I'm embarrised to say I subscribed. I wanted a game with GREAT 24/7 persistent realm vs realm conflict...and today this game doesn't have it.My perception is Bioware continues to have no clue as to what great realm vs realm conflict design is ....nor any inclination to implement such a system. Never the less I was so desperate with the paucity of decent mmo games...I had to have something that would hold my intereste and provide hope against hope that I'm wrong about Bioware's intent and capabilitys.. And so I play ...... until games like Guild Wars 2....Dominus.....ArcheAge...Secret World come along....or Bioware proves me wrong.
Zezda, thanks for proving me right and show precisely why you critics are all the same.
"The game could be the best ever if only it was the way I thought it could be".
Guess what, the world isnt always made to you, learn to live with it.
Once again, great game, good job Bioware, the scores, population, numbers and pretty much everything involved show exactly this excellent results.
Hahaha exactly. To top it off, the fact is that if the game was how all these critics wanted it to be... it wouldnt have millions of subscribers.
Hell, if we went by what most people want on this site, Vanguard and SWG should have been the most popular MMOs in history. But they werent.
Yeah, I honestly never understood that "SWG-Pre NGE was the best" crap talk.
It it was indeed the best why was it that no one played it, at least in decent numbers, and Sony felt the urge to release the NGE?
Honestly, the problem with all this so called Sandbox people, is that they can never fully enjoy or appreciate anything, they simply like to be left in the dark.
They released Darkfall, the sandboxers bashed Darkfall, they released Mortal Online, the sandboxers bashed Moratl online, they end up destroying any sandbox attempt by bashing it till it's dead.
They then feel that, because they don't have any decent sandbox, the players that actually enjoy Theme-park games, should not enjoy them because they think theme-park games should not exist.... I swear, I never met so self-centered, jealous people...
For me SWTOR is 8.5, changes to UI and it is 9. So yeah i agree with what ever you wrote in the review. I am still waiting for IGN.com because that is my last stop for all reviewing needs.
And that tells me that there definitely is something going on behind the scenes in this industry.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
1: Aesthetics: It definitely takes alot more then just pretty painted walls to impress the rest of us. The characters are static and hardly move until a cinematic sequence, there is NO life on the planets (no critters running around), the character customization is laughable as you will most likely look exactly the same end game as every other class of your type. No dyes to speak of. Non-essential NPC's are statues, never walking anywhere and when you click on they they say pretty much nothing. The only saving grace this game has is it's cut scenes.
2: Gameplay: they did a warcraft style combat system with a global cooldown, that's boring. People have seen that a million times. There is no real home instance to speak of accept a limited and laughable ship, no consequential open world pvp, the auction house doesn't work, and they used the Trinity, their crafting system is entirely too expensive for below standard items, armor that's more like WoW's heirlooms doesn't cut it when you do end game raiding, the issues that every mmo has had ever with GCD abilities that don't fire at all when clicked or hotkeyed. Why would i play this game again? Oh yeah the light sabers. Zero space combat to speak of, even tho the title has always had it throughout their movies.
3: Innovation: This should have been a 2. There was nothing new accept choices that gave the character story a different path at each story point. Nothing was done end game to make the character's story aspect of the game continue beyond level 50 and the story really only effected the companions and not the environment. There were no worldly events, no random events, nothing to play accept a strict line of events to choose from and nothing more. It was simply a themepark style questing system with voice overs. Not even the ship changes in any significant way after you've made choices. The ui was the same as all others I've seen in other mmos. It's missing many features we've all want as standard or expected in mmos.
4: Polish: While it can be said they didn't have much crashes let's look at the whole picture shall we. They had serious server population issues from the start that could have been fixed via making sure that there were servers waiting for what the makers of the game knew would happen on launch day, instead they booted people kept people from signing up and generally did alot of appologizing. Surely someone there is an mmo gamer and someone could have told the executives that launch day is a serious challenge for any company so they could have been much more prepared. Not to mention, a recent rash of multiple obvious bugs in their game should have been caught long before launch day that were basically completely ignored for which the players are now having to suffer for. Invincibility anyone? Just dance.
