This game could learn from SWG

uh no... it was received well considering the game's state when it was introduced but in the end it didn't make one bit of difference in saving the game from being, by every objective industry standard, a complete and utter failure with a playerbase so tiny it was laughable... again you people keep pointing to all these things from SWG and saying how great they were yet they never managed to stop SWG from being a tiny failing nitche game for a majority of it's existance

in every post you show that you honestly have trouble differentiating between actual facts and your biased nostalgic opinions

Your problem is that you demand that others you disagree with qualify their opinions, while you fail to qualify your own..

How about this.. SWG was a horrible game... During the entire time it was active, the most it could get was 300k subs.. During the last 4 years it managed to maintain a peasly 100k subs..

The simple reality is, most people don't like the type of game that SWG was.. Period.. If more people would have liked it.. It would have got more subscriptions..

That is not opinion.. That is completely fact.. The numbers support it.. Or lack of numbers I should say..

So no.. The list you have above would not make this game better.. Sure.. Some people might like it.. Others will not.. And in a game of money or making money.. You follow the numbers.. SWG simply didn't have the numbers.. WOW at it's peak had 12 million subs.. So it is no wonder that this game in many ways was modeled after WOW.. Again follow the numbers and follow success... It doesn't always work, but it is a sound business practice..

Would I like to see free flight space combat?? XWA style?? Absolutely.. But I am not going to throw a hissy fit if it doesn't happen..

Bounty hunting.. I have already addressed this issue, which you have completely ignored, because none of you care to actually work out the details.. Well.. The poroblem with letting someone else work out the details.. You may net get what you really wanted.. See the current LFG system.. Personally I think the current system is horrible.. But nobody wanted to talk about the details.. So no bounty hunting..

More customizations will be add over time.. You can't expect them to give us everything all at once and right at the start.. They will have nothing to give us later.. What we have now is fine..

Wide open real feeling worlds?? What exactly does that mean?? I liked the worlds.. Tatooine and Hoth are pretty open.. You are going to have to qualify this one with more details..

Musch deeper crafting and harvesting?? Again.. What does that mean.. Do you even know?? What is wrong with what we have now??

Expanded play?? What is wrong with what we have now?? I don't want a non combat character?? What is the point?? Sure.. Give me a 216 and I will go hunt womprats on Tatooine.. Will that work?? As for fishing?? Please?? No more fishing.. I wasn't a fan it in WOW, but had to do it to make fish feasts for raids.. Thank goodness for Wintergrasp..

Better views??? So what exactly does this mean?? Better views of what or do I even want to know??

Day/night cycles.. This was also discused in the beta.. And also somewhat difficult to implement.. WOW was lucky in that it really only had one planet and then Outland.. This game has how many planets?? Would each planet have the same cycle?? Then they have to essentially rebuild the lighting for all the planets.. Not to mention plant lighting all over the place so we can see our way around.. Is it really worth the hassle?? Bioware said that they didn't do it cause they wanted us all to have the same story experience when we were leveling.. I am with you.. I would love day/night cycles.. But I also know that it is going to be a lot harder for them to do it than say other MMO's..

RvRvRvR and WvWvWvW?? I don't even know what that is.. Again, most of us didn't play SWG... I came from WOW.. You really need to come to terms with the fact that most people didn't play SWG..

So would anything in the list above improve SWTOR?? I don't know.. Maybe.. I don't see any of them as a big deal.. I would rather them work on a new raid or a new warzone.. I would rather them work on new content.. I am not totally turned off by the space combat on rails.. Sure I would prefer free flight.. But I am happy with what I have.. I guess it is all a matter of priorities..

Again.. SWG had bad numbers for a reason.. And that is a good reason not to bring stuff from SWG here..

Your lack of expierence is laughable. Sounds like you should be playing FPSs

I blame WoW for this....

The systematic dumbing down of MMORPGs to attract the COD generation which is what the guy you quoted should be playing by the sound of it

Driz

Your lack of experience is laughable. Sounds like you should be playing FPSs

oh you mean like how SWG was dumbed down in NGE because it was floundering in it's original form... but wait that was a success story you said

again in your option SWG was a good game... in the vast majority of gamer's opinions it wasn't... hmmm I wonder which one BW cares about

And is always a good thing.. Sad..

I spent 8 years working for Microsoft in Redmond WA. on Direct X.. I think my experience is just fine.. I am just used to dealing with people that are a bit more professional.. No insult intended..

The point is, this game needs more sandbox elements. The game does not need to turn into SWG. Just a few things to do outside of combat would be nice.

Swoop bike racing
Exploring/discovery of planets
Pazak games
RvR on Ilum would be amazing
3D space of course
dynamic events on planets
and so on

Beware wall of text

As a long time SW fan, I can say I was kinda disappointed by SWG when I logged in at launch.

It was far from a Star Wars experience. I used to call the game CaveMan Galaxies. You know, Jantas owning a laser armed character with a stone knife and "dungeons" being caves.

The combat was slooow paced, such as you could macro it and take the time to make a snack. Although compared to "modern" MMO you could combat and chat at the same time, this without voice chat.

Waiting times were too long: 10 min shuttles for a hop, at least the same to get healed/buffed. It could took up to 30 min to meet someone at the opposite of the galaxy. We had to be nearby to be able to invite someone to a group.

Did I mention bugs? The first few days you would have you whole inventory deleted upon dying. We could get stuck in the main cities buildings calling for help so others players would kill us, freeing our character upon cloning.

