SWTOR: 2 months on, who's still playing

Blowfish · 27-02-2012 2:33pm

Dustaz wrote: »

No, because you cant make the BIS mods and at the moment you cant remove them from the BIS items (i know thats coming in the next patch but god, how could they not have looked at this and seen how it SHOULD work)

Actually, the level 58 armoring mods drop in Ops as BoE's, so you can regularly find them on the GTN. The other mods can be pulled from the Rakata etc. gear. You'll be missing the set bonus, but as mentioned that'll be changing in 1.2.

Artifice is able to craft BiS relics and has moneymakers in the Magenta Crystal etc. Synthweaving has it in the heavy armor orange belt and wrist so are at least somewhat useful. Armormech can create BiS wrist and belt.

Armsmech definitely needs a lot of work though, and the rest bar Biochem could do with a little more usefulness. Thankfully it is one of the things changing in 1.2 too.

Raphael · 27-02-2012 3:35pm

The one thing to be said for armormech/cybertech is that they're very useful while levelling. Armormech kept me and my companions very well geared all the way through. Dropped it for Biochem in the high 40s though.

Kirby · 28-02-2012 4:48pm

Dustaz wrote: »

swtor had 1 raid with 6 bosses and 1 raid with 1 boss and 2 or 3 max level dungeons. Thats almost exactly what wow had at launch 8 years ago and they got an awful hard time for not having enough. If you count the hard modes, a feature directly lifted from wow, then you need to compare it to the wow expansions that had hard modes and wow still had more. Remember theres still only 5 (?) hard modes available.

Mate, all the information is on the previous page. I don't know how you could have missed it. why do a "5?" when you can clearly see them listed on the previous page. There are seven end game instances available for 4 man groups. You know this because you read and quoted my post. You clearly saw this so by ignoring it you are just being obtuse for the sake of your argument.

You talk about expansions but I wonder why? You may want to compare a game with 3 seperate expansions 7 years worth of content to a 2 month old game. But its foolish. My point stands, there is more endgame content in this than any other MMO I've seen on release. And there is only going to be more added.

And the inference that "Hard modes don't count as engame content because there are easier versions" is just ridiculous. If you don't like the game, fine. But stating there are only 2 or 3 max level dungeons is just lying. There is no other way to put it.

There are plenty of legitimate issues with the game.

You can talk about the fact that it isn't optomized well and its a resource hog. You can talk about too many fetch quests. You can talk about The default UI not being customizable. You can talk about too many hobsons choices and the early beta idea of being able to kill companions being dropped. Certain professions seem useless. Button lag for the first month and a half. Buggy datacrons take take an hour to do and then fall through the world. Over instancing leading to empty servers. etc etc.

Lots of issues that plague the game. Endgame content really, really isn't one of them.

Nody · 28-02-2012 5:30pm

Kirby wrote: »

Lots of issues that plague the game. Endgame content really, really isn't one of them.

But if people are consistently (and between this thread and the others it appears to be) get to max level, get bored and quit that does point out a lack of high level content. It does not mean content don't exist but rather that people don't care/are interested enough i doing it (which they by definition should be because now they don't need to grind levels any more) and hence it is lacking.

Dustaz · 28-02-2012 5:30pm

Kirby wrote: »

Mate, all the information is on the previous page. I don't know how you could have missed it. why do a "5?" when you can clearly see them listed on the previous page. There are seven end game instances available for 4 man groups. You know this because you read and quoted my post. You clearly saw this so by ignoring it you are just being obtuse for the sake of your argument.

Oh im sorry mate, i didnt notice you being deliberately obtuse by including one that was patched in 2 months after release. You know, the really really badly designed one that took a year to make apparently.

Ive given up trying to remember, but there was 6 wasnt there? BT, Taral, D7, False Emp and Battle of Ilum and the repubclic equivalent of the foundry, which the name escapes me.

My point and its one that noone seems willing to address is that Hard modes are DIRECTLY lifted from wow. As Are battlegrounds. As is the idea that you MUST have lots of end game stuff for people to do once they level to cap. So stop comparing a game that has taken ideas and concepts from wow's entire lifespan to wow at launch. Yes, there is end game content, I've done it all. Putting in a hard mode into low level dungeons isnt exactly the most original or creatively taxing process in the world and is hardly worthy of praise.

It also doesnt address quality. There might be stuff there, but it doesnt guarentee that the stuff is actually any good. I actually quite liked the raids, but the dungeons were piss poor.

You talk about expansions but I wonder why? You may want to compare a game with 3 seperate expansions 7 years worth of content to a 2 month old game. But its foolish.

As i said above, If you take wow, copy most of the good bits (but leave out some of the really good bits for god knows what reason), skin it in a space theme and put it out there for the mmo market that wow created, then you are going to be compared to world of warcraft.

