You left off the part where they come to the forums and exaggerate about how irritating their particular problem is, how many players it effects, and how they're not going to play or pay until the problem is fixed.

 

Everybody wants their problem fixed first !!

 

The complaints almost always boil down to just a few things.

1) Players not wanting to put the effort and time into playing enough to earn the best rewards in the game.

2) weird performance issues caused by strained computer hardware with a hard drive full of crud installed on it.

3) weird performance issues caused by Uber 7334 gaming systems that are a mess of poorly configured obscure hardware and not worth the money spent while assembling them. (has to be BW/ can't be my sooper system ~ I A IT JEENIEUS)

3) BW not implementing features than only a tiny fraction of the player base would actually get any use out of.

 

The truth is, they're here foruming so their carpal tunnel can cool off............because the game is a whole lot of fun.

Why all the hate? Simply thus:

There is a misbegotten breed of wretches who are deluded in thinking that the highest form of true culture is found in never appreciating anything. These people are so terrified of not seeming refined and "in-the-know," that to express an opinion that is not a criticism is their highest point of vulnerability. You may have had the misfortune of dining with such a creature... every aspect of the meal and service is criticized and picked apart so that not a person at the table can enjoy themselves. They WILL send the steak back three times and then insist on short-changing on the tip, as though the poor waitress had anything to do with preparing their food. They are unhappy, have no confidence and will only try to convince themselves that everyone around them feels as they do by sounding their vitriolic opinions like an unceasing gong.

Once I mark these people I will not eat with them, not when it means rudeness and incivility to all around.

I don't think the game has any more (or less) problems than most MMORPGs. The Secret World was supposed to be "the death" of SWTOR and it hasn't been. Those who adore WoW may attack SWTOR because its not WoW-like enough, but WoW is what, 9 years older? Those who despise WoW may hate SWTOR for what it adapts from that game, but I don't blame EA for adapting proven strategies.

However, I do opine that you probably won't stay if you aren't in love with the Star Wars franchise. I don't believe that SWTOR offers much more mechanistically above other games in the genre other than its IP. There are some people who stand by this game because of its original makers, but the majority of die hard defenders are so because its the only true, legal, Star Wars MMORPG out there.

Those who adore WoW may attack SWTOR because its not WoW-like enough,

Only on the even days. On the odd days they complain it's too much like WoW.

I'm so addicted to this game it's not even funny.

I don't like how some parts of the game works, or all the changes the devs make, but that doesn't mean I hate the game. I think people mix feedback up for hate sometimes.

All the hate played into the reason why I took me a couple months to start playing.

In October, a few friends of mine suggested that I join. I checked out the game and also read the forums. There were a lot of people complaining and such. So, I brushed them off. I didn't want to play a game that seemed to have so many flaws. However, they kept talking about it, how much fun it was, explaining the story, quests and whatnot. Eventually, they wore me down.

I started playing in December. I started as F2P, within a few days bought preferred status. At the end of the month, I became a sub. I love the game. But, I am realistic. The game does have its flaws. I get some of the complaining. However, its a bit too much. Seriously. I am a member of other gaming boards. I have never seen so much negativity.

It was said feedback is being mistaken for hate. Perhaps that is true to a degree. However, some people do nothing but complain. If you check someone's posts, you can see whether the post is really feedback or if they have a history of posting nothing but negative stuff. If it is nothing but negativity, they are not being all that objective, are they? Consider the source of the feedback. An unbiased person looks at both the bad and the good.

I played TOR as a founder from the beginning, I admit, it wasn't exactly what I expected to be.

Mind you, I was coming from 5 years of playing WoW so that was kinda the standard I was used to.

But now, admitedly, first I came back when it was F2P but I soon became a sub again, as I found myself

enjoying the game and really looking forward to finding out more of the story.

The storylines are -in my eyes- what sets it apart from other MMO's and just like other games, it does have it's flaws but what game doesn't? But to say that this game is dead? Far from it, I believe.

Whether you're a fan of Star Wars, Fantasy, horror or sci -fi shouldn't matter. This game is an exciting immersive story driven romp with lots and lots of interaction with (I think) a very well thought out world and characters within it. You get to make Dark and light side choices which can influence the plot and the way your character develops. I have only been playing a few weeks, but I am utterly absorbed, and find the stories so good that all the gear/grind/DPS score/reputation worries I had in previous games are all but dissipated. This game promotes group play , and for a more casual gamer has great elements you can "nip in and out of".

I am currently in the stage of levelling characters to the "fleet" level (10-15) where you get your companion and learn crew skills to see which one I want to go forward with as a "main", but am still very excited by it all.

Having come from WoW where you have to put in 9 hours of grinding to get a trinket or be laughed at by your peers, I find this game relaxing and enthralling at the same time. You sound like a sensible and mature person, so I am certain you will not be dissappointed.

Enjoy and never ever listen to the internets.

