to progress.

I don't hate this game, I played in beta and didn't figure it would have the long term draw WoW would. I had fun leveling my first toon to 50, grinding Battlemaster and getting a set of Rakata gear. I have started multiple alts but I start losing interest in the mid 30's. I doubt I will re-sub past Feb unless they somehow show something in a future patch that's interesting. Not going back to WoW either.

I predicted before and still predict that this game will go FTP with in 6 months, MMOs in general are all on the decline.

Actually alot of the quests are the same. The main class quests/storyline are different but the bulk of the quests (side quests, etc) have ended up being the same thing for me across 3 classes so far.

The lack of variation in places to level is an unfortunate side effect of quest based leveling. In games like DAoC there were multitudes of places you could level at any level range simply because all that required was a few places with same level mob spawns.

In quest based gaming if you're going to be able to level from 10-20 on Corruscant, Nar Shadda OR Taris you're going to have to write quests/content for that entire level on range on each of those planets. Writing quests, coding their triggers/etc, all that kind of jazz takes infinite more work than just creating a place to farm mobs.

I myself am not a fan of quest based leveling. Spending the majority of my time on a mount or speeder racing to the next X on the map is no less monantenous to me than farming boulderlings at PK bridge (boo ya! hit ya with that DAoC nostalgia right there!).

So yeah, as long as the MMO market continues to be obsessed with single player storylines in their MMO they will continue to get a very linear and limited leveling process.


I understand what you mean. I don't know that I can agree, but I do know where you are coming from. I don't think actively seeking out a challenge by using the content inappropriately (I don't mean like wrong, I mean by trying it early or trying it as "unintended") is necessarily an acceptable way of getting challenge out of a genre that has more and more shifted to easy mode. Those flashpoints/etc are also a very small portion of the leveling process unless you do them over and over so even if it was acceptable it would only help with a small fraction of the problem.

you have a 50 ready for when the game gets out off beta , cheer up.

Like many have said... leveling in WoW can take radically different paths... The 1-60 certainly, Outlands sucked though for sure, but Northrend and Cata content, the leveling paths could be quite different...

On my main in WoW, I never even did Deepholm (in Cata) and never did Zul'drak or Icecrown in Wrath and they're major zones in that game. I did those later with alts, and on my main for the Loremaster achievement.

In early WoW content I leveled my human warrior through the elven areas to get rep with them and get a cat mount, which was harder to do back in the day.

I guess that it all depends on what does each person expect from such a game.

Even if my character is not 50 yet , i am confident that i can't be disappointed : i have a moderate interest for "what happens at level 50".

My plan with swtor is to level up 2-3 characters and stop (then wait for upcoming expansions). All i care about is to see the alternative stories , try out a few classes both republic and empire. Most likely it will be just a jedi counselor and then a sith warrior.


I have very recently (end of dec 2011) reached to level 85 in Wow , and it became somewhat boring for me : i don't have enough patience to spend time with replaying the same stuff over and over again ... For me swtor is a welcome switch away from Wow.

It is true that Wow seems to be successful with introducing new stuff from time to time , so that the players are given new activities to spend/waste time with. For example people are currently crazy with transmog ... And with Pandaria everyone will be crazy with collecting and training new companions for the pet duels.

Comparing the leveling between the games is not easy when one game is so old and one game is brand new. Of course leveling feels fresher in this game; you haven't played 60 squintillion hours of it like an 8 year veteran of WoW has. If you'd leveled a new character after 4.0 came out in WoW, you'd realize how much better is now than it used to be. I took a paladin and a warrior from 1-80 in the time between the release of 4.0 and the release of Cataclysm. This was 6 years and 2 other max level characters since Vanilla WoW days. They both felt quite different for a pair of reasons: I went through COMPLETELY different zones in the old world and they were on opposite factions.

A fascinating shortcut SWTOR has taken with the main story on each planet is to make them be about exactly the same thing. On Nar Shaddaa, both factions are battling gangs. Tatooine, both main storylines converge at the Rakatan artifact in the Czerka base, going as far as having exactly the same final mission and resolution. On Alderaan, you're just on opposite sides of the civil war (Thul vs. Organa), and once again both stories converge at killing Bouris Ulgo. The same applies even to Taris and Balmorra in spite of the fact that they are 15 levels separated between the too factions. It continues on Belsavis, Voss and Corellia.

On some planets, it makes sense. Being on the two factions of the proxy war on Alderaan is pretty cool. But having the keystone quest be the same *********** thing is just lazy and a huge letdown because it makes all of the buildup to it feel token and unimportant. Other planets, like Tatooine, just shouldn't have the same story between the two sides. It doesn't connect in any way to the overarching war between the factions and it's just a cynical attempt by the developers to do as little work as possible. Taris and Balmorra are disputed worlds, so it feels pretty cool I suppose, though it does seem like you're just undoing what you did on your other character.

Leveling multiple characters through Outland and Northrend can be a chore, but that's why they so drastically reduced the XP needed. You can actually branch off a fair bit between too characters because you don't need to visit all the zones. HFP, Zangar and Terrokar are pretty much required, but then you can choose between Nagrand, Blade's Edge, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon. With Northrend, you can start at either Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra, then they converge for Dragonblight, but again, you can pretty much take your pick out of Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak, Sholazar, Storm Peaks and Icecrown.

The Cataclysm zones do not yet afford you any options aside from the first zone: Hyjal or Vashj'ir, but that may change when they drop the 80-85 XP requirements after Mists of Pandaria. But the only choices you have in SWTOR are whether or not to do the bonus series', so it's about as linear as it gets. This is not to mention the viability and fun of doing the new low level instances throughout the game for leveling. You get a buttload of XP, and the refurbished dungeons are typically much better than they used to be. FPs in SWTOR don't tend to give you that much XP, and they are much more difficult to integrate into the leveling seamlessly due to the lack of an LFD tool. Whether or not you agree that this is a good thing is another argument entirely.

Ultimately, these are just details. The major point is that you are not viewing these games on equal footing if you flat out think that leveling in WoW is boring and stupid while SWTOR is awesome and eternally interesting. If you're still playing SWTOR in 5 years and the leveling process is pretty much the same, you'll think exactly the same thing about it. You'll be spacebarring through all the quests because repeatedly doing the same thing cannot stay interesting forever no matter how gussied up it is with voice acting and cutscenes.

Sure it is. It might not be a solution you like, but it works for many.

6 months FTP? even if it was going FTP it would take a minimum of 6 months to get it ready for you. They just dont flip a swtich and stop charging a fee.

Easy fanbois i dont think its going FTP. I want this game to succeed. EA stock holder.

I dunno. Either Turbine was flat out lying about there being no plans for LotRO to go F2P or either they pretty much made the swap in a week or so.