Star Wars: The Old Republic General Discussion

Blowfish

There was a bit of gold spam in /1 in the early access (as a side note, $8 for 10k credits is ludicrous), but since actual launch I haven't seen any spam at all.

Lone Stone

Venom wrote: »

The voice over for every npc/cutscenes are the only thing SWTOR brings to the table over other MMOs. Far to many of the more basic features like LFG tools, Auction house, appearance tabs, non horrid travel routes, public quests and crafting are either very basic in how they were implimented or entirely missing from the game. The sheer amount of bad design that plagues STWOR is shocking imho.

Yeap even the voice acting has been before for quest to some extent already like EQ2 had voice acting npc's for quest's and wow to a lesser extent. If anyone finds a mod to play this game offline some how let me know id like to finish the story missions :op

promethius42

I'm surprised how much people seem to be enjoying Star Wars the Old Titanic, it just seems like a re skinned, relocated WoW with some voice acting thrown in. - I joke.

Perhaps the game was rushed but I am finding it difficult to get into - my friend has let me try his account over at his house, I just cant get into it. It seems over rated and over hyped, am I doing it wrong?

ShaneU

Rushed? They've been making it since 2006

Holyhole

promethius42 wrote: »

I'm surprised how much people seem to be enjoying Star Wars the Old Titanic, it just seems like a re skinned, relocated WoW with some voice acting thrown in. - I joke.

Perhaps the game was rushed but I am finding it difficult to get into - my friend has let me try his account over at his house, I just cant get into it. It seems over rated and over hyped, am I doing it wrong?

Maybe you are just expecting it to be more than it is.. i mean its just an MMO.. its new, shiny, and people want it to be the second comming, but yer tbf, its just an updated version of WoW. but i mean WoW seems to have kept lots and lots of people coming back for many years, so if it feels like an upgraded WoW, then thats prolly good praise..

dont listen to the hype m8, just sit down and play a computer game.. if you dont like it.. you dont like it.. nothing wrong with that.. but dont dislike it because its not what someone else made it out to be... dislike it becasue in your opinion it isnt good for whatever reasons.

promethius42

ShaneU wrote: »

Rushed? They've been making it since 2006

Perhaps so but it seems to be missing a polish or something that is just stopping me from enjoying it but I can't place my finger on it.

Dcully

but yer tbf, its just an updated version of WoW

I dont get why people say this.
Its nowhere near the quality of wow or indeed rift,age of conan,lotor in any aspect bar story telling maybe but that is short lived.

Loco

I'm liking it. New to the genre and it is pretty addictive. Its completely stolen my time away from BF3!

One complaint I would have, is that I'm a level 30 inquisitor sorcerer now after playing PVE only. I would have liked to see some cross over.
Is the PVP world the only place you can see light v dark? Or is there any 'shared' worlds on PVE?

Also, getting tired of people bringing up WoW constantly. If you think swtor is not as good, why are you playing it? Go play wow instead!

Also, can anyone point me to a decent wiki or game manual? I have not been using any crew skills!

Cheers

Blowfish

Loco wrote: »

One complaint I would have, is that I'm a level 30 inquisitor sorcerer now after playing PVE only. I would have liked to see some cross over.
Is the PVP world the only place you can see light v dark? Or is there any 'shared' worlds on PVE?

All of the later worlds are shared, however they are fairly large so you probably wont see all that many of the opposite faction. Naturally, you can still join WZ's in the meantime however.

Loco wrote:

Also, can anyone point me to a decent wiki or game manual? I have not been using any crew skills!

Darth Hater is a pretty good site for info/updates etc. and has an associated searchable database and wiki.

Venom

Dcully wrote: »

I dont get why people say this.
Its nowhere near the quality of wow or indeed rift,age of conan,lotor in any aspect bar story telling maybe but that is short lived.

I disagree with you about AoC as that was a complete pile of crap after level 20 in almost everyway but every other game you listed is lightyears above SWTOR.

@promethius42

Yeah there is a serious lack of polish alright.

Kiith

Having played pretty much every MMO in the past few years, i'd actually say this is one of the better ones imo. Again, i'll hold my hand up and say that the story has always been the biggest selling point for me, but i'm definitely enjoying it more than AoC, Warhammer, and Rift.