Like all MMO's they have their good and bad points, but some people tend to only focus on the bad and that's why you hear so much nonsense. Sure I could name plenty of things wrong with the game, but there's also loads to be praised about. I've been playing for several months now and still very fond of the game.

Ditto

Whether you're a fan of Star Wars, Fantasy, horror or sci -fi shouldn't matter. This game is an exciting immersive story driven romp with lots and lots of interaction with (I think) a very well thought out world and characters within it. You get to make Dark and light side choices which can influence the plot and the way your character develops. I have only been playing a few weeks, but I am utterly absorbed, and find the stories so good that all the gear/grind/DPS score/reputation worries I had in previous games are all but dissipated. This game promotes group play , and for a more casual gamer has great elements you can "nip in and out of".

 

I am currently in the stage of levelling characters to the "fleet" level (10-15) where you get your companion and learn crew skills to see which one I want to go forward with as a "main", but am still very excited by it all.

 

Having come from WoW where you have to put in 9 hours of grinding to get a trinket or be laughed at by your peers, I find this game relaxing and enthralling at the same time. You sound like a sensible and mature person, so I am certain you will not be dissappointed.

 

Enjoy and never ever listen to the internets.

It's funny, I had a similar experience going from EQ1 to WoW eight years ago. In EQ1, with each time you sat down to play you had to be willing to commit several hours to playing (a good portion of which was simply to find a group). I was in a hardcore raiding guild and was expected to be online at least three nights a week. When I started playing WoW, I discovered that I could login for 20 minutes and actually feel like I got something accomplished whether it was questing to level another character or doing dailies on my main.

In all honesty, this game falls somewhere in between. Yes, I can login and do some daily quests or space missions (while my crew crafts or does crew skill missions) and 20 minutes later I have accomplished something. But while leveling and progressing through the story, I feel like I am better served dedicating a decent chunk of time; a lot of the time you can spend several minutes just traveling between areas.

What I love most about this game:

1. While it encourages grouping up, it doesn't shove it down your throat like some games out there. I played Perfect World and basically every 10 levels you had to get a group to do your FB, otherwise you couldn't progress further with the storyline. Grouping up should never be required to complete the base story content of any game.

2. Space Combat, while everyone gripes about it because it's on-rails, they obviously didn't grow up in the era of arcades with on-rails shooters like I did. And there is plenty of challenge in them if you try to get every bonus mission done in them.

3. Datacron and Codex entry hunting, this I think is one of the strong points of the game, especially if you aren't familiar with Star Wars lore. It provides the backstory of the game, gives you something else to do besides just quests and grinding, and gets you out to explore the worlds. Once you start doing this, it becomes addicting, and you can appreciate the time and effort that went into designing the worlds as well as crafting the stories.

4. Story, a friend and myself do all the content together and we hit level 50 on Belsavis because of group experience gain and warzones. Once at 50 we took a couple months or so off to grind up our gear in dailies, warzones and operations. Once that was done, we would take a day or two a week to finish up the story. The story is good enough to stand on it's own without needing the impetus of level grinding. While being over-leveled does remove some of the challenges of the encounters, it does make you feel like a total ****** hero or villian.

5. Challenge, Operations, especially hard modes, are a challenge to group coordination and tactics. They are 8 man raids where everyone is important to its success, lose someone early in a fight with a combat raise on cooldown usually means not beating the enrage timers in hard mode. Beating Soa on hard mode the first time, just felt epic. Knowing we had one pylon drop left before he enraged, getting him under it and dying to the drop meanwhile yelling in mumble to burn him down while laying there dead, and watching him enrage and kill 3 others before the team finally downs him, is just one of those "YES WE DID IT!!" moments in gaming that isn't forgotten. Karagga's Palace is a bit of a let down, but every other Operation, the last boss fight always feels epic unless you are severely overgeared.

The best advice I can give to a starting player, take the game as it comes. This isn't real life, it isn't work, you don't have to complete X amount in Y amount of time. Take your time going through the content, enjoy the scenery, mix it up with warzones, flashpoints, heroics. Spend some time on the fleet chatting, make friends.

Most of the hate you read about comes from people that plow through content at a ridiculous rate and then sit there later and go.. now what.. SWTOR sucks because I got nothing to do... Are there bugs, sure. Are there some balance issues, sure. But like any MMO, SWTOR has its growing pains, and as it ages it does get better. Sometimes that involves taking a step backwards, but Bioware has done a pretty good job of at least trying to balance out everything. Their inexperience with MMOs has shown in SWTOR, but their experience in good game design also shows. While their lack of communication is sometimes maddening, again this is a symptom of inexperience in MMOs, but this is improving in recent time. But really to say the product as a whole is horrible is just wrong. It has it's strong points, it has it's weak points.

The good news is, as the game ages, the strong points are there, but the weak points start to disappear. Maybe not as fast as some like, but the game is different than it was a year ago, and will be very different when 2.0 comes out. If WoW is considered an adult, SWTOR is still a toddler, we should be patient with the game, just like you would with a toddler just because it's still got alot of growing pains to catch up to WoW.