Not world of warcraft 7 years ago. world of warcraft NOW. That is what the game is competing with. and its the reason so many people quit so quickly.

Shiminay · 28-02-2012 5:51pm

Dustaz wrote: »

Not world of warcraft 7 years ago. world of warcraft NOW. That is what the game is competing with. and its the reason so many people quit so quickly.

On this one point - could one make the argument that there is simply no economically viable means to touch WoW's vast quantity of end game content simply because it's had to long to produce so much?

MMOs are coming out all the time, if they're not going to have some serious hooks other than "it's set in this universe" and is essentially the same game mechanically as WoW (and I think for the sake of argument, we can say that generally speaking, WoW and SWTOR are mechanically the same game), then surly no one can dethrone WoW as they'll just keep adding more and more to it.

Nody · 28-02-2012 6:04pm

Shiminay wrote: »

On this one point - could one make the argument that there is simply no economically viable means to touch WoW's vast quantity of end game content simply because it's had to long to produce so much?

That would be Everquest which released one expansion a year with multiple raid zones (with multiple bosses in each raid zone usually) every year for gosh, 15 or so years now?

If content was king then EQ would be the master of the block yet when WoW came out it rocked EQ's socks with EQ having 7 odd expansions by the time. WoW did not have more content but WoW was a better game.

This is what MMO developers keep on missing; you can't beat WoW by doing WoW with a new skin and some altered abilities as WoW clone in a new skin. It has to much content and was to many people's first MMO for that. If they want to beat WoW the game simply needs to be better, smoother, and more fun while running well on low end machines. Rift was a good stab on the different part with the combine three soul idea but failed badly in other areas. WHO's public group idea and the way they had PvP feeling a natural part of the game was also a good plan but it failed in other areas.

The problem with the above is you need someone to cross all the boxes and polish it long enough to get there. And the polishing team needs to listen to the right type of players (i.e. not only one segment of the hard core, story drive etc.) to get it right. Do I think anyone will pull that off though? Honestly, no, I think the MMO market will keep on splitting up into more and more games all getting <500k subscribers and staying there with in 6 months as people keep on going from game to game not finding the "it" factor they expect.

Venom · 28-02-2012 6:11pm

Kirby wrote: »

Mate, all the information is on the previous page. I don't know how you could have missed it. why do a "5?" when you can clearly see them listed on the previous page. There are seven end game instances available for 4 man groups. You know this because you read and quoted my post. You clearly saw this so by ignoring it you are just being obtuse for the sake of your argument.

You talk about expansions but I wonder why? You may want to compare a game with 3 seperate expansions 7 years worth of content to a 2 month old game. But its foolish. My point stands, there is more endgame content in this than any other MMO I've seen on release. And there is only going to be more added.

And the inference that "Hard modes don't count as engame content because there are easier versions" is just ridiculous. If you don't like the game, fine. But stating there are only 2 or 3 max level dungeons is just lying. There is no other way to put it.

There are plenty of legitimate issues with the game.

You can talk about the fact that it isn't optomized well and its a resource hog. You can talk about too many fetch quests. You can talk about The default UI not being customizable. You can talk about too many hobsons choices and the early beta idea of being able to kill companions being dropped. Certain professions seem useless. Button lag for the first month and a half. Buggy datacrons take take an hour to do and then fall through the world. Over instancing leading to empty servers. etc etc.

Lots of issues that plague the game. Endgame content really, really isn't one of them.

Dude endgame content at release was a bugged and broken mess. Chests couldn't be looted and the only real difference between normal and hard modes were retarded enrage timers on the boss mobs and if a player died it could screw up the whole dungeon.

Add in no LFG tools so players had to hang around the Fleet spamming chat just like the bad old days of EQ1 over 10 years ago! This is not even taking into account major gameplay issues like ability lag, server lag and how crap the game runs with more than a few players on screen at once and you have just one of the many reasons players are leaving SWTOR in droves.

You can bury you're head in the sand all you want but endgame content in SWTOR is really, really a major problem.

Venom · 28-02-2012 6:20pm

Nody wrote: »

That would be Everquest which released one expansion a year with multiple raid zones (with multiple bosses in each raid zone usually) every year for gosh, 15 or so years now?

If content was king then EQ would be the master of the block yet when WoW came out it rocked EQ's socks with EQ having 7 odd expansions by the time. WoW did not have more content but WoW was a better game.

This is what MMO developers keep on missing; you can't beat WoW by doing WoW with a new skin and some altered abilities as WoW clone in a new skin. It has to much content and was to many people's first MMO for that. If they want to beat WoW the game simply needs to be better, smoother, and more fun while running well on low end machines. Rift was a good stab on the different part with the combine three soul idea but failed badly in other areas. WHO's public group idea and the way they had PvP feeling a natural part of the game was also a good plan but it failed in other areas.

