SWTOR

I enjoyed the hell out of the story. If they ever add more I will be playing through it.

The first month or so the game was out was very enjoyable. Maxed out a Bounty Hunter and a Sith Warrior, had a great time.

I know the client and the engine weren't that optimized, however, I did really like how the game looked.

I am still sad that they didn't jump on the huttball thing while it was hot. Set up a league structure, crank out some more maps, and they'd have had me subscribing for at least another 6 months past release.

Why is every MMO dev always so unprepared to respond to the tastes of the players and leverage emergent gameplay?

If there's one thing I have to commend the current team on its the content cadence. They've been really consistent on releasing new content about every 8 weeks. If there's one thing I have to complain about, it's that it really does seem too little, too late for most of it by the time it comes out. Case in point is the new PvP stuff coming in October. This was touted a few months ago but in the interim I watched many of the more hardcore PvP players up and leave out of sheer boredom.

The only way to truly enjoy SWTOR is to broaden your interests. If you only do one type of thing then you'll hit a wall fairly fast.

masteen_sl said:

Why is every MMO dev always so unprepared to respond to the tastes of the players and leverage emergent gameplay?

Click to expand...

Because it takes weeks to plan, design, program, test and implement new content, so doing it on a whim based on current fads is a huge gamble. You risk having wasted all that time and effort because the playerbase has lost interest by the time your shit is ready. You'll never keep pace with player fads, it literally can't be done, so their best bet is to try and predict or create the trends rather than react to them.

Flipmode_sl said:

How do any of you have this POS money grab on your computers still? What do they have to do to get you to quit? Come to your house and rape your family and charge you $9.99 for the service?

Click to expand...

Darth Malgus is not amused. Well, maybe at the $10 rape fee.

Im playing it. casually now. I still find the character progression appealing and there are a ton of things to do.

I wish i could raid again but its just not possible.

masteen_sl said:

I am still sad that they didn't jump on the huttball thing while it was hot. Set up a league structure, crank out some more maps, and they'd have had me subscribing for at least another 6 months past release.

Why is every MMO dev always so unprepared to respond to the tastes of the players and leverage emergent gameplay?

Click to expand...

Wait, you actually enjoyed Huttball?

Were you Lightside or something?

Every Dark Side player I met was bloody sick of it by the end of the first week, since it was all we could get to pop.

Huttball was awesome, they had the worlds shittiest combat engine with some of the funnest Battlegrounds anyone has made so far

Kuro_sl said:

Wait, you actually enjoyed Huttball?

Were you Lightside or something?

Every Dark Side player I met was bloody sick of it by the end of the first week, since it was all we could get to pop.

Click to expand...

A lot of people hated Huttball for that reason but also because they never really "got it". They kept thinking of it in terms of a standard CTF when there was a lot more to it than that. As bad as I was at it, pulling the ball carrier into a fire trap and then scoring shortly after remains an etched moment in my MMO PvP experience. It really is surprising that they haven't made an effort to do more Huttball maps and instead simply added more conquest types. The new Arena play does nothing for me because it's going to be filled with Operative healers, and smash monkeys.

I think the speed of running in combat needs an increase and another smoothing of the combat on melee side needs to happen. Still a pretty game, just feels like molasses compared to WoW and gw2.

Caeden_sl said:

I think the speed of running in combat needs an increase and another smoothing of the combat on melee side needs to happen. Still a pretty game, just feels like molasses compared to WoW and gw2.

Click to expand...

I'm in agreement. Sprint speed really needs to be the base speed for the entire game.

I think I enjoyed this game during the launch not because it was a good game whatsoever, but because it was a hugely popular MMO release. A ton of old friends came out of the woodwork to play together and we progressed through the game and all the initial raid content together. It honestly could have been any level of terrible and I would have had a blast. I give SWTOR credit for making me realize that MMOs are almost entirely about the circumstances, group of people and community for me. The game part is largely irrelevant as long as it's not incredibly frustrating. That said, some of the hardmode raid content in SWTOR was broken as fuck at launch. The puzzle boss not working correctly (or randomly? I still don't understand it) along with Soa hardmode being utterly bullshit are probably the most frustrating things I have ever experienced in a game.

SOA became faceroll easy after they fixed the bug with the lightning balls doing double damage. The Pylons could become flat out bugged for no apparant reason but the idea behind the whole puzzle thing fell apart once people would just use an app to figure out the best path to completion. That and Nightmare mode was just more bigger hits and health for the bosses.

The game has improved in that aspect. The raids are interesting and even in Story Mode can be challenging. Nightmare mode is more technically challenging with added mechanics on top of what's in Hard Mode.

If you can get past the extremely shitty F2P implementation and look at it from a Sub standpoint then the game is pretty good and even great at times. The only thing it truly suffers from is the lack of a ton of content, which will erode with time as long as they keep up the content cadence.

I am slowly going broke crafting and gearing my companions. What cartel items are currently selling good on the GTN? I have some left over Cartel balance and I need at least a million credits to continue to level my new smuggler comfortably.

axeman_sl said:

Because it takes weeks to plan, design, program, test and implement new content, so doing it on a whim based on current fads is a huge gamble. You risk having wasted all that time and effort because the playerbase has lost interest by the time your shit is ready. You'll never keep pace with player fads, it literally can't be done, so their best bet is to try and predict or create the trends rather than react to them.

Click to expand...

But all Huttball needed was more maps to see if it had actual staying power or was just an FOTM. Making maps of this type is not some arcane coding chore sucking weeks of dev time, and the potential payoff was huge. It's not like they needed to have a ranking and league system right away; it lent itself to granular development. Which is why I'm still moaning about it a year later.

I loved huttball, but the higher level you got the more silly it got. Way too many ways to be instantly killed with no possible counter. And the leap-to-enemy ability rooting you in place is just lazy sloppy implementation.

It has been true of every pvp mmo thus far. Fun decreases with level.

I don't believe it is so much about the character level, but more the skill level and experience of the players involved.