Rift seemed like a great game, but i was so burned out on MMO's when i played it that i just got too bored with the grind.

Kiith

My point was so important i had to post it twice! :pac:

Dcully

Kiith wrote: »

Rift seemed like a great game, but i was so burned out on MMO's when i played it that i just got too bored with the grind.

Rift is possibly the fastest mmo to max level to be fair.
So much to do, you could max lvl from rifts alone.

Kiith

As possibly the slowest leveller in the history of levelling, i'll might challenge that! :P

Venom

Dcully wrote: »

Rift is possibly the fastest mmo to max level to be fair.
So much to do, you could max lvl from rifts alone.

I tried to get into Rift as it had so many good ideas like free character transfers, amazing graphics, interesting class system and ran like a dream with every setting maxed out.

Sadly the story and lore just bored me to tears

nesf

Rift is probably my next MMO if I unsub from SWTOR before GW2 comes out. I never gave it a proper shot first time around.

Blowfish

Venom wrote: »

I tried to get into Rift as it had so many good ideas like free character transfers, amazing graphics, interesting class system and ran like a dream with every setting maxed out.

Sadly the story and lore just bored me to tears

I was the same. From a technical perspective, Rift was extremely good. At launch all of the game systems were solid and largely well done. The 'world' though just didn't draw me in at all, everything was just incredibly 'forgettable'.

Even the day I hit max level I realised I had no idea of what any of the story was bar the starting zone.

SWTOR has done pretty much the opposite though. I thoroughly enjoyed my class story with various bits even managing to catch me completely off guard (in a good way) and I find myself actually liking/disliking characters involved which is a completely new experience for me in an MMO.

Granted, yes, there are a LOT of bugs, but from what I've seen none of them are in any way gamebreaking.

ShaneU

"rise of the rakghouls" content update on Tuesday

http://www.shacknews.com/article/71951/star-wars-the-old-republic-update-hits-tuesday

Venom

Blowfish wrote: »

I was the same. From a technical perspective, Rift was extremely good. At launch all of the game systems were solid and largely well done. The 'world' though just didn't draw me in at all, everything was just incredibly 'forgettable'.

Even the day I hit max level I realised I had no idea of what any of the story was bar the starting zone.

SWTOR has done pretty much the opposite though. I thoroughly enjoyed my class story with various bits even managing to catch me completely off guard (in a good way) and I find myself actually liking/disliking characters involved which is a completely new experience for me in an MMO.

Granted, yes, there are a LOT of bugs, but from what I've seen none of them are in any way gamebreaking.

Yeah i can't remember a single quest from Rift and I only played it back in October unlike others MMO where I can still remember some of the quests after more than a decade lol.

The Rift dev team with a more interesting lore/story/concept would be ****ing awesome

Dcully

Venom wrote: »

I tried to get into Rift as it had so many good ideas like free character transfers, amazing graphics, interesting class system and ran like a dream with every setting maxed out.

Sadly the story and lore just bored me to tears

To be honest i normally just grab the quest and run.
I might bother with lore for dungeons etc but thats it, more fool me maybe but an mmo to me is so much more than a story or lore.

Venom

ShaneU wrote: »

"rise of the rakghouls" content update on Tuesday

http://www.shacknews.com/article/71951/star-wars-the-old-republic-update-hits-tuesday

Nice to see the Bioware PR scumbags using graphics settings the playerbase can't

Playboy

I'm still enjoying it because I'm taking my time and playing casually. Its a different twist on a tired genre and I'm enjoying the story and voice elements. Any other mmo i have played it has been a rush to max level to do end game pvp. That is the wrong way to play mmo's imo and it burns you out and makes the experience less enjoyable and overall very furstrating. I'm hoping by the time I reach max level here that end game will have been developed a little further.

People forget that WoW was just an upgrade on other mmo's and stole lots of ideas from all of its predecessors. It also was far from the finished article when it came out and had plenty of games and the end game pvp was poo(and still is). Bioware are a good company and I trust them to develop this game in the right way .. I'm sure in a couple of years SWTOR will be a fantastic game if it manages to keep a large number of subscribers for the first year.