The problem with the above is you need someone to cross all the boxes and polish it long enough to get there. And the polishing team needs to listen to the right type of players (i.e. not only one segment of the hard core, story drive etc.) to get it right. Do I think anyone will pull that off though? Honestly, no, I think the MMO market will keep on splitting up into more and more games all getting <500k subscribers and staying there with in 6 months as people keep on going from game to game not finding the "it" factor they expect.

+1

You would think after the failures of...

Vanguard
The Matrix Online
Age of Conan
Warhammer Online
Champions Online
Star Trek Online
DCU Online

that Bioware/EA would of done things right with SWTOR and considering the budget and development time they had its kinda shocking how much of a failure they made of things :eek: Trying to serve up the same crap as player had over a decade ago or making a bad WoW clone is just not going to cut it anymore and thankfully the GW2 dev team seems to relies this.

Kirby · 28-02-2012 9:26pm

Dustaz wrote: »

Oh im sorry mate, i didnt notice you being deliberately obtuse by including one that was patched in 2 months after release. You know, the really really badly designed one that took a year to make apparently.

Game release was December 20th. KuS was released on January 17th. Less than one month after release. Not even close to two months. But you can choose to ignore facts if it suits your argument.

Koded_AR_Rose · 29-02-2012 2:40am

Venom wrote: »

Warhammer Online would be the nearest graphics wise to SWTOR. But the game engine is crap so you need a pretty good system to run it at medium quality settings.

I have ran that on the ooh its shiny and it rarely lags only mildy when entering a highly player populated area and this is playing while it is still downloading ....
Do you think it would be worth a try with swtor?

also thanks for the reply

Dohnny Jepp · 29-02-2012 2:58pm

I played it for a month and enjoyed it. It was just too similar to everythin else out there. I'm happy to play mmo's that are similar that are also f2p.

Venom · 29-02-2012 3:25pm

Koded_AR_Rose wrote: »

I have ran that on the ooh its shiny and it rarely lags only mildy when entering a highly player populated area and this is playing while it is still downloading ....
Do you think it would be worth a try with swtor?

also thanks for the reply

I honestly couldn't say. I'v a pretty high spec PC so most of my time playing was fine but going to the fleet, PvPing or running group missions did cause the game to to drag alot.

This was on SWTOR's high setting (really medium) with all the bells and whistles turned on and even then it looked very dated. You're best bet would be to wait for a trial tbh.

Dustaz · 01-03-2012 6:56pm

Kirby wrote: »

Game release was December 20th. KuS was released on January 17th. Less than one month after release. Not even close to two months. But you can choose to ignore facts if it suits your argument.

Well if your pulling me up on pedantics then ill point out that 2 months after launch isnt 'at launch'.

What about the myriad of other points relating to this that you have chose to ignore?

Sephiroth_dude · 05-03-2012 11:25pm

I have 46 days left and tbh I'm a bit lost,feel very overwhelmed by the game :-/

allanb49 · 06-03-2012 11:28am

Had a 2 week break back now at the weekend and flying through it now again with my jedi

RichieD · 06-03-2012 2:48pm

Im still playing on Basilisk droid republic, doing HM/NM ops at the moment.

The one biggest change id like to see is merging of servers.

Whats the point in having space ships and gigantic plants when there is only 100 people in the world.

Second to that id like to see 8 man pre-mades for pvp. Too many times I've gone into a wz and done 700k healing and still we get thrashed if 4 people in the group arent capable of watching a door.

luisspellcast · 11-03-2012 9:52am

maybe a bit late but i would like to share what i think:

i'm still playing and enjoying the game to it's full !

brought a couple old friends (and made new ones) on the role-playing server-- we would be the "hardcore" type that joined an RP guild, which seem very organized at the time, with intentions to get our own team going inside that structure and focus on end-game content without having to worry too much about logistics

it didn't work out and i decided to leave-- registered my own guild and we've build up numbers to our desired guild size (21 members) with hand-picked people from all classes--

the game has millions of flaws, be it bugs, bad loot distribution, shabby class design, boring instancing travel, missing obvious treats, limited functionality (both in-game and interface) but, in the end, i happen to see past all that for those 3 hours of absolute fun every evening with the people in the team, 2 of them happen to be gaming friends for the past 15 years

one of them friends gave me a 6 month sub as a christmas present and i subbed the other 6 months and i don't regret it a single bit

as for leveling i have plenty of time on my hands and leveled a juggernaut to 50 in 6 days (when you don't have much of a social life and it's too cold outside to go biking, it's doable) and capped a mercenary yesterday (which cleared vault and palace in normal-mode with level 40 pvp gear.) back on main, we managed to down Soa hard-mode with only 5 of us alive at the bottom with lady luck clearly not playing on our side and no one moaned, no one blamed rng, and everybody just giving 100% like expected-- we repaired for 60k and everybody will be logging again to go for more... next week is nightmare mode and we can't wait...