The bosses where mostly mobs with insane resists and HP, such as you needed to be buffed to be able to survive.

It took a looong time to level, much more than the actual pace of modern MMO. Yes levels! OK not the regular stuff 1-XX but skill boxes that needed insane amounts of experience, and apprentice experience *cough* hologrind...

There were no directions at all. A newcomer was totally lost upon spawning in the game.



In the end one could wonder why some people have good memories of the game.

I'd say the first pillar of SW was not crafting, not even socialization and even less combat (player bounties) it was choice.

There was something to do for all kind of players from PvPers to Socializers through Crafters. You could create the character you wanted to play. Although the game wasn't really kind for PvErs due to the lack of content.

The time sinks, the usefulness of cantinas and med centers helped socialization. In that regard player cities traded a bit of the former for a feeling of ownership. I always felt players cities and housing should have been replaced by appartments in NPC cities. Both to keep socialization at peak and to avoid the mess around the planets.

Nobody can't deny Pre-CU crafting is still one of the best system ever made. Did you know players asked for a miner, a farmer and a herder profession? Although, surveying, managing harvesters, sorting and organizing the resources was sometimes more like a second RL job than anything else.

For the customer visiting empty vendors was a pain and a waste of time. Also in a galaxy far far away in the future no postman would care delivering bought items to your house. And the open market was plagued with a price cap on advertised goods. Soon the trade would move to the forums.

Still the lack of levels added to the size of the groups made it so anybody would be welcome to join. From the L33t maxed PvPer to the strange Cook / Fencer through the nobb that installed the game 10min ago. Only entertainers were left in the cantinas.

The planets were bigs, our legs smalls. Some of us, explorers, would take others players on tours to show them a crashed X-Wing, Ben's home, the Sarlaac pit, an oasis...

As a doc I sometimes got tells from rangers that I never heard of proposing to gather rare meat for me. And when I asked, they explained seeing my name written on top end meds. Guess they were smarter than others

When we were bored of crafting or killing we would simply furnish our beloved homes. And we wish we had a /roll item left|right command! Not to say option to paint walls, open windows, move walls stairs and doors...

PvP, well that was something! I'm not very fond of PvP nor ganking others but when you have over a hundred players shooting at each others you can't deny it's something. What was fun is afterwards we would talk to each others and sometimes we made very good friends in the opposite faction, such as some would switch sides over time.

JTL was a good addition to the game but for many of us it tasted sour. The UI, flight dynamics and content was far inferior than Tie-Fighter and X-Wing Alliance. And for some others it was too complex. Still it was the first game to have both space and ground combat. Though some still look for the link between the 2.


The NGE hit the game like a Tsunami. The officials didn't announce it to prevent riots. Riots indeed happened. There were many casualities, on both sides. And I still have in mind the view of Creature Handlers with their pets out for the last time. We were all very sad and they renamed their pets in ways it made us even more sad. I'd just say RIP Jeff.

Funny though NGE is a bit like I envisioned a SW game the first time I heard about SWG, way before the beta. A mix of Dark Forces I and Tie Fighter with many many people around. I'm pretty sure it would have been a good game: without player jedi, with a real FPS combat system and SW content. We all know how it turned out and the disaster it became TGC *cough*.



Now comes TOR and many many question are still left in the void, as we mostly know nothing about the core mechanics but a few hyped words like 4th pillar=story, heroic, companions, Jedi and Sith...


I don't know for you but Kotor, along with X-Wing series and Dark Forces, was one of the closest to SW lore, experience I had.

As such I'm pretty sure TOR will be a SW experience true to the lore and so the fans.

Now as a player even if I enjoy story based game play I'm a bit worried for now. MMO are fast paced games and there is no such time to read or listen to dialogues in multiplayers games. Unless you are playing alone. No wonder a huge majority of players never read quest logs but the: what, were, how many lines, even if in some games the quest are nicely written.

We have quite no infos on the companions so far. In a single player game they represent the friends you would group with but in a MMO? They'll be used to open quests but I already know Kotor players that got rid of companions because they don't like pets. How about MMOs?

The big question is space combat. There are so many possibilities that it's better to wait and see. But one thing is certain most if not all players are expecting Bioware on this. Some because they want it some because they don't want to be forced to do space content to advance on their journey.

It has been stated there won't be moisture farmers and crafting will be heroic. I guess BioWare found something new and exiting because you can't really say crafting will be heroic to Pre-CU SWG players without having non combat professions and not being flamed to death. So far I foresee an enhanced version of Kotor II crafting system. But that leaves all my former SWG crafter friends out of the loop.

Along with the latter I'm also worried for all nice entertainers I met in SWG, the image designers, the dancers and musicians that gave life to the cantinas. It seems they were eaten by a famished Rancor.

Character customization is a must to have in MMO but many took the way of tiers to manage equipment and it seems TOR is looking that way. That means stats matters and your character look will be based not on the gear that looks cool for you but the gear you can put your hands on (level/grind/loot) and the stats.
I do see an issue here and I'm worried in that way TOR will be another WoW/WAR clone.

Finally comes the socialization. Faction aren't a so bad way to enhance war but will we be locked in our own faction. Meaning we really play with half of the players on a server? The others being mobs with a better AI.


There are so many unanswered questions about TOR yet that it's difficult to answer but it seems non combat oriented players will be left at the door of the party.