Nody

Playboy wrote: »

People forget that WoW was just an upgrade on other mmo's and stole lots of ideas from all of its predecessors. It also was far from the finished article when it came out and had plenty of games and the end game pvp was poo(and still is).

Bioware are a good company and I trust them to develop this game in the right way .. I'm sure in a couple of years SWTOR will be a fantastic game if it manages to keep a large number of subscribers for the first year.

But that's the problem; a MMO don't get a second chance to become good and while WoW was poor at release it still beat Everquest by being more polished, having better responses and better game mechanics (EQ had it beat on content but WoW was smoother etc.). SWTOR don't have that over WoW, that's the big glaring issue here.

Kirby

Nody wrote: »

WoW was poor at release it still beat Everquest by being more polished, having better responses and better game mechanics (EQ had it beat on content but WoW was smoother etc.). SWTOR don't have that over WoW, that's the big glaring issue here.

I would argue that point.

WoW "beat" eq when it released in my eyes because they had a playerbase cache of goodwill from the fact that it was Warcaft, and the fact that it was blizzard. Blizzards track record was the reason I picked up the game in the first place. Gamers expected good things. In the same way that people expect of Valve.

And then something rare and sought after happened. Word of mouth and peer pressure expanded their numbers........alot. In the same manner that everyone went out and bought a Wii. In that everybody buy's Modern Warfare. In the manner that everyone watches American Idol or X-factor.

You don't do these things because of the amazing product.....you do it because your friends are doing it and you want to be involved.....you want to know what people are talking about.

I myself am directly responsible for eight people being introduced to WoW. Some saw me play or heard me talk about it and hopped on board and others were "strongarmed" into it .:p They in turn, recruit more and so on.

WoW has been a phenomenon in this regard and it's not because of its quality. While it's a polished and huge game now, it wasn't back in Vanilla. It was flawed and yet it just kept growing.

It's why subsequent good MMO's havent touched its popularity. They don't have the hook to get alot of people in the door like "warcraft" or "blizzard" does. Because of this, they dont get the "well everyone is playing it" effect.

Star wars has enough of a following to actually emulate what WoW did. You can see it in its playerbase already if you play alot. The average quality of player is shocking because it's ALOT of people's first MMO. These people don't play MMO's but like star wars. So they bought it.

WoW was many people's first MMO too. Remember that. While we see many "Simpsons did it" moments with SWTOR and feel bored with mechanics we have seen before, to alot of people.....its ALL new. The same effect might happen that happened to WoW because if you get enough people in the door in the first six months, it will spiral. Star wars is an easy sell to the general public. They may just get enough numbers for it to happen.

nesf

Kirby wrote: »

Star wars has enough of a following to actually emulate what WoW did. You can see it in its playerbase already if you play alot. The average quality of player is shocking because it's ALOT of people's first MMO. These people don't play MMO's but like star wars. So they bought it.

WoW was many people's first MMO too. Remember that. While we see many "Simpsons did it" moments with SWTOR and feel bored with mechanics we have seen before, to alot of people.....its ALL new. The same effect might happen that happened to WoW because if you get enough people in the door in the first six months, it will spiral. Star wars is an easy sell to the general public. They may just get enough numbers for it to happen.

This is pretty much why, despite it's technical brilliance and innovation, that the like's of Rift could never be a WoW beater.

Dustaz

Kirby wrote: »

WoW "beat" eq when it released in my eyes because they had a playerbase cache of goodwill from the fact that it was Warcaft, and the fact that it was blizzard. Blizzards track record was the reason I picked up the game in the first place. Gamers expected good things. In the same way that people expect of Valve.

And then something rare and sought after happened. Word of mouth and peer pressure expanded their numbers........alot. In the same manner that everyone went out and bought a Wii. In that everybody buy's Modern Warfare. In the manner that everyone watches American Idol or X-factor.

No, WoW beat EQ because its a better game full stop.

You're right about the goodwill and about word of mouth, thats why most of us here played the game. What you're ignoring is the fact that everyone stayed to play for months and months because its a REALLY good game. Blizzard and Valve have that reputation for a very good reason. They make really good games that people enjoy playing.