5: Longevity: You are kidding me?! an 8? Riiiight. They are definitely going to have to release more then a single instance to keep fans from leaving this thing. Really the only end game content is pvp, and raiding. We've all seen that multiple times before. Not to mention the age old and failed system of gear treadmill. Getting onto a game just to have to grind out gear is no longer fun, that style of mmo was really just a boring in game work now and people haven't enjoyed that since the year 2000. Seriously it was dead five minutes ago. The least they could have done is made it more like RIFT however i get it that they didn't really have time to put out new currencies and dynamic world events, they only had 4 years.
6: Value: Definitely NOT a ten when you look at all it's end game problems. It's not worth the $15 a month to play because it pretty much halts end game. There isn't enough content to fool with after level 50 and adding a single instance really isn't going to make it worth the time. They told the fans what "We'll release it when it's ready" well part of being ready is having enough content when players hit end game level.
7: Social: Typical set of communication tools nothing new. However most of the quests in the game do not support multiple players. They are simply solo dialog questing without groups. Not much to do together as you do most of your quests as a solo player, which as an avid solo player i do like, however this is an mmo and you should be able to group up with other players and do the regular quests.
8: finally calling this game great is just a farce and the public should be told the truth minus the fanboi response or the paid to make it look better response of the websites like these.
For me SWTOR is 8.5, changes to UI and it is 9. So yeah i agree with what ever you wrote in the review. I am still waiting for IGN.com because that is my last stop for all reviewing needs.
To the people who said they have not talked to people in days, thats because you need to join a guild, most people now a days join a guild and get to know them.. Also we use teamspeak to talk not game chat because most of the time its filled with 12 years old screaming chuck norris.
So if you wanna chat to people get in a guild, thats what there for.... I have grouped a ton... So for those saying there is not grouping, BS, there is flash points heroics etc, you get points for grouping as well, and they gear is pretty decent, I reached social 4 from grouping..
So if you are not grouping or talking to anyone its your own fault, Bioware is not gonna hold your hand to talk to others or group, its there so stop saying its not, because thats a lie...
ROFL there is plenty of world boss fights explore................................................... You people make me laugh . You can't solo flash points and some of the heroics, you can't either... Sounds like your doing just some of the easy heroics and solo stuff, again your fault..
Look around stop following the path of your main story, there is plenty of side quests that give you better stuff to do OPEN YOUR EYES.
So I guess you can move your UI frames around, have AA and no visual bugs (yes I know you can enable it client side), you also have the high textures, and you never notice the camera angles in cutscene. Then you never PvP or at least not on Illum and don't want to choose the warfront you want to queue for. Also you never used group chat nor guild chat that much during the last fews days and never see the "player does not exists" message when adding someone to your friendlist. Also you never experienced lost emails, like the ones sent to your deleted and re-created toon. Finally glad to see you also aren't like many others stuck with your character unable to gain any more light side or dark side points, nor you companion affection is stuck or you have affectiom popup in cutscene and your affection score does not change at all!
I'm not saying the game is bad. It's just lacking and certainly not polished at all. Or would I say very uneven.
My point was my review would simply be different. I haven't had any crashing, black screens, etc..
UI rescaling/looks/ etc... have never been a concern of mine as long as they don't get in the way.
AA? On this rig? While world pvping? nope... Not to say my PC can't run great graphics, I just turn them down anyway, makes PVP so much easier, when you never really see slowdown.
I never PVP ? That's all I've done since I made my character or in any other MMO... I doubt I'll even get more companions on this toon as he's my PVP main, please don't presume that you know anything about what I do in a game, thanks....
There's no need to presume your action ingame to know what any player, you included, can or can't do in game. The above are simply facts.
