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The community, the game and what has become of it so far


xianfusheng

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First of all, let me explain that this is purely based on my own personal view on the game and the time I have thus far played on it, as well as the community and how it revolves and perhaps even, evolves around the game. Once again, this is my own view on how things are, if you disagree with it then feel free to speak your mind, provided it is posted in a none-hostile way. I am not looking out to have flame wars or to put people into labeled boxes when they are not part of such.

 

Also warning, this may end up in quite a read so be warned, it's a wall of text so please, know what you are getting yourself into and don't give me those TL;DR posts.

 

TL;DR version:

 

The game is pretty good and has a decent launch, it has flaws and bugs but what games does not? We are promised fixes, and despite that some issues have been there since beta I do believe they will be fixed.

 

Stop comparing SW:TOR to WoW, it is simply unfair to compare a game that has not been out for even a month yet, to a game that has had 7 years to cement it's current position.

 

There will always be complainers and people that dislike the game, thing is that they can better put their time in a constructive post as to why they complain or dislike the game, rather then being the next troll or whiner that gets pointed out for such.

 

 

 

First off, let's start about the game itself. In my personal opinion SW:TOR has been a blast, I have enjoyed many, many things in the game so far, and while I admit I have not reached the so-claimed, notorious and flawed end-game yet, I am not too worried about it. I will not deny that the game of course has it's flaws and that somethings could have been done better, but I will not go on about that either. There are plentiful of constructive threads out there that says what could possible improve the game.

 

The game has had, so far to me, a smooth launch. There were bugs and issues of course, but either I don't encountered them as much or I simply do not find them as bothersome as other people do. Patches are still coming in, a bit too regularly perhaps, to fix the game and improve, and while there have been bugs there since beta, it is also understandable that fixes only now start to roll in because, well let's face it, it was the busiest time of the year and we're only a week into this new year yet.

 

Is the game worth it's current price, and the monthly subscription fee? I would say yes, it is. Don't forget that SW:TOR is still in it's starting stages despite that it has gone through pre-release testing by many players who were allowed to play it before it's release. It also has a lot to hold itself up against as new MMORPG's are around the door while others are still quite competitive against this game, and I am not purely speaking of WoW either.

 

Speaking of WoW, it seems that it is a common rule apparently to compare SW:TOR to WoW, please don't do that. While WoW is indeed currently the best selling MMORPG out there and has a large player base, do remember that they have had at least 10 years to cement in their current position, from the stages before it's release to the 7 years after it's release. It is simply unfair to compare newer MMORPG's to WoW as it simply equals to comparing a Mayor to a King/President, it's unfair.

 

As for the 'SW:TOR is a WoW clone' and 'SW:TOR is WoW in space' claims, well yes, it basically is but SW:TOR keeps to it's own lore and story which provides it's uniqueness compared to WoW. The fact that SW:TOR and many other MMORPG's look alike WoW is because they are most often trying to compete against WoW, along with the fact that they costs millions to make it is simply easier to take an existing thing and add in your own twists, then to make something completely different. Something I am sure Bioware fully realizes and why they mixed the most common grounds of MMORPG with their own RPG game style that is used in Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It's nothing truly innovative but it works and has been shown to work countless of times with other MMORPG's who take their basics of long lasting MMORPG's like WoW and EQ2.

 

Now about the community, many have of course noticed the high amount of complainers, quitters, trolls and just plain whiners. This was to be expected, it is almost human nature to complain about things if only for the sake of complaining. Some are just more vocal about it then others, does that mean they are wrong? No, a good amount of these complaints are fully justified and should be looked over by the Dev's, though it is wrong when they are starting to demand things or they will quit. Or gaining such a biased opinion over the game due to issues or complaints that they practically force their opinions onto others.

 

There is nothing wrong with opinions, nor is there nothing wrong with complaining or disliking a game. But there is a fine line in between being constructive and informative, and being a troll/hater or raging about things. A constructive post is more often better received then a flaming quitter who has nothing good to say about the game, it doesn't mean that they are always seen as wrong, but they bring out their opinion in such a sense that other forum users with comment on things like that with posts such as "Can I have your stuff."

 

The general forum users simply don't care if you quit for this or that, they might agree with some of your points or not, but they wont spill a tear if you leave or even bother reading your thread because it's titled that you're quitting. Of course, there are quitters who explain their reasoning in a constructive way that is not fully biased or filled with hatred, such posts, while regretting that they are leaving over certain issues, are still commendable because they give a calm view on their reason why, rather then typing out in full caps that you hate the game due to this or that.

