[TOR] Looking to join in the fun

Lockky

Hi, I was looking for the past week at reviews and such for SWTOR and i really want to get it (once my leaving cert is over and done with...stupid inconsequential piece of game-blocking crap that it is). Sadly from everything im hearing this game is just a ton of ghost servers. I dont want to believe this is true cos i was looking forward to this game for since before it came out and had been very excited but i thought id check with some of you guys. I was reading about your BD guilds and it seems like some of the hype y'all were talking about making a few guilds on a server died. is that right or wrong?

what im basically asking is: is there much of a community on SWTOR? or is the game kinda dead? i dont wanna go back to WoW, its totally stale and **** tbh so i want a new challenge but much of what ive been hearing and reading is making me second guess this game.
Any feedback would be much appreciated guys. thanks!

ZeitgeistGlee

There's still plenty of servers with healthy populations from my experience. Yes, things have taken a bit of a tumble since the initial massive launch but that's pretty much the standard for every MMO over the last few years and can be cleared up with a round of merges/transfers.

http://www.swtor.com/server-status

Considering it's 00:24 and there's four English servers with a standard population I'd say there's certainly community to be found if you pick the right server. Even more fortunately of those four, three are distinct server types ready to cater for your needs. I'm part of a small to medium sized Empire guild on Progenitor and there's still plenty of action, though like any MMO you won't get the most out of it until you join a guild.

What type of server were you considering joining?

Vicxas

I joined Nightmare Lands server as PC Gamer runs a guild over there and server numbers are healthy enough. I would suggest after you LC you look at a server in the middle of the day and that should give you an indication of the servers activity.

Id say by then there will be a few server mergers.

witless1

Lockky wrote: »

I was reading about your BD guilds and it seems like some of the hype y'all were talking about making a few guilds on a server died. is that right or wrong?

We managed to put 4 guilds on BD, 2 on each faction. The server had a very health population (read big queues!) when the game launched and we managed to put a large number of Irish players there. I know Dawn Herald had ~30 people sign up on our forums who bought / played the game. The Irish community just didn't click with the game though. The Republic side guilds folded within the free month, despite one of them having decent raid progress. The Empire guilds banded together to get raiding going but one of them died off. That left Dawn Herald and we had to merge with another guild, The Dark Council just to have numbers to do anything. Think we were down to 3 or 4 people online kinda thing. The server population itself dropped off as well but that is across the board. So yeah, community wise it did work, we managed to get people there, the game managed to drive people away though for various reasons from bugs, to crashes, to poor content to its not WoW like. Half a dozen threads in this forum about it if you want to read into it. I personally liked the game, the setting and the classes, but the client constantly crashed on my machine. After 6 weeks of troubleshooting they said its my problem not theirs and closed my ticket with no resolution.

I'm sure by the time you get out of your LC that the current patch will have a follow on out which should iron out a lot of problems. It might bring back numbers but the damage is probably done to it already in many peoples eyes.

Omphin

The game was rushed out by EA. If your going to bring out a WoW in space clone kinda game, which it is. Then they have had the past few years to get things right from the get go. the problems i see with the game are:

* Low population servers
* No LFG feature ( they had WoW as a model, no excuse )
* No world pvp ( pvp servers might as well be pve servers, while leveling with 2 characters now at 50 i probably fought 4 or 5 of the other faction )
* No cross realm warzones. I understand they want us to be a community and pvp with and against each other but if nobody from your server is signing for warzones you should be put against people from other servers.
* Galactic trade market is a joke. ( again they had WoW as a model )
* Bugs ( when your doing a raid and theres pieces of the floor missing, come on! many other bugs that that one is insane )
* Optimisation ( slowly getting sorted, warzones at the begining were terrible but are fixed now, opening your bags while moving shouldnt cause the game to stall for a split second )
* Requirements ( pc requirements turned quite alot of people away from playing this game, they tried it on their pc and quit the game shortly after)
* the little things ( like not being able to add a friend if hes offline, or right click and whisper a guildy from the guild panel. lots of these little things)

Right now the low population servers are turning even more people away from the game and they need to merge the servers. The low server populations are a product of bringing out a game missing all the features i mentioned.