People might try it due to word of mouth and "peer pressure" but they certainly wont stay in the game. Im not denying that it entered the zeitgeist to a certain degree but the reason it did and people stayed is down to the fact that it was a much more fun, less grindy, more 'casual' oriented mmo than had been seen before. Thats why it beat eq.

Its more like Quake or CS or Starcraft. People play because they hear about it from friends and KEEP playing because they are good games.

WoW has been a phenomenon in this regard and it's not because of its quality. While it's a polished and huge game now, it wasn't back in Vanilla. It was flawed and yet it just kept growing.

Apart from horrible server issues at launch (which in fairness to bioware, they've been brilliant on that front), wow wasnt that flawed? I might be looking back with rose tinted glasses, but iimo it was a much more polished game than swtor is at the moment.

I keep seeing people saying that wow was poor at release but thats really not my memory of it. It got better certainly but it wasnt broken apart from a lack of pvp incentives. Ive never seen wow as a pvp game so i casually ignored that side of it:P

Star wars has enough of a following to actually emulate what WoW did. You can see it in its playerbase already if you play alot. The average quality of player is shocking because it's ALOT of people's first MMO. These people don't play MMO's but like star wars. So they bought it.

Yeah, I really thought this might be the game to topple wow simply because of the franchise and the huge amount of word of mouth before the game went live but in my opinion all the buzz and word of mouth isnt going to propel this game to those heights without a lot of changes.

Nody

Dustaz wrote: »

No, WoW beat EQ because its a better game full stop.

This really and here's the stats to prove it.



The big drop for Everquest in the picture? That's when WoW went live; that's 250k subscribers dropping Everquest in 6 months and not coming back. Those 250k MMO players telling all their friends who quit EQ (and EQ had a very high turn over rate) that's we're going to WoW why don't you come on over.

Why? Because people like Furor (Fires of Heaven, top EQ guild world wide) was raving about how good it was in beta on their front page. Because Tigole (Afterlife, one of the few fighting with FoH for top spot) was working for Blizzard and actually knew what people wanted after having played EQ at the highest level for years! It of course helped that people were actually allowed to post from beta 6 months before and tell us all how damn good it was (a thread on another board had a thread going with a guy posting a in depth review ([WoW] I Was a Teenage Alpha Tester ) of his experience which pulled in tens of thousands of non board members reading it and I'd wager got them to try it out. That built a buzz and excitement far beyond what I've seen in SWTOR because not only is it a Blizzard game (helps sell boxes to be honest) but people with actual experience were telling us this is some really good stuff they got going in there actually playing the game.

I stand by my original projection, SWTOR will do an AoC or WHO; huge box sells in the millions and then a drop of curve of over 50% (if not 80%) in subscription numbers over the next 6 months (same picture as above). That's in comparison with WoW (picture below) who simply kept on going because it was simply a good (and easy to get into) game with plenty of variety in style.



All pictures above are from MMOdata.net

nesf

While I don't disagree with your overall analysis that much, though I think lumping in SWTOR with AoC misses the point about the power of SWTOR's IP, WoW's current subs are a lot lower than 11 million at the moment from everything I read about over the past year which makes me a little suspicious about that data's validity in recent times (though I imagine WoW is still king by a strong multiple over every other MMO out there).

That and subscription data can be very hard to get your hands on.

Nody

nesf wrote: »

While I don't disagree with your overall analysis that much, though I think lumping in SWTOR with AoC misses the point about the power of SWTOR's IP

This is the second MMO using the IP; while I think the IP will help hold a a certain set of people (and driven box sales obviously) I don't think it will be successfull in keeping people subscribed long term; only the game mechanics and quality of the game does this.

nesf

Nody wrote: »

This is the second MMO using the IP; while I think the IP will help hold a a certain set of people (and driven box sales obviously) I don't think it will be successfull in keeping people subscribed long term; only the game mechanics and quality of the game does this.

I'd agree but I think it'll behave quite differently to AoC and similar which saw a massive drop off after the free play period ended iirc.