First you agree UI frames can't be moved around. It's not about needing it or not it's about can you or not do it? Answer = no => lack of polish (1)
Then Seems you also admit there is not UI scaling. *see (1)
AA will be implemented in the patch 1.1 *see (1)
Camera angles are too often annoyingly off. Maybe you don't notice but trust me they are. *see (1)
For PvP the fixes on Illum also comes in the patch 1.1 *see (1)
Now for the for force side side points, lost emails, companion affections: hlad you didn't experience them still don't go on the SWTOR customer's support you might be surprised at how many players got them and some still are. And for the record as many of these players I also experienced it. As I had fun with the broken group chat for some time.
Rift felt polished to me, this game doesn't come close. The technical issues are far outstripping any enjoyment at the moment - this is on a machine that played WoW, Aion, Rift with a lot of reliability and stability. The bugs that have remained after beta are also annoying.
The UI is awful and this from someone who never customised in WoW with mods. The chat box always seems to be in the way and the bars are too small.
Social chat is horrendous, half the time I can't even whisper friends.
Overall, it feels so clunky, unresponsive and laggy. It's hard to explain, maybe it's just my pc/conn but other games just felt so much smoother to play without fighting the UI.
These scores seem off...a 9.5 polish? The game has A LOT of bugs. Sure, early in the game its not noticable, and bioware is tossing out bugfixes...but still, there is no way it is polished to 95% of perfect. I couldn't even finish my class story for a while because the entire thing was broken, people rubberband in pvp warzones, a hand full of the flashpoints radnomly bug out causing you to restart it, the game still needs optimization, the ui is horribly flaky, ai is buggy ect. These are all polish issues, and sure the game is more polished than other big mmo releases like war or AoC, but no way is the polish that good.
The game should get around a 8, but a lot of these scores seem a lot higher than what they should be. World pvp non existant, only 3 warzones, horrible UI, bad responsiveness( I run a gtx560 ti and i5 2500k, so don't bring up my computer), horrible auction house....I wouldn't even call the crafting system crafting.... all it is, is a lootbox on a timer.
I'm currently playing thro my story casually, but some of these scores are questionable, and if you read thro the review, the numbers don't even seem to match up with what the guys saying at certain points.
" Not to mention the game’s worlds are large " compared to what an ant hill? I mean come on, SWG worlds were 5-10 times bigger than SWTOR's so how in the world can you say they are large. They just are not! A more accurate description of their Worlds would be small at best.
I just disagree with 2 of your scores. Innovation is at best a 4 or 5, they introduced very little to the genre, borrowed most everything from other games. I will agree they improved on some things like the questing so probably should be a 5.
Secondly your longevity score is very wishful thinking. Unless someone is a real altaholic, getting a few characters to max level is not going to take that long and there is just very little stuff to do at end game. The lame crafting and spaceflight design do not help at all in that regard. Again I would put it at 5 at best.
Remember EA is well known to cutting off development funds once a game is out. Adding lots of new content is not something EA is known for.
All in all a good game to replace the winter blues, but you will be looking for something new by spring.
By the way, to any and all of you who disagree with our score. Why not write your own review here?
Aesthetics: 6/10
Environments 7/10:
Environments are nice still the lack of day/night cycles are making the world feel too static. Too many invisible walls. Players evolve in corridors. Games does not promotes exploration.
Character 4/10:
Huge boobs on old fat rebel officer, hobbit hands on our charcters, weird body size proportions, lack of in between body choice, 4 choices for each face setting like 4 eyebrow, 4 makeup color, 4 jewellery choices and no way to choose how to mix them. Awful female faces options: character creation options is a miss
Gear: 5/10:
Huge shouler flaps, demonic horned hoods, brain textures on helmets, warlock robes, no gear dyes, no appearance tabs. Preset gear color for all classes. Even with the modded gear you keep levelling in mismatched gear or in twin costume
Cutscenes 7/10:
Too many off camera angles or weird ones. They should have hired a filmmaker to help them.
Don't forget: High textures not working and AA not even available. Just for the little story AoC was flamed for not having DX10 at launch...
Gameplay: 7/10
Class story 8/10:
Most class stories are nice but playing a dark sided Jedi Knight sucks. Even with the most dark sided answers the NPC don't even notice. Seems they all failed the force sense exam. Sadly too often the dialogs are pretty bland or uninspired.