I've played Wow for close to seven years and I have no intention of going back to it and will continue to play SWTOR in the hope that they will fix alot of the flaws. For me personally WoW has nothing for offer me that i cant do on SWTOR, I'm a pvper at heart so i only end up queueing for wz/bg's regardless of the game i play.
I would suggest to anyone wanting to play SWTOR to check the server populations, even consider rolling on an american server if you play late at night ( i have alts on an american server for late night warzones ) or consider rolling on a full or heavy european server which may mean long queue times to get in.

If you like leveling and seeing a games story content ( i'm an alt freak ) then you can't beat SWTOR with its video sequences and class storyline so thats why im playing cause i have 10 lv 85's on WoW and it only offers me the pvp i can get from SWTOR plus I've played WoW to death and im sick of it. I level alts with friends an if im not doing that i pvp. Raiding/ops is too time consuming and restrictive for me personally although i do enjoy it too.

The dark horse is Guild Wars 2 which i suspect will take a good chunk of players from WoW and could kill off SWTOR making it a free to play.

Lockky

Thanks very much for the replies guys, really helpful. yeah ill keep that in mind about the servers and hopefully theyll have rectified much of that issue by the time i get to rip into the game. Im thinking PvP to be honest but i wanna go somewhere i can raid too, i never got to clear as much content as i wanted in WoW and i thought that took away from the experience overall (stupid school). So im hoping to go onto a PvP server cos i find them to be better fun - i love getting ganked while im levlling and the fear that it could happen again - but i also want somewhere i can raid. if they bring in cross server warzones then i might sacrifice PvP for raiding but id rather if i could have both

are the bugs really that bad? i realised some people were having problems but i hadnt heard of them being that bad. also i had heard the tech support is appalling so your story seems to be the norm unfortunately

Omphin

Lockky wrote: »

are the bugs really that bad? i realised some people were having problems but i hadnt heard of them being that bad.

Well in several attempts in the Soa fight ( last boss of Eternity Vault ) we often had pieces of the floor missing. This might sound worse than it is because the floor is meant to drop as part of the fight as this video of us fighting Soa will show you. in fact i frapsed this video after a few failed attempts due to missing pieces previously.
Since the latest patch i have not had this happen, however many others have not been so forgiving and outright quit the game.

just so you can see the mechanics yourself:

luisspellcast

hey there,

not sure if in this video you're referring as one of the attempts with the missing plaques-- i didn't see anything wrong regarding fight mechanics-- however, i saw a lot of mistakes from the operation's group itself, but i digress in an elitist way you might not be interested

without pointing the finger in anyone's particular direction, i see a lot of people excusing themselves on game bugs for their misplays-- so much easier to blame the floor when they can't dance

i'm not saying that my operation's group was super-good but i liked the fact people were whiling to see past the bugs and give their best to down the boss-- lightning just hit for twice as much damage ? maybe we didn't see that there were too-- no platforms ? leave, reset, get back in-- randomness countered the 2 tanks and 1 healer and half the party died ? leave zone, get back in

the fight is hard ? yes-- it's bugged ? damn sure-- crying about it wouldn't solve so it was great to see people repairing and going back in, instead of rage-quitting and blaming it on the bugs-- we didn't down Soa nightmare but we were damn close... /sigh

also, people talk really bad about tech support but every time i open a ticket i usually get a conversation request-- problem is rarely solved at the time (or the typical forward/look-into-it response) but if a lot of people say they don't get an answer and i get to chat, it's not me doing something right, it might be them doing something wrong

Calhoun

luisspellcast wrote: »

hey there,

not sure if in this video you're referring as one of the attempts with the missing plaques-- i didn't see anything wrong regarding fight mechanics-- however, i saw a lot of mistakes from the operation's group itself, but i digress in an elitist way you might not be interested

without pointing the finger in anyone's particular direction, i see a lot of people excusing themselves on game bugs for their misplays-- so much easier to blame the floor when they can't dance

i'm not saying that my operation's group was super-good but i liked the fact people were whiling to see past the bugs and give their best to down the boss-- lightning just hit for twice as much damage ? maybe we didn't see that there were too-- no platforms ? leave, reset, get back in-- randomness countered the 2 tanks and 1 healer and half the party died ? leave zone, get back in

the fight is hard ? yes-- it's bugged ? damn sure-- crying about it wouldn't solve so it was great to see people repairing and going back in, instead of rage-quitting and blaming it on the bugs-- we didn't down Soa nightmare but we were damn close... /sigh

also, people talk really bad about tech support but every time i open a ticket i usually get a conversation request-- problem is rarely solved at the time (or the typical forward/look-into-it response) but if a lot of people say they don't get an answer and i get to chat, it's not me doing something right, it might be them doing something wrong

Yah the ops group we ran with wasn't the best but we were only doing it on normal and didnt expect to much. No i dont think we are interested we know the raid is rough as hell but nothing we dont really value the elitest mindset at this time. Not that there is anything wrong with you for doing so, its good your so invested but we weren't.