 

People will always complain, the perfect game does not exists and in terms of MMORPG's there is always something that can be added or improved and there is nothing wrong with that, it is good to have people complain because it is they who provide the useful information as to what is wrong or missing in a game, so long it is given in a constructive sense.

 

Trolls...well, let's not even start about that, quite frankly they should be perma-banned on sight because trolls ruin the community. Whiners....while annoying aren't so much a bother to the community like trolls are. Though honestly, they should sometimes simply suck it up and not start complaining (picking out a common one here) about how there are way too often maintenance downtime's when they first were complaining that the game should be fixed. And yes, I know it most often goes about the times when maintenance is held and how it is perhaps unfair to the EU players and all, I am just picking out a common example.

 

Anyways...I could keep going on about the community and what not, but this post has gone on long enough, I may follow it up later with another post and I'll gladly reply to whatever you may agree or disagree with. I only have the simple condition that we all stay nice to each other here and not start flamewars about things.

Edited by xianfusheng
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Too long... Where is the abridged edition?

 

Well you were warned =P But let's see...

 

The game is pretty good and has a decent launch, it has flaws and bugs but what games does not? We are promised fixes, and despite that some issues have been there since beta I do believe they will be fixed.

 

Stop comparing SW:TOR to WoW, it is simply unfair to compare a game that has not been out for even a month yet, to a game that has had 7 years to cement it's current position.

 

There will always be complainers and people that dislike the game, thing is that they can better put their time in a constructive post as to why they complain or dislike the game, rather then being the next troll or whiner that gets pointed out for such.

 

That's about the short short version I can give.

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Well you were warned =P But let's see...

 

The game is pretty good and has a decent launch, it has flaws and bugs but what games does not? We are promised fixes, and despite that some issues have been there since beta I do believe they will be fixed.

 

Stop comparing SW:TOR to WoW, it is simply unfair to compare a game that has not been out for even a month yet, to a game that has had 7 years to cement it's current position.

 

There will always be complainers and people that dislike the game, thing is that they can better put their time in a constructive post as to why they complain or dislike the game, rather then being the next troll or whiner that gets pointed out for such.

 

That's about the short short version I can give.

 

Thanks.

 

I agree. :p

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If you like the game and don't want to see aggression don't use the forums. Honestly it sounds bad (because it is), but every forum for every game that has ever been created are packed full of horrible little people who don't know what they're talking about.

 

People are allowed to have opinions, and when you give them complete anonymity and a voice they become double a-holes.

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Thanks.

 

I agree. :p

 

You're welcome and I am glad you do :D

 

And I added the TL;DR version up as a spoiler >.>

 

If you like the game and don't want to see aggression don't use the forums. Honestly it sounds bad (because it is), but every forum for every game that has ever been created are packed full of horrible little people who don't know what they're talking about.

 

People are allowed to have opinions, and when you give them complete anonymity and a voice they become double a-holes.

 

Oh I fully agree on that, it is pretty much unavoidable in the end no matter what game. Though, I figured I would give my own view onto things about those things. To be honest, the most forum topics I read are those of complainers and such, not because they are the most often the threads you see first, but more so as to know why and how the community reacts to it.

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Stop comparing SW:TOR to WoW, it is simply unfair to compare a game that has not been out for even a month yet, to a game that has had 7 years to cement it's current position.

.

 

I agree and disagree.

 

I think it is normal and reasonable for a consumer to compare products as they are available now: that is, a current WoW subscription to a current TOR subscription. That's normal consumer behavior, and it's a rational choice process, I think.

 

The issue is that WoW has such a leg up on any new entrant into the MMO space that the market is no longer functioning properly. That leg up comes in part from the years of development time, and the money that has been spent over those years on development -- in all a huge amount of time and money that no new entrant can spend before launch. But a larger part, I think, of the advantage WoW has is that people have thousands of hours invested in their WoW characters, existing relationships, existing guilds and progression and the like -- this makes the "switching threshold" quite high, because the "switching cost" is quite high, when it comes to what people are leaving behind. While it's true that some people will sub two games at once, this is a small minority of players --> most MMO players sub one game at a time, and so the comparison comes up.