World quests: 6/10:
Most of them are pretty generic and are getting boring on your first alt. Still better than other MMO though.
Combat 8/10:
Same old stuff. The lack of autoattack is annoying as it make you feel your character is dumb enough to let him be beaten to death without even trying to react. Melee is more annoying than ranged as you keep running between ranged mobs during combat. The main problem is the lack of responsivity from the combat as there is a delay between what we do and what's happen in game. Kind of frustrating, especially for PvP
Warzone 6/10:
Not even as good as what's being done in other MMO plus you can't choose to which warzone you want to queue and there's a major issue with Illum. Also there's no level brackets. Finally Jedi in Huttball with glowbats is ruining the lore and while, somehow fun, feels silly.
Worse to come: Same faction vs same faction warzones and no companions in "open world" PvP either.
Open world PvP 2/10:
Simply put there's no open world PvP. You will be very lucky to encounter an opponent's faction player in that game but in warzones. The way the planets and space routes are designed prevents this.
UI 4/10:
In short AoC UI is better and that's saying something.
You can't even scale the UI, nor choose where to move your quickslot bars. The only moveable UI frames are the chat panel and the loot window and the raid UI. There's no way to disable the smart camera nor change the zoom speed. No mouse look toggle either. The default font is a bit too bold making it painful to read. In windowed mode you can't change the gama level. The trash loot and the blue loot have quite the same in game color on mobs. There's no bindable hotkey to open the Codex, nor hide the helmet slot. Splitting sacks is a pain. Items don't automatically stacks when getting them from an email of moving them to the bank. There's no weapon preview. You can't zoom in/out in the character or closet view. There's no mission tracker hotkey and it always reset to on from zoning or logging out. There's no hotkey to hide/show nameplates. On the planetary map you can't display multiple type of entries at once. When faded out the map still shows the legend and the quest tracker (useless when moving around). Also the maps get the focus when faded out meaing for example you can't mouse4 autorun on/off if your cursor is on the map. We can't even change the companion skills in its own quickslot bar, nor as you guessed by now move the companion quickslot around. We can't lock items in the inventory. All resources nodes share the same icon. No friendly vendor sorting. AH UI stinks. Space map is also lacking: can't right click to get back to previous area. Crafting missions pop up closes all open windows....
V.O. UI: Big bummer can't (shift?) space skip dialogs to the dialog choices
Crafting 7/10:
Light years behind SWG bit better than WoW, Rift, not even as good as LoTRO, EQII, Vanguard.
Can't queue mission, can't sort items by slots or sats. No buy mats button. No separate inventory/bank slot for crafting mats. The good stuff is you can use mats from the bank and you can send your alt to harvest. Still if you are aggroed your companion harvest is interrupted.
Space 2/10:
Even Star Fox is more fun and better made! Also kind of disturbing, in a totally scripted scenario how come the music is too often off? Starting either too late or still running high when the combat pace is getting low or off? X-wing iMuse is achieved way better in a much more random setting.
Who said multiplayer? PvP? Manly managed turrets? Space ship chassis choice? Space ship interior furnishing? Space ship exterior customization? Cockpit UI? Radar?
The space ship is a glorified, not conveniently accessible moveable bank storage.
Innovation 3/10
Only things to notice: speaking pets and totally V.O. story. Apart that TOR is the apogee of the lack of innovation and I dare saying it butchered what was being done well in other games especially in terms of socialization, immersion and giving choices to the player. In TOR you play, look like and breathe the way the devs wanted you to by taking you not by the hands but with manacles.
Polish 7/10
Let's see: lacklustre UI, AA not working, High textures not available, many players with regular disconnection errors 9000, Black screen crashing, horrid FPS issues, Taris memory leak @launch, players that can't complete patching the game, many V.O. camera angles off, some quests story lines broken, group and guild chat that was broken, totally flawed PvP design on Illum, poor LFG system, not even dual specs
As reference LotRo and more recently RIFT where polished games @launch. Saying TOR is 9.5 over 10 is an insult for Turbine and Trion Worlds.
