I'm going out tomorrow and might pick it up, it looks good, but I've never played an MMO before and need to justify the 50+ 30 dollars every 60 days.
Anybody?

Uh, yes, there was a thread about 3 weeks ago with the public beta. I posted a thorough rant on why it is god awful and will be dead once the honeymoon period wears off for everyone. It's basically WoW with a not so interesting story, god awful voice acting, bad cinematics, and it's all unskippable. Not to mention most of the new game mechanics are inane or terrible. About the only fun thing in the game is the light sabers.

Of course, all opinion. Honestly, I wish they could give a demo so people can get an opinion for themselves instead of relying on other people's. I personally, like the game. I feel more involved with my character and not in the grind to endgame either. The story in no way gets in the way for me. The first instance is cutscene heavy, but the choice your group goes with matters and can change the instance a bit. All the Sith empire stories are a bit better in my opinion. It controls a lot like WoW in terms of game play, (Tank, DPS, Heals) but nearly every MMO does that anyway. The main issue is the queue to get into some servers, but they may lock those so new people can't get in.
Another negative is that the UI is... well.... not great. Its kinda generic and everything, but I'm hoping that they allow people to use addons and such to modify the game play. Given that it is an EA game, doesnt' seem likely though. I'm still going to play. Its better than any alternatives for me.

I disagree with most of CM's thoughts and I have played many MMOs before this. I can that the best way to describe this game is that it's essentially like playing a standard RPG, but with a lot of other people. However, when you get to the end-game content it becomes much more like a standard MMO with things such as raids and instances as well as various PVP options.

If anyone is indeed playing, feel free to come join my guild. We're a close group and we're pretty easy-going. We're on the Twin Spears server. Just send me a PM if you want more info.

Unfortunately, everything you guys described is exactly why it fails as an MMO. It plays like a (crappy, laggy) standard RPG. It's not really much of an opinion, since even the most die-hard fan will be sick of it within a couple months, when the honeymoon period wears off (seriously, even if the cutscenes were AMAZING, you'll get sick of seeing them after the third, fourth, fifth time).

Some -ites seem to like it. While I'm not interested enough to actually get it, I do have to admit it's the first MMO ever that has made me even consider getting it and paying more money to play it each month.

Star Wars is stupid, play DCUO instead.

It fails to you. Just because my opinion is different, doesn't mean it isn't justified. Its just that. An opinion. Much like yours. Quite frankly CM, you got your point across. You don't like SWToR. I think I got it. We can take your dead horse away from you now. I think you beat it enough.

CM is a bigot, 'nuff said. I, personally, cannot stand seeing his mug at the top of the forums every time I visit.

So what you're trying to say is that there are people who do enjoy seeing the same cutscene repeatedly? And I don't mean people with short term memory loss.

You seem to be confusing opinion with fact. Facts are things that would apply universally. You can love TOR to death and still suffer from what I described. Because the experience doesn't change.

There is the space bar to get to the important stuff, like the decisions to change things around, get your dark/lightside points. Yeah, I'll agree that is a bit of a hassle, but considering they are rewarding you for some instances of those conversation, each time you do it, its not too bad. And you seem to be (note the phrasing, because I am guessing judging by your opinion,) basing this all off the first instance. Yeah, its cutscene heavy, but none of the other instances are really that heavy in it. And most have an effect on the course of the instance. Hammer Station only had one cutscene, maybe two. And they were a choice to go for more xp and or darkside points. I'm not confusing opinion with fact as much as you are completely disregarding the fact that it is an opinion. Yes, you hate the repetitiveness of the cutscenes. You hate how you can't skip them altogether. We get that. It is still an opinion to other people. It is your opinion. Like a**holes, everybody thinks theirs is special, but most people think that yours stinks. (Come on CM, that was funny. Laugh.) Should they implement a "I just want to faceroll this Flashpoint" option? Maybe at some point. But I'm enjoying it right now. Not detrimental to the game as a whole for me.

Right. I get that you enjoy it right now. In fact, many people are.

I'm stating, and putting money on it, that it won't be so fun 2 months from now. It's a demonstrated problem with most MMOs, the honeymoon period.