 

I think that the MMO marketplace is not functioning properly because WoW has structural advantages at this point that create, in effect, tremendous barriers to successful new entry into the market. This doesn't mean Blizzard is at fault for this -- they're just doing their thing. But as a result, the marketplace "cost" for a new entrant to be successful is exorbitant, and even if that financial cost/risk is spent/taken, you're still dealing with the huge switching cost and threshold, that could sink your competitive attempt anyway, even after you've spent 500m+ to match what Blizzard has over the years.

 

It's a no-win situation. Consumers are entitled to compare current products, no question. But that's also a comparison that no new entrant can ever really "win" at this point when it comes to comparisons with WoW. The market is now defective -- it's structurally warped at this point.

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I agree and disagree.

 

I think it is normal and reasonable for a consumer to compare products as they are available now: that is, a current WoW subscription to a current TOR subscription. That's normal consumer behavior, and it's a rational choice process, I think.

 

The issue is that WoW has such a leg up on any new entrant into the MMO space that the market is no longer functioning properly. That leg up comes in part from the years of development time, and the money that has been spent over those years on development -- in all a huge amount of time and money that no new entrant can spend before launch. But a larger part, I think, of the advantage WoW has is that people have thousands of hours invested in their WoW characters, existing relationships, existing guilds and progression and the like -- this makes the "switching threshold" quite high, because the "switching cost" is quite high, when it comes to what people are leaving behind. While it's true that some people will sub two games at once, this is a small minority of players --> most MMO players sub one game at a time, and so the comparison comes up.

 

I think that the MMO marketplace is not functioning properly because WoW has structural advantages at this point that create, in effect, tremendous barriers to successful new entry into the market. This doesn't mean Blizzard is at fault for this -- they're just doing their thing. But as a result, the marketplace "cost" for a new entrant to be successful is exorbitant, and even if that financial cost/risk is spent/taken, you're still dealing with the huge switching cost and threshold, that could sink your competitive attempt anyway, even after you've spent 500m+ to match what Blizzard has over the years.

 

It's a no-win situation. Consumers are entitled to compare current products, no question. But that's also a comparison that no new entrant can ever really "win" at this point when it comes to comparisons with WoW. The market is now defective -- it's structurally warped at this point.

 

Actually, reading through all that, I must admit that I agree with you there. Why I am of opinion that my own view on it has influence on it as well, it is indeed true that due to subscription costs and time spend into one game, many players will not bother with a new game. After all, why pay for two subscriptions and start all over in another game? Sadly this does damage the MMORPG market like you say, because Blizzard has such a tight hold over it in a way, that most new MMORPG's just cannot compete up to it, the downside for Blizzard itself however...they have the chicken with golden eggs, they don't really want to risk replacing it and risk loosing everything. Hence why they are working both a new expansion for WoW, and their upcoming MMO currently named Titan.

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A wild Wall of text has appeared.

~pokemon battle music~

Meminemall uses RUN

Does not work

Wall of text uses Slam

Meminemall Dodges.

Meminemall Cast read

Read is super ineffective

Wall of text cast Body Slam

Wall Of text crits Meminemall for 9001

Wall of text's Body slam was super critical

Wall of Text's Body slam was Super effective

 

~You have been defeated

 

~ you have been revived at the pokecenter.

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A wild Wall of text has appeared.

~pokemon battle music~

Meminemall uses RUN

Does not work

Wall of text uses Slam

Meminemall Dodges.

Meminemall Cast read

Read is super ineffective

Wall of text cast Body Slam

Wall Of text crits Meminemall for 9001

Wall of text's Body slam was super critical

Wall of Text's Body slam was Super effective

 

~You have been defeated

 

~ you have been revived at the pokecenter.

 

Not exactly the comments I had hoped for but.....ok, that seriously made me laugh.

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Actually, reading through all that, I must admit that I agree with you there. Why I am of opinion that my own view on it has influence on it as well, it is indeed true that due to subscription costs and time spend into one game, many players will not bother with a new game. After all, why pay for two subscriptions and start all over in another game? Sadly this does damage the MMORPG market like you say, because Blizzard has such a tight hold over it in a way, that most new MMORPG's just cannot compete up to it, the downside for Blizzard itself however...they have the chicken with golden eggs, they don't really want to risk replacing it and risk loosing everything. Hence why they are working both a new expansion for WoW, and their upcoming MMO currently named Titan.