First Let me say that I haven't played SWTOR.
Second, let me congratulate Deewe for the real review made by him. I think MMORPG should have a column called "Reviews with a different eyes." where you could make reviews like this to other games.
Third and last: I wounder what rating will MMORPG give when GW2 gets out. 14/10?
By the way, to any and all of you who disagree with our score. Why not write your own review here?
**snip**
First Let me say that I haven't played SWTOR.
Second, let me congratulate Deewe for the real review made by him. I think MMORPG should have a column called "Reviews with a different eyes." where you could make reviews like this to other games.
Third and last: I wounder what rating will MMORPG give when GW2 gets out. 14/10?
To be fair my post lacks, at least, the answer to 2 very important questions:
All in all Is the game FUN?
While TOR is far from perfect and the polish is uneven, it is indeed a FUN game. Still the poor UI, the unappealing character customization and the stinky space sim hinders the whole experience, a lot.
How about long term subscriptions?
For more casual gamers there's plenty content to do. Now for more hardcore ones, the game is really thin. For example, on your first alt on the same faction, sooner than else you'd wish you would not be obliged to spam multiple times in a row the space bar to skip the dialogs to the choices.
World PvP is flawed from design as you can't PvP on too many planets. They are restricted to specific factions. Same faction vs same faction PvP is a nasty plaster. There are too few warzones and Hutball is a farce joke for light sided Jedi.
For RPers BioWare didn't empowered the players with the ownership of their characters but set them on rails. Ex: choosing your class = mandatory: species, gear look, gear color, weapons, space ship, story line, faction. The modding system (for now) does not do the trick (compared to simple appearance tab) and you don't even have gear dyes. The character body customization is very thin. There ain't any socialization tools in TOR.
For PvErs playing alts on the same faction becomes a bit repetitive, hearing the same NPC sentences makes quests gets old bit faster but for when you just hit accept in others MMO. Crafting isn't something that will make you subscribed to the game by itself either. And space sim wil lkekly make you quit faster then else of boredoom.n Pretty soon when the servers becomes less populated (it has already started) you'll wish they have a better LFG system. And unless they add story content and many instances fast the desire to play will look like just fair.
Now here's what I wrote on the beta forums some time ago:
I am having a good time playing the game, but I don't think I would give it an iota more than an 8 in it's current form. Maybe 7.5. It has potential to be better, I mean this is the Star Wars universe here, tons of things to add and different directions to take the game. But there are bugs, pvp does pretty much suck, and the linear aspects and kill 30 bad dudes quests are wearing on me. The combat is a blast though, and the class stories are fun.
It's different than War or Rift for sure. I would say overall this game is crap ton better than WAR was when it was released, however even broken at the time, the PvP was leaps and bounds better (when I wasn't CTDing, and stuttering). Rift seemed to have far fewer bugs and felt like a slightly more 'finished' game when it came out. Personally I am enjoying this game the most out of those three merely due to it being Star Wars and the RPG aspects are more to my liking.
Second, let me congratulate Deewe for the real review made by him. I think MMORPG should have a column called "Reviews with a different eyes." where you could make reviews like this to other games.
Third and last: I wounder what rating will MMORPG give when GW2 gets out. 14/10?
We have a section for user reviews that is open to anyone.
I'm embarrised to say I subscribed. I wanted a game with GREAT 24/7 persistent realm vs realm conflict...and today this game doesn't have it.My perception is Bioware continues to have no clue as to what great realm vs realm conflict design is ....nor any inclination to implement such a system. Never the less I was so desperate with the paucity of decent mmo games...I had to have something that would hold my intereste and provide hope against hope that I'm wrong about Bioware's intent and capabilitys.. And so I play ...... until games like Guild Wars 2....Dominus.....ArcheAge...Secret World come along....or Bioware proves me wrong.
I think there are a few places in the middle East that have your 24/7 persistent realm vs realm conflict.