Your team are great , i am glad you are proud of them and it shows across multiple posts on this forum but i dont think people rage quitted because of the minor bugs and lack of commitment. Raid bugs were only part of the issue there was so much more that put people off and they have been address already so i am not going to go through it.

You have allot of patience for the game you admit that you are a bit of a fanboy so you want the game to succeed more than most and although i would also like it to succeed there are obvious flaws in which they do need to address. Not everyone has thrown there toys out of the pram because of minor issues there are actual significant issue that need to be addressed, 1.2 was a good step forward but they have some walking to do.

Will they be able to fix it in time before more numbers as stripped by new IP? who knows but i will say this for any new player try do a trial first and review the server population before deciding on a server to play . I would recommend looking for a heavy or full server during peak hours otherwise you might join a ghost town.

luisspellcast

I know what you mean-- although I want the game to succeed my feedback to them still says the same: someone somewhere goofed up big time so either you pick up some slack or upcoming giants will crush like the bugs you are (pun intended-- see what I did there?)

I must add that a lot of the "bugs" people described where simple associated with sloppy gameplay-- and my point is, because people weren't willing to adapt their game play to the fight they just called it a bug

we tried to look at it from outside the box: this fight is a (kind of) step forward into random generated events where you have to adapt rather than roboticly respond-- think of DBM not be able to predict when lightning-balls will spawn or where someone is thrown in the air-- so the players have to constantly adapt their strategy and raiding becomes raiding, where communication is key and being able to adapt your strategy is vital-- people being forced to think becomes paramount, and I put my money that some folks are just not ok with last bit

However, too bad they failed to deliver-- cleared EC twice now and even though the fights are fun, they seem to me like a step back from the randomness of Soa-- can't blame them to play it safe-- in the end, they give what the people were asking

Lockky

Yeah i think ill try find a server as heavily populated as can get cos i really dont wanna have to reroll. well if there are bugs in a 150+ million dollar game it is pretty understandable that people would be annoyed, its quite appalling that they could end up in that situation after all the testing and the fact that the template games (WoW, Rift etc) are there yet the guild system seems wholefully dysfunctional as well as some other issues. although i totally agree that its quite childish to quit a game you invest minimum €40 on so quickly especially an mmo cos there will be problems, there are always bugs n issues with mmo's but normally fans have the patience to allow for at least one patch which perplexed me about SWTOR that they didnt

Calhoun

Lockky wrote: »

although i totally agree that its quite childish to quit a game you invest minimum €40 on so quickly especially an mmo cos there will be problems, there are always bugs n issues with mmo's but normally fans have the patience to allow for at least one patch which perplexed me about SWTOR that they didnt

This is a very good point, it shows how much the market has changed. I remember some of the intial MMO's i played you had so many real problems that would make most of this generation really cry.

Pick your server and enjoy the game for what it is. If you are open minded, have a bit of patience and pick a server that is populated well you will love the game.

For all my complaints i am still subscribed to the game but i do need to make a decision soon on if i want to continue or drop it because i am playing other things.

Omphin

Calhoun wrote: »

For all my complaints i am still subscribed to the game but i do need to make a decision soon on if i want to continue or drop it because i am playing other things.

Others things like wow? I just dont see the attraction to WoW when the leveling process in swtor is so much better. Fine WoW may suit people who like to sit at endgame in a major city queueing for battlegrounds or LFR, or maybe for people that like to get a char to make level only to log on to raid.

I recently made a jedi sage dps on another server and im loving it. Theres plenty to keep me busy rather than return to wow for more of the same. I'm also looking forward to GW2 and will be playing that alongside swtor

Calhoun

Omphin wrote: »

Others things like wow? I just dont see the attraction to WoW when the leveling process in swtor is so much better. Fine WoW may suit people who like to sit at endgame in a major city queueing for battlegrounds or LFR, or maybe for people that like to get a char to make level only to log on to raid.