 

Indeed.

 

Blizzard is in a bit of a quandary about WoW, I think. I think they understand that it's going to be very hard for any new entry into the market to "kill WoW", for the reasons I've stated. Yet they must still know that eventually WoW will have to peter down and come to an end. That could be very painful for Blizzard, financially, when it happens. I think their plan about this encompasses many areas, including (1) increased emphasis on development of other non-MMO games like SC2 and D3 in recent years to diversify the cash flow (which was, before the release of SC2, almost entirely dependent on WoW), (2) focusing WoW more on the Asian market than the Western one gradually (which is happening with Panda expansion next) and (3) develop a new MMO for the Western market to take up customers from WoW as WoW naturally begins to decline in the West.

 

That is, Blizzard has to manage the decline of WoW itself, regardless of any external competition, because it's a huge donut hole to fill, financially, for Activision/Blizzard. This is now determining their overall development strategy for the future, I think, at this point.

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It may be a wall of text, but at least it's a well-built wall.

 

However, I also take umbrage at your insistance that SWTOR should not be compared with WoW. If BW didn't want to invite such comparisons, they shouldn't have "borrowed" so heavily from WoW. It's not like comparing apples to oranges. It's like comparing a new variety of apple with an accepted, mainstream variety, which is a very fair comparison.

 

WoW may have a few years of content on SWTOR, but there is NO reason, with all the time this game spent in development, that certain aspects (e.g. combat) should be inferior to WoW. To not compare the two games is ignorance, and ignorance is bliss.

 

 

:wea_03: Lightsaber!

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Indeed.

 

Blizzard is in a bit of a quandary about WoW, I think. I think they understand that it's going to be very hard for any new entry into the market to "kill WoW", for the reasons I've stated. Yet they must still know that eventually WoW will have to peter down and come to an end. That could be very painful for Blizzard, financially, when it happens. I think their plan about this encompasses many areas, including (1) increased emphasis on development of other non-MMO games like SC2 and D3 in recent years to diversify the cash flow (which was, before the release of SC2, almost entirely dependent on WoW), (2) focusing WoW more on the Asian market than the Western one gradually (which is happening with Panda expansion next) and (3) develop a new MMO for the Western market to take up customers from WoW as WoW naturally begins to decline in the West.

 

That is, Blizzard has to manage the decline of WoW itself, regardless of any external competition, because it's a huge donut hole to fill, financially, for Activision/Blizzard. This is now determining their overall development strategy for the future, I think, at this point.

 

Yes, it is no secret that one day WoW will not be a the throne anymore, though that wont say that Blizzard wont keep the throne, after all they do have basically everything they need to come up with a replacement. They have the experience of WoW behind them and this could mean Titan may be the new big one or even something like World of Starcraft.

 

Of course...it will remain a hopeful wish that SW:TOR will reach the same greatness that WoW has achieved.

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they shouldn't have "borrowed" so heavily from WoW

 

The only thing original that wow has was the arena system. And even then its just a more refined version of something warhammer already had. So when you say Borrowed from wow you really mean Borrowed from the MMO genre.

 

EDIT: oh and sorry WoW did have a very original crafting system for back in that day. Most MMO's crafting system generally had a risk for loss. May it be Items used in the crafting or major amount of time sinks where the crafting failed.

Edited by meminemall
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It may be a wall of text, but at least it's a well-built wall.

 

However, I also take umbrage at your insistance that SWTOR should not be compared with WoW. If BW didn't want to invite such comparisons, they shouldn't have "borrowed" so heavily from WoW. It's not like comparing apples to oranges. It's like comparing a new variety of apple with an accepted, mainstream variety, which is a very fair comparison.

 

WoW may have a few years of content on SWTOR, but there is NO reason, with all the time this game spent in development, that certain aspects (e.g. combat) should be inferior to WoW. To not compare the two games is ignorance, and ignorance is bliss.

 

 

:wea_03: Lightsaber!

 

Well, yes and no. While it is true that SW:TOR has copied over a lot of WoW, as I said they added their own twist to it. I do believe that such is the case that some things are inferior to how things are in WoW, but that said they also added some of their own things into it which works well. It's a bit of give and take and hopefully that which is now less, will be improved over the course of the next weeks/months.

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If you like the game and don't want to see aggression don't use the forums. Honestly it sounds bad (because it is), but every forum for every game that has ever been created are packed full of horrible little people who don't know what they're talking about.