Ok, that's all I asked for is a respect of those facts. I'll let you know in two months. However, I would still point out that there needs to be a demo or a trial of some sort. I've met a lot of people on the fence that I think would be swayed one way or another by actually playing the game.

Just because it isn't categorized as 'opinion' doesn't mean 'you know for sure' CM, so you don't gotta state it so righteously. Yeeesh.

Having not played it, here's what I got from this thread.

*No trial period/demo. SRSLY? That's pretty stupid. Gonna lose a significant chunk of subscribers right there.
*Can't skip cutscenes. Again, retarded. That means every time I make a new character, I have to watch the same cutscenes over again? What a waste of time.
*Mediocre UI/No addons. One of the best things about WoW is the UI which in and of itself, is VERY customizable. The few areas where the default UI fails, user-created addons pick up the slack. Not having this option is going to grate very quickly.

In short, looks like another LotRO. Fun for a couple weeks, then people are gonna go back to WoW/Rift, and this will only be played by those that are willing to sacrifice game play for the star wars franchise.

Remember guys, Matty is the master at predictions. Remember this gem about the iPad?

"I don't see this taking off. We'll get a lot of sales from early adopter/Apple lovers as is typical, but I don't expect to see these things everywhere. They won't become ubiquitous. Frankly, I don't see any use case for it in my life."

"I predict that all the iPads sold over the weekend will constitute the vast majority of all iPad sales you will see over its entire lifetime."

After the above post by Sarn I subsequently retract all previous statements and issue a sincere, albiet meager apology to the Massassi community.



To be fair, the iPad as released was garbage. Apple just managed to make iOS suck less soon after release (keep in mind the original iPad on release couldn't even multitask).

But this isn't so much of a prediction on a brand new technology, as it is simply more of the same effect that has been studied and reported for years with many, many MMOs.

Umm. what?

I'm sorry, did I make your position unpopular or something?

Well I didn't buy it, not because of this thread though. I'm having trouble figuring out what happened here.

I would, but it would violate three of my most important rules:

- Never buy an EA game.
- Never buy a Bioware game made after Jade Empire.
- Never buy a MMORPG made by a first-time developer.

Mass Effect was pretty good, 2 was good in an action movie kinda way, 3 is looking dire.

I couldn't get into ME1. Even if ME2 were good, I'm not going to play it until I've beaten the first one and that's never going to happen. ME3 is the first Mass Effect developed completely under Electronic Arts, and it is going to suck empirically because Electronic Arts is a very bad company with very bad management.

I haven't played TOR and I never will, but I've talked to people about it. I haven't heard a single thing that actually sounds good about it (other than "It's like WoW, but" and "with lightsabers!".)

For specific problems, I'd include the entire alignment system. It seems to be the usual Bioware alignment system - good and evil points doled out by conversation options, where the two are either intractably ambiguous or ham-handedly obvious thanks to terribly overrated writing. We've had like 6 games from them with this garbage and every time it's the one area that gets slammed in reviews.

Then you have the trolling opportunities of being able to force light/dark side points on other players, which is just a bad design.

Every time I play a Bioware game I'm more convinced that the designers don't actually play games other than their own. Their game designs are inbred, for a lack of better words. The rest of the world keeps marching on, game designs constantly changing and improving, and Bioware is stuck in their own little corner ****ing KotOR into an evolutionary dead end.

I've owned Mass Effect 2 for over a year and I STILL CAN'T RUN IT

NO I CANNOT ***** ABOUT THIS ENOUGH

Eh, I'm having fun so far.

ENJOY YOUR ORIGIN LOL
DCUO, por ejemplo, is like wow with superpowers. Really clunky ones. Too bad WoW is one of the more refined MMOs on the market, I'm tired of hearing comparisons drawn. Also lightsabers should not do ****ing D6 damage.
This is true and it sucks
This is true and it's hilarious.

You forgot game-breaking glitches

This is half the reason I play free mmos lately, without the whole hassle of HERPDERPLET'SMAKEDOLLARS (which f2p games probably do better than this will) people will actually go out of their way to be creative. Granted, Maplestory is childish and silly, but god damn if running around pressing F5 nonstop doesn't make me grin :3

I tried it out just as something to do during my Christmas holidays, but this game blows. All of the criticisms levelled in this thread are very much true. It's not a BAD mmo, but if you are expecting anything different/better than WoW, or any kind of innovation for the MMO genre, you won't find it here.