There isnt enough max levels players to have persistant world pvp yet. sorry there isnt. my highest is a 31 and i play alot, im not like some of u who power level through content to hit 50 in a week.
in fact most tor players are like me then those that rush to 50
To be honest with u this a good review and the worlds are huge, tatooine for instance is the size of northrend on its own, dont belive me go run it without sprint on.
i just started alderaan and its a big world also. im sorry but those sayign the worlds aren't huge havent left starter worlds. even droumd kaas and coruscant are pretty damn large.
i dont care about scores or much else when a game hasnt even been out a month how can anyone review it good or bad is just stupid. If it werent a mmo i would understand but this bieng a mmo least let it be a month before any review...
why? have you played it? right now it is a good game. not great, but good. the UI is holding it back, really, outside that the game is very nice.
longevity you are right on, we have to wait and see, but in every other category you can make an informed comment on it now.
yeah i played it the last 6 months. I agree on the ui but let me tell you this ive played lotro for over 4 years that was my main mmo but i got sick of thier lies and grocery store. I post about fixing pvp constantly and in 4 years they still cant do it. I post about pvp on swtor and the game isnt even out a month yet and this is what i see below. Btw i tested it on the test server its pretty dam good but i do agree that longevity is the key if they put more bases to take on other planets and do more it should be fine. I just dont like this "review" for a game not even a month old yet. Then on top of it they give me an infraction/warning for asking about it lol ok............................
Anti-aliasing is now available and can be enabled in the preferences menu.
Classes and Combat
General
Healing caused by crowd control abilities no longer generates threat.
Tooltips for abilities modified by skill points now display correct damage values.
Guard
This ability now transfers to a new friendly target without requiring deactivation on the previous target.
Activating this ability while targeting a guarded or invalid target will still toggle the Guard ability off.
A distinct visual effect is now present on characters using Guard on another character, and another effect is now present on the guarded character if they leave Guard’s range.
Taunt
A new visual effect has been added to the user and the target of the Taunt ability for the duration of its effect.
Jedi Consular
Project: This ability no longer shakes the screen of onlookers.
Shadow
Battle Readiness: Now allows Combat Technique to trigger once every 3 seconds.
Combat Technique: Healing received through Combat Technique has been increased, scales properly at higher levels, and can only be triggered once every 4.5 seconds.
Slow Time: This ability’s damage has been increased by 15% and it now slows the movement speed of all affected targets.
Jedi Knight
Force Leap: This ability no longer functions on Portable Holo Dancers.
Sith Inquisitor
Assassin
Dark Charge: Healing received through Dark Charge has been increased, scales properly at higher levels, and can only be triggered once every 4.5 seconds.
Overcharge Saber: Now allows Dark Charge to trigger once every 3 seconds.
Wither: Damage has been increased by 15% and it now slows the movement speed of all affected targets.
Sith Warrior
Intercede: This ability no longer functions on Portable Holo Dancers.
Shatter: this ability’s tooltip now correctly reflects its damage; damage from this ability has not been adjusted.
Imperial Agent
Bug Fixes
Corrected an issue where activating cover, using Explosive Probe, and then using Snipe could cause Snipe to be interrupted.
Bounty Hunter
General
Incendiary Missile: This ability is no longer misclassified as an Area of Effect ability.
Companion Characters
General
C2-N2 and 2V-R8 no longer vocalize crafting commentary during combat.
The Carbonized Stream companion ability no longer breaks prematurely.
Companions
Kira Carsen
Fixed an issue that caused players to be unable to progress in Kira’s affection conversations. Players previously affected by this issue can now speak to Kira and progress normally.
Bug Fixes
Companions will now sell trash items when requested, regardless of group size.
Companion healing abilities no longer apply a permanent green effect on the character.
Fixed an issue that caused Companion Characters to sometimes have the incorrect appearance in cinematics.
Crew Skills
Bug Fixes
Corrected an issue that prevented recently completed Crew Skill missions from showing up in the next list of available missions.
Fixed a bug that could cause Crew Skills a character didn’t have to appear in the Crew Skills window.
Players can no longer loot harvesting nodes they do not have the appropriate Crew Skill for after a group member harvests (but does not loot) a node.
