(keep it civil) What let you down most about TOR?

I was fine up until 1.2 released. They implemented the Ranked Warzone Commendations without Ranked PVP games. That to me killed the game. When 1.3 released and people could finnaly do Ranked PVP, you had people already maxed out in War Hero gear, augmented, all that was left was them getting a rating for the Rated gear. They left the Casual Player out in the dust and rewarded the no lifers with set armor. New guilds and new people starting out in a Rated PVP game will just get demolished simply because of out geared. I don't even want to pvp simply because of the outclass of Expertise everyone has vs the ones who are trying to gear up but cant due to 1500 expertise guilds running in normal PVP queues. A MMO should not be who has the best gear ever, it should involve skill 80% - Gear/Stats 20%

I'm gonna give this game a few more months with the F2P and 1.4 releases and see where it goes. If they don't do something about the PVP area, I will probably shelf this along with my other failed MMO series. All I ask, is EA to look at Ratings of groups queuing up before you throw them in Provisional vs 2100 Rated.

1st... you don't know what "well above" is for an EA lawyer or PR, It could be a number as low as 10K.
2nd... hide the real number under a vague sentence that put said number between X and 2 times X only means that that number is closer to X than to 2 times X.
3rd... they can't publicly admit that are near X because that's really bad so they try fool people with such wiiiiide range to minimize the damage to the shares value.
4th... we had a concrete number in previous quarter: 1.3M subs. The only reason to not give a concrete number this time is that that number is so bad that they can't plublish it.
5th... with 800K-900K subs the game wouldn't go f2p ever.
6th... cows doesn't have wings and can't fly, however you are free to believe they can fly.

It's all a matter of perspective. Some people interpret "well above 500k" and "just slipped below 1 million" to mean it's closer to 500k. Others interpret that to mean it's closer to the million mark.

All depends on whether you're an optimist or pessimist really. But they never said they were barely over 500k which is the way some people choose to look at it.

HK47 not being a jedi comp broke my heart, though HK51 seems to be a clone which is a very good thing

Lazy Coding (To be clear, I was not looking for lazy coding, and didn't get enough. )

This goes beyond the usual "they reused <number> of assets" gripe, although you have to admit the amount of reused assets in a game that took this long to develop is kind of staggering.
Of course, the usual "counter" to a statement like this is "where is your AAA MMO, huh?" Well, I don't need one. I am not an expert, nor am I claiming to be one. I do code. I have not earned any money from my coding (yet), so I would classify myself as a hobbyist. As far as experience, I would say my experience falls below "expert," but well above "amateur." If you can believe a statement such as that.

And I look at things in game and it completely breaks any immersion in the game. I have to stop and wonder "people actually got paid to ship that crap!??"

Some examples:

• Glitchy cut scene animation: Now, I allow a whole lot of slack when I spacebar through a scene, or escape out to reenter it. That could simply be the engine trying hard to catch up to my actions. I am talking more about two models not even having their mouths touch during a kiss scene. All items being handed off "off camera" because they either couldn't, or didn't, care enough to get item handling to look right. The weapon in the hand of my character as they point and gesture at an NPC that they are trying to be friendly with. That kind of stuff.
• Clipping: Holy hell is there a lot of clipping. It seems to be common knowledge that there is a separate art team from all other teams. If this isn't the case, this point is reduced greatly. But look at all the clipping. The clipping is bad enough that they disable some visuals just to avoid players from seeing how bad things clip. If they don't disable visuals, sometimes they alter them (in less than flattering ways) in order to "slap a band-aid" over the problem. "Force users butt" is one example.
  Sidearm/weapons clip with any robe or jacket. It wouldn't be so bad, but every class has a weapon they holster on their hip.
  Robe style tops that have tails (front, or back) clip with robe style bottoms. Especially while moving.
  Miraluka eye coverings clip with nearly everything.
  The Cathar companion Aric Jordan is so ****** his trooper helmet goggles are inside his head. Let us see Chuck Norris do that!
  Now I don't expect every item to come out perfect. But this level of clipping should pretty much be embarrassing for the art department.
• Color variance for item diversity: Really? A separate color scheme warrants a whole new set of items? Is this used as a way to pad resumes? "Responsible for thousands of gear items in SW:TOR." To bad that it is just a couple of hundred pieces with half a dozen color schems.
• The same tired old "character name must be unique:" That is so 2006.
• Immobile while casting: This is likely to be a thing of the past rather soon.

There is more, but I don't really feel like typing it all out.

I'll close with the rhetorical questions: "If this game didn't have the Star Wars theme and IP, would you still be playing the game? If you say yes, are you playing other MMOs or online games? If you say no to that, then why not?"
My point being, once you peel away the story and theme/IP, all you are really left with is a mediocre MMO. A mediocre MMO that feels like some one was trying to pass it off under the "sauce" of Star Wars, thinking no one would notice.

Bah! Lazy Coding is certainly what let me down the most about TOR...

The same thing that lets me down in every new game to hit the market these days:

The media, community, and gamers who overhype and place expectations on the game that can never ever be met, then scream "FAILURE" when the game isn't perfect. No game is perfect at launch. None. Never. But Gamers nowadays have lost all perspective and want perfection NOW. So They cry on the forums and in their little blogs and on the fansites. So Developers start changing things trying to please the customers, ALL the customers, when in reality, everyone knows you just CAN'T please everyone.

It's called "requirements creep" in defense acquisition, and it's the same thing here. And it kills every new game.

I maintain there will never be another "successful" MMO launch, not because the games are bad, but because the gamERS won't allow them to be.

too many generic missions for planets. you know like when you get sent to Taris and think to yourself," Self ! do i really want to do those again?"

People are saying there are 800k to 500k in subscriptions , if there are where are they ......I think there are about 50k active players if that on any given day spread across 12 standard to heavy servers...all the rest of the servers are locked with one to none on them ...I have 52 characters on 12 locked servers that are ghost towns dead so how is this game even begining to come out of this sink hole...the end started when they offered free to play up to level 15 , and they still couldn't get players to come back , or start to play. now they are going for F2P up to level 50 in hopes they can stop the bleeding , and EA is in charge of pulling the plug , lay offs of developers , the doctors have not been heard from at all.......It's that dead quiet just before the storm. To little to, late.......Been There before ....

Probably crafting/customization.

Crafting simply isn't a viable source of endgame gear, as you can get better drops, and I wish I could have taken the mods out of Tionese/Columi to put in orange gear without losing my set bonuses.

The PvE at end-game, or lack thereof.

This game has always been largely marketed as a PvE game; quality questing, story, engaging tough foes with friends, etc. etc.

I think we all remember the 'beating on one large enemy in a raid is not heroic' speech, given by a developer in a video. What did we get? Tonnes of fights that are exactly that.

I think we also remember how we were promised story and interactivity in raids/flash-points. After Black Talon & Esseles, though, this more or less stops. There is no more branching (i.e. being able to choose a different path), and there is very little story.

What this leaves for a seasoned raider like me is a 'less than' version of World of Warcraft. Why play ToR PvE end-game when WoW does it better? This game was supposed to enhance and improve on WoW's PvE, and it failed miserably.