I will give it one thing - it is a pretty awesome use of the Star Wars license. This would've been my dream game if I was still 12 and obsessed with the Star Wars universe.

I would say it's good - if you like MMOs. I do not, and I will not be resubscribing. Back to SC2.

I wish I had 50 bucks to "try" something

Man all you gotta do is watch the first 90 seconds of this video to be assured of the likely truth of that guess:



[quote=Adam Smith][LEFT] Maybe I’ve seen one of these videos before, but I hadn’t realised there was such a thing as BioWare TV. It’s possible I just managed to forget it. I probably won’t know again tomorrow so I’ll be slightly bewildered all over again next time a proudly branded video includes the director of marketing of a company claiming to be a huge fan of one of that company’s products.
I don’t even doubt that he likes the series, but wearing the t-shirt, appearing on the company channel and then saying you’re the kind of big-time fan who wants the collector’s edition seems a little too much. The next step is having the video start with a man actually playing Mass Effect 2 and then turning to the camera, “Oh, hi, I didn’t see you come in. Ha ha, ignore all this, I’m just enjoying my lunch break and this is what I choose to do with every single moment of my free time. [/LEFT]



[/quote]

and I can't help but guess that this kind of BS has seeped into other parts of game production. Oh well! Unless they've somehow strayed further from the curve than I think they could in one iteration, it'll probably still satisfy me enough.

Disagree.

Disagree.

Disagree.

Completely false. All of them are skippable.

And disagree!


[/COLOR]Many MMOs, including WoW, did not launch with a trial period.

[/COLOR]
Again, this is incorrect. All cutscenes are skippable.


[/COLOR]The game just launched... I don't know if there will be any awesome UI addons or anything but you gotta give it some time.


Personally, I'm having a blast with the game. I really don't see where most of these complaints are coming from....

They sure weren't when I played (less than a month ago). I pressed every single key on my keyboard, several times. There was no instructions either. Which is also another significant problem with the game. You are often thrown into situations, and are expected to either figure it out yourself, or find the time to read some little tutorial description that popped up after combat has already started. I guess Bioware forgot you can't pause an MMO to read their tutorial.

Also, Sithlord, come back in 2 months and tell us you're still enjoying it just as much as you are right now.

I already explained why the story (at least the smuggler side, I didn't even bother with the others) is god awful and silly. It completely ruined the idea of a smuggler to me, instead making them to be some sort of whiny, dumb couriers who couldn't shoot their way out of a paper bag.

Beta bug perhaps? I've been able to skip them since I started the beta in August (well, didn't actually try skipping until September).


This is common in most MMOs. I've done my share of browsing manuals (which you are obviously not going to have a physical copy of if the game is still in beta) and keymappings to figure things out for WoW, LOTRO and Rift. The tutorials pop up in a similar manner as well.



Sure thing.


I can't really debate you here... I haven't touched the smuggler (playing for the empire).

I figure you are going to disagree but I really do just think SWTOR is not your type of game. I'm confident it will last quite a while for others. Whether or not it has the same longevity as WoW is yet to be seen. (due to their commitment to releasing new content)

I'm really enjoying the game. However, I love just about every Bioware game I have played, so I'm not surprised. If you liked the two KotOR games and the Mass Effect games, The Old Republic will be right up your alley. Picture the basic mechanics of those games, but you can complete your quests with a friend or two if you choose, and the addition of optional missions specifically designed for multiple people.

I don't know of many MMOs nowadays that throw you into combat and THEN expect you to read a little tutorial, as you're being shot. Besides, this doesn't excuse this sort of behavior.

Ok, I get it. You don't like TOR.

How would you rather expect BW to handle tutorials? Have a window popup right away and force you to read through half a dozen windows before you even play the game?

I think they did it rather well tbh. Players want to get into the game and start playing, they don't want to sit there and read a bunch of crap before they pew pew things.

I'd rather have a window pop up and tell me what I just did as I'm doing it or after the encounter, besides, if you died on the first few mobs because a tutorial popup distracted you, you're doing it wrong.