I recently made a jedi sage dps on another server and im loving it. Theres plenty to keep me busy rather than return to wow for more of the same. I'm also looking forward to GW2 and will be playing that alongside swtor

The difference between you and I is that you have played WoW since the beginning and i have only played a year or so of it. There is still new things for me to do, right now i am leveling a warrior from 0-85 but if i was to document down my attraction for wow over swtor at this time it would be down to;

1. Wow = No Invisible walls or those that exist are done in a way that make sense compared to SWTOR = Invisible walls everywhere which take away from the feeling of an integrated world;
2. Server population in wow = more stable and a some really good servers to play one, SWTOR = one full server, 2-3 heavy and the rest are standard to light. It really feels like the game is dying when its so empty so early in its online life;
3. Wow = Dungeon and Raid Finder, SWTOR = Really poor LFG system;
4. Wow = World PVP, its not ideal but the server i am leveling on now there is out and out brawls happening all over the place, SWTOR = even though i was on a pvp server i saw 1 enemy player in my leveling experience;
5. Wow = Mount and Pet system that is pretty cool, i love that you can get some really cool pets or mounts in game but also that you can fly around on them and go anywhere, SWTOR = limited mounts that are pretty much the same for everyone, they cannot fly and some of them look super stupid on the fleet (size of them) you also cannot get living mounts ect which would be cool. The pets are limited also;
6. Wow = very few loading zone, SWTOR = loading zones everwhere you go ( i know i have covered this in part already.
7. Wow = alternative leveling paths although i admit its not unlimited and you will repeat but there are options, SWTOR = same leveling path over and over again.
   

Pretty much SWTOR feels and plays like a single player game and although i would normally be willing to let the game grow, i am concerned with its longevity and investing time in something that is dying. Id rather wait until GW2.

Omphin

Calhoun wrote: »

The difference between you and I is that you have played WoW since the beginning and i have only played a year or so of it.

A very fair point. I guess my arguement is more directed at those that have been playing WoW for as long as i have, or at least for more than 3 years.

1. Regarding Invisable walls and sandbox worlds, unlike WoW swtor is based on planets so its not like you can move from planet to planet like jumping down from tanaris into ungoro.
2. Server populations in wow on some servers are just as dead as they are in swtor except you dont notice it as much with the LFG and such features. Granted you might have more full servers, i'm hoping bioware wake the **** up and merge servers to sort the problem.
3. Dungeon and Raid Finder in wow is superior. No doubt about it. And i dont understand why they didnt bring it in to swtor from the start.
4. World PvP - i agree that swtor pvp servers might as well be pve servers which for me is a major flaw
5. Mounts and pets - Given time more mounts and pets will come out for swtor. I think they have there hands full trying to debug the game. But i remember in wow when theres was **** all mounts you could get.
6. Loading zones - yes too many loading zones in swtor which can be very irratating. They have started to bypass some of them though, so now you can take a shuttle direct to you ship.
7. Alternative leveling paths - very little in the difference. You have the option to do the bonus series in a zone in swtor if u like that zone which can often mean you can skip a planet if u dont like it and just do your class quests there. And thats if you dont do some warzones or flashpoints to gain an extra level or two.

Calhoun wrote: »

Pretty much SWTOR feels and plays like a single player game and although i would normally be willing to let the game grow, i am concerned with its longevity and investing time in something that is dying.

two things that would bring people back to swtor:
1. Hutt cartel faction - including new alien species
2. Merge the servers to create fuller servers and/or bring in LFG system they have in wow, with cross server warzones

If they dont want to merge the servers, then they have to bring in a cross server warzones and LFG/LFR.

As for investing time.... we are playing mmo's its all about wasting time. Getting the best gear only to have it replaced with better gear from the next patch, its just a question of how you enjoy wasting your time

Calhoun

Omphin wrote: »

A very fair point. I guess my arguement is more directed at those that have been playing WoW for as long as i have, or at least for more than 3 years.