as for costumer service, i wonder how people have been writing their tickets: every time i /bug an issue (that is not super-common) i either get an email with specific steps to send a specific log or i get a chat-request (which sometimes can be in the middle of a war zone or instance-- bah)

people complain too much... people expect too much... people always want more than what they're bargaining for... i've no problem with that, but when i have to complain, anticipate or moan about something while others are enjoying, then i just deem it as my problem and walk away... it's not them, it's me...

i hope swtor become 10 times better than what it is now but, so far, i'm loving it and i'll be playing it for quite a while...

note: 700k healing in a warzone-- picture or it didn't happen

*edits for grammar and misspelling

Mr. K · 13-03-2012 12:20am

I'm still playing, on and off. I really just wanna experience all the story stuff, but I keep getting distracted by other games! I'm enjoying it whenever I play though.

excaliburhc · 13-03-2012 10:08am

still playing but it has gotten to the stage where it is log in do dailies / weeklys and thats it.

waiting on 1.2 ,if i didnt have mass effect to play then would have unsubbed till release.

Calhoun · 13-03-2012 3:57pm

Still playing it and enjoying it, im big into RPG elements of the game. I find that although the leveling experience with each class is the same the story keeps it very interesting and fresh.

If you think about it you effectively have 4 storylines per side at the moment to play through.

My only problem is balancing my mass effect playthrough with swtor time

.

RichieD · 15-03-2012 1:09pm

I've been one of SWTOR's biggest supporters and have been playing since early access.

However even im starting to get bored at this stage, I literally just log on at 7pm for operations and log out when we disband.

IF they fix scoundrels in 1.2 then i'll be re-movitated. It would also help if they made cybertech remotely useful compared to the other professions.

I have to say im extremely suspicious that they didnt release the details of 1.2 yet and only gave us a flashy video with no substance.

Vicxas · 15-03-2012 8:50pm

Im still playing, rolling a sith inquisitor on the Progenitor, Add me

Name: Borca

Welease · 16-03-2012 2:01pm

I cancelled this morning.. open world pvp doesn't seem to be a focus at present, and ilum has been empty for the last couple of weeks. There was very little point in continuing to log on and sit there waiting for people to fight.

A pity, but hopefully 1.2 will keep the more pve focussed players happy.. best of luck.

jeawan · 16-03-2012 4:19pm

Welease wrote: »

I cancelled this morning.. open world pvp doesn't seem to be a focus at present, and ilum has been empty for the last couple of weeks. There was very little point in continuing to log on and sit there waiting for people to fight.

A pity, but hopefully 1.2 will keep the more pve focussed players happy.. best of luck.

Ilum was **** for open pvp anyway the past part pretty much killed it completely n one will go there now bar to do the PVE Dailys shame as open world pvp is allot of fun more so then BG's they need to find a way to get people back into ilum again fighting

VinLieger · 16-03-2012 7:49pm

Cancelled it last night, 3 days left and just wasnt bothered. The other 4-5 guys i played with also are gone

luisspellcast · 18-03-2012 10:02am

Karaga's Palace 5/5 NiM

only Soa to go !

loving it...

Shiminay · 26-03-2012 10:55am

I logged in for the first time in about 2 months yesterday and went through a couple of missions on Alderaan with my Knight. I've had so many other games to play at the moment, I didn't have time for this and truth be told, I found the other games far more engaging.

But it was fun, I won't be leaving it so long in future

Calhoun · 26-03-2012 12:03pm

Was playing over the weekend but not as much as i would like due to Mass Effect, i have to say the server population is very discouraging and if i was EA i would merge because on population alone i am wondering if the game can survive.

I have looked online and there are similar concerns which are not good because it brings up doubt in peoples mind if its worth investing in their chars.

Anyone else noticing the decline on their server?

Nody · 26-03-2012 12:37pm

Calhoun wrote: »

Was playing over the weekend but not as much as i would like due to Mass Effect, i have to say the server population is very discouraging and if i was EA i would merge because on population alone i am wondering if the game can survive.

I have looked online and there are similar concerns which are not good because it brings up doubt in peoples mind if its worth investing in their chars.

Anyone else noticing the decline on their server?

From my MMO experience merges are ALWAYS later then the should (in some cases by years; more common to start up free or paid server transfers instead). I can only guess to why as I've not been given access to their thinking but a few reason stand out:

Merges signify that the game is shrinking - never a message you want to send out
They want to wait and see if it is not only a temporary dip in numbers (making more leave due to lack of population)
Servers are in general bought and paid for - unused servers still cost money and raise ankward questions
Self denial - they really think the numbers look ok/are above what they consider minimum for merge numbers

SWTOR: 2 months on, who's still playing

Comments