The first few mobs can be blasted through pretty easy and even if you DO die, there is no corpse running and you can respawn pretty much right away. So you can then read what happened and go "ooooh, thats why I died"

Any veteran MMO player from almost any game should be able to get the mechanics and base gameplay down.

either way, it seems like you are nit-picking now, you are just TRYING to find things wrong with it so you can try to convince people not to play it and follow your foot steps.

Fact is, I had fun with it. I had fun with EVERY single class I played, and as I mentioned before...

If you are looking for a next gen, trend setting, wow killing be all end all MMO of the century, You won't find it here.

yes, they dropped the ball on some things, they also hit the nail on the head with others.

Lack of UI changes and mods is a major let down, but I don't think even WoW launched with UI and Mods right away.

Their launch was a huge success, no matter how you look at it, Bioware has so far got it right, for a first time MMO company, they are doing pretty well.

The first flashpoint IS cut scene heavy, but it's the first intro to flashpoints and I enjoy it every time I went through a new character to level 10.

as mentioned before, ALL cut-scenes are skippable by pressing SPACE and if you select an option you regret, you can hit ESC to re-start the entire convo to get the correct option.

I honstly encouage anyone on the fence about this game to give it a shot and ignore CM and make up your own minds about it, or at least wait for the hype to die down and wait for the trial that will eventually come out, read reviews on the big gaming sites, check out screenshots and vidoes.

I know I'am having a hard time deciding if I want to renew a WoW sub and switch to ToR, half of my WoW guild is now playing ToR, we even managed to get a staunch ToR hater to give it a try, and tho he says he hates it, I heard his glee on vent when his Sith Warrior got the jump ability and he lept into the fray and murdered a group of worm things.

Will he stay? Who knows, Largely I think it's a friends thing, if you have friends you play with you'll have a lot more fun I think.

anyway, I really don't care if CM responds here, I know he's just going to try to pick apart my post for the sake of arguing, I just had to give my 2 cents about ToR.

It's not CM's cup of tea, and he's made that blatently clear. I however am enjoying it quite a lot and having a lot of fun. I will admit, that fun might, or might now wear off in a few months and maybe I'll be back to WoW. Maybe if two months I'll be eating my words.

I'm looking forward the potential expansion packs, there are SO many races ingame that are not playable, and so many other plants or regions of existing planets they can open up and I'm excited to see what end game content is like.

T'is World of Warcraft, set in the Star Wars universe, with Bioware storytelling. I'm digging it.

You don't need to be forced, but you should be given the option.


Thing is, you then don't have time to read what the hell it's prompting you to do (which, may I remind you, is not even obvious, it's a little indicator in the corner which you can easily miss for the first few battles). And I totally, definitely died in the starting area because of it. I was getting my ass handed to me because, shocker, I had no idea the cover system even existed, so I had no reason to look into it!

How do you expect people to learn to play the game when there is no obvious indicator to how you're supposed to play it? Avoiding a tutorial is fantastic if your gameplay is simple and easy to understand. But since this is an MMO, that's about as far from the truth as you can get. Combine that with the fact that you're in the newbie area, so getting help from anyone else is basically a crapshoot.




This is as far from the truth as you can get. I played the game for two hours and already had a long ass list of complaints, which I posted in the beta thread. It is seriously not hard to find things wrong with this game.

Frankly, among all the good things said about the game in here, it's been those who like the story that seems most prevalent. Which just blows my mind, because it implies a complete lack of foresight into the game months from now. You and I both know they're not going to add new story content on a rapid enough basis to keep it interesting (it's never, ever happened in any MMO), so you know you're going to get tired of the story. Even if you love it. This is what makes me go "wtf" the most about those who do like it, for the sake of the story.

(And of course that's ignoring the other problem, which is the story is actually pretty awful. Or maybe to be fair, the way the story is told makes it awful.)

DUDE CM

opus: I CAN RANT ALL DAY.

So I was playing it earlier with a friend, and we were on this important mission for his Imperial Agent, and we were all 'PEW PEW, die alien scum', but then we accidently brought in some new enemies and we were all about to die. Then out of nowhere, another player, a Sith Warrior, jumped into the fray, and he was all VROOM-VROOM and killed the enemies for us. Then we were able to complete our objective, and got a pretty cool cutscene out of that.

Good way to spend what free time I have. Not bad at all.