1. Regarding Invisable walls and sandbox worlds, unlike WoW swtor is based on planets so its not like you can move from planet to planet like jumping down from tanaris into ungoro. Yes but on the planets there are invisible walls all over the place even though they are huge and the current spaceship system is a poor mans travel system (think of what they had in SWG)
2. Server populations in wow on some servers are just as dead as they are in swtor except you dont notice it as much with the LFG and such features. Granted you might have more full servers, i'm hoping bioware wake the **** up and merge servers to sort the problem. This is also true but there is a better understanding of what full, heavy and medium servers mean in wow
3. Dungeon and Raid Finder in wow is superior. No doubt about it. And i dont understand why they didnt bring it in to swtor from the start.
4. World PvP - i agree that swtor pvp servers might as well be pve servers which for me is a major flaw
5. Mounts and pets - Given time more mounts and pets will come out for swtor. I think they have there hands full trying to debug the game. But i remember in wow when theres was **** all mounts you could get. I understand this but i would expect the ability to have ships where you could eventually fly on your mounts rather than land based travel
6. Loading zones - yes too many loading zones in swtor which can be very irratating. They have started to bypass some of them though, so now you can take a shuttle direct to you ship. Still crap and really takes away from your immersion in the game
7. Alternative leveling paths - very little in the difference. You have the option to do the bonus series in a zone in swtor if u like that zone which can often mean you can skip a planet if u dont like it and just do your class quests there. And thats if you dont do some warzones or flashpoints to gain an extra level or two. This is not the same you have a couple of ways you can do it in wow, bonus quests dont cut it. Sure one of the lads that joined me on fatman basically said he couldnt take anymore of the Imperial leveling zones as he had dont them so many times due to alts. There arent many more options in wow but there are options

two things that would bring people back to swtor:
1. Hutt cartel faction - including new alien species
2. Merge the servers to create fuller servers and/or bring in LFG system they have in wow, with cross server warzones

If they dont want to merge the servers, then they have to bring in a cross server warzones and LFG/LFR.

As for investing time.... we are playing mmo's its all about wasting time. Getting the best gear only to have it replaced with better gear from the next patch, its just a question of how you enjoy wasting your time Regardless of how you choose it, you get the idea wow has a little bit more longevity in it and you can leave and come back and still have your toon as a capable option to play

Comments in bold

Vicxas

This game is in its infancy, and already its standing toe to toe with WoW (which has 7 years on SWTOR)

With content patches and some cross server interaction (PVP, Flashpoint finder) This game can surpass everyones expectations. We just need to give it some time.

Omphin

Vicxas wrote: »

This game is in its infancy, and already its standing toe to toe with WoW (which has 7 years on SWTOR)

With content patches and some cross server interaction (PVP, Flashpoint finder) This game can surpass everyones expectations. We just need to give it some time.

i agree and i cant help wondering why the hell they rushed the game out before they had things like a LFG system and cross server warzones built in. Those alone would have kept many people from leaving and feeling they were on dead servers. My old wow server, Doomhammer is pretty dead yet the LFG and cross server bg's help disguise it.

Vicxas

Omphin wrote: »

i agree and i cant help wondering why the hell they rushed the game out before they had things like a LFG system and cross server warzones built in. Those alone would have kept many people from leaving and feeling they were on dead servers. My old wow server, Doomhammer is pretty dead yet the LFG and cross server bg's help disguise it.

Ea wanted it before Xmas, I remember reading an article where the editor was saying that this rush could destroy the game.

It didnt destroy it, but it wounded it pretty badly

Calhoun

Vicxas wrote: »

Ea wanted it before Xmas, I remember reading an article where the editor was saying that this rush could destroy the game.

It didnt destroy it, but it wounded it pretty badly

EA were playing chicken with Blizzard and for what dirty little black and white panda baxstards, they should have held off and went up side blizzards head with a light saber.

Lockky

Calhoun wrote: »

EA were playing chicken with Blizzard and for what dirty little black and white panda baxstards, they should have held off and went up side blizzards head with a light saber.

Yeah i completely agree. One of my mates quit WoW as soon as he saw what the new expansion would be. I get that the Pandaren were in Warcraft 2 or 3 but considering the new pet system theyre bringing in WoW is looking like Kung Fu Panda playing Pokemon in 12th century china rather than some sort of high fantasy "go stop x from destroying the whole world...of warcraft". i think its kind of a joke and its poor form on EAs part that they managed to **** up so badly that people are going BACK to wow hahaha