 

People are allowed to have opinions, and when you give them complete anonymity and a voice they become double a-holes.

 

so true, I hit the fourms a couple a times a week, read the dev tracker, it's really the only posts that matter, not full of specualtions and personal preferance complaints. I have read studies from other companies, that claim only about 20 percent of a games total population even use the forums.

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I agree and disagree.

 

I think it is normal and reasonable for a consumer to compare products as they are available now: that is, a current WoW subscription to a current TOR subscription. That's normal consumer behavior, and it's a rational choice process, I think.

 

The issue is that WoW has such a leg up on any new entrant into the MMO space that the market is no longer functioning properly. That leg up comes in part from the years of development time, and the money that has been spent over those years on development -- in all a huge amount of time and money that no new entrant can spend before launch. But a larger part, I think, of the advantage WoW has is that people have thousands of hours invested in their WoW characters, existing relationships, existing guilds and progression and the like -- this makes the "switching threshold" quite high, because the "switching cost" is quite high, when it comes to what people are leaving behind. While it's true that some people will sub two games at once, this is a small minority of players --> most MMO players sub one game at a time, and so the comparison comes up.

 

I think that the MMO marketplace is not functioning properly because WoW has structural advantages at this point that create, in effect, tremendous barriers to successful new entry into the market. This doesn't mean Blizzard is at fault for this -- they're just doing their thing. But as a result, the marketplace "cost" for a new entrant to be successful is exorbitant, and even if that financial cost/risk is spent/taken, you're still dealing with the huge switching cost and threshold, that could sink your competitive attempt anyway, even after you've spent 500m+ to match what Blizzard has over the years.

 

It's a no-win situation. Consumers are entitled to compare current products, no question. But that's also a comparison that no new entrant can ever really "win" at this point when it comes to comparisons with WoW. The market is now defective -- it's structurally warped at this point.

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

No it's isn't Blizzard's fault, it's the fault of the would-be players because they expect more than is reasonably possible.

 

The only thing I disagree with you on, is in the MMO market I don't believe it's rational to compare two products as they are, at least not when you look at the facts like...

 

Oh look this game (WoW) has had at least 10 years to develop (pre and post launch)

Oh this game (SWTOR) has had 6

 

Why aren't they the same thing??

 

 

Hmm I wonder...

 

You can't ask a game that's only had half the time to do the exact same thing as ther older one.

 

Of course WoW has more features, of course WoW has more content, of course WoW has less bugs and glitches (or at least it should have) it's had a decade or more to get it done.

 

Comparing any new MMO, I don't care if it's SWTOR, Rift, GW2, Tera, Perfect World, to WoW is just foolish.

 

And the longer as a community that we do this the longer it's going to be until we see an MMO truly come out from under WoW's shadow.

 

 

You HAVE to give a game more time than a few weeks before you start with the "Well chalk up another failure", otherwise we all might as well go back to WoW and be enslaved to Blizzard if we intend to play an MMO.

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Even you admitting its a wow clone is kind of false. Just classifying it as an MMO is enough.

 

MMO's have been like wow long before wow came out and they will continue to be like that long after as well. Lineage 2 , everquest , DAOC etc.

 

All have many similarities that wow built its foundation on, each one of these games diversified in their own way, wow has taken many ideas from past mmo's and implemented plenty of ideas from current mmo's.

 

SW:TOR is like WOW because it is an mmo, not because its a wow clone.

 

Thats like saying that that (non square enix rpg, sorry its really hard to think of one) is a clone of final fantasy because they share a combat system and similarities or that crash bandicoot is a clone of super mario 64.

 

Its just silly they are similair because they are 2 games of the same genre lets just leave it at that.

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Stop comparing SW:TOR to WoW, it is simply unfair to compare a game that has not been out for even a month yet, to a game that has had 7 years to cement it's current position.

 

Please don't come out with this like everyone else.

 

If a newly started company tried to sell me a CD player for the same price as an iPod but used the justification that the older company had "been around for a longer amount of time" so I should be more sympathetic toward their product's relative failings I'd just give it a miss.

 

This game is going to be compared to older MMOs and people have every right to demand that this game is, at the very least, standing toe-to-toe with the older games. I don't think this game is bad at all but it's clearly not as good in a lot of respects (PvP, openness, etc.) as its more established competitors.

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