Flashpoints and Operations
General
A new level 50 Flashpoint, Kaon Under Siege, is now available for play in Normal and Hard Modes!
The Gav Daragon and the Ziost Shadow have been expanded to accommodate the Kaon Under Siege gateway.
The difficulty of some non-boss enemies in Flashpoints has been adjusted.
Enemies now drop credits more frequently in Flashpoints.
Flashpoints
Cademimu
General Ortol’s rocket fire damage no longer occurs when the rocket is not active.
The Black Talon
Some enemies in this Flashpoint are no longer invisible.
The Foundry
Corrected an issue that could cause the final boss to become stuck at 10% health.
The Battle of Ilum
Krel Thak’s Allied Weequay Pirates have had their toughness reduced in Hard Mode.
The False Emperor
The Sith Entity’s affliction ability now properly deals damage in Hard Mode.
HK-47 now has the correct amount of health in Normal Mode.
Operations
Eternity Vault
Players are now able to successfully loot the chest after defeating the Infernal Council.
Perimeter Defense Cannons have been re-tuned and have improved targeting behaviors.
Soa’s Mind Trap and Force Throw abilities no longer target the same player multiple times; they now target every player in the group once.
Ball lightning enemies summoned by Soa deal damage in a smaller radius.
The Annihilation Droid’s rocket burst attack no longer deals double damage in 16-player Operations.
Soa now summons fewer ball lightning enemies during the final round in 16-player Operations.
Karagga’s Palace
Four new bosses can now be battled by players in Karagga’s Palace!
Players no longer get stuck attempting to exit the Karagga’s Palace phase.
Bug Fixes
Flashpoints
Corrected an issue that prevented some enemy NPCs from spawning in Flashpoints.
The correct error message now displays when a player attempts to enter a different Flashpoint than the rest of the group.
Flashpoint gateways no longer display as orange in incorrect circumstances.
Fixed an issue that prevented Flashpoint difficulty from being set properly.
Fixed an issue that caused mapnotes directing players to some Flashpoints to not appear correctly.
Corrected map issues that made locating mission objectives on the Gav Daragon difficult.
Fixed an issue preventing some players from opening a chest after a boss fight if the group was previously defeated by the boss.
Items
General
An Item Modification Table has been added to the Supplies areas of the Republic and Imperial Fleets.
PvP
Battlemaster Gear Tokens have been converted into Battlemaster Commendations, which can be used to purchase any Battlemaster gear. This allows players to purchase any piece of gear instead of requiring them to purchase the piece indicated by the token.
Battlemaster Bags now contain Battlemaster Commendations instead of Battlemaster Gear Tokens. They still also contain Champion Commendations.
Missions and NPCs
General
All Bonus Series missions and their required missions can now be abandoned.
Certain Wampas on Hoth that were preying on lower-level characters have had their level reduced.
Missions
Imperial
Pressure Points: The Lerantha Lurker no longer engages players in combat before completing its spawn sequence.
Geroya be Haran: Objectives related to this mission now glow when selected.
In Cold Blood: Enemies that use Armor Piercing Cell during this mission no longer each stack a debuff on the player.
Shadow Spawn: The Sith Spawn no longer knocks players down for longer than intended.
Thuggish Behavior: Corrected an issue that could cause the player to remain stuck in combat during this mission. The required kills to complete this mission have been reduced.
Republic
Climbing the Ladder: A conversation related to this mission no longer ends prematurely.
Droid Clean Up: Corrected an issue that caused the bonus mission to persist in the player’s mission log.
The Summit: The difficulty of the encounter with Sidone has been reduced.
Vivicar Awaits: Lowered the amount of enemies that attack the player during the step “Find a Way Past the Force Field.”
NPCs
Bug Fixes
Jilcoln Cadera’s abilities now correctly take into account whether a player is immune from knockbacks.
The “Primal Destroyer” World Boss on Belsavis is now “Overwhelming” as intended.
The World Boss “The First” on Dromund Kaas no longer inhibits Bounty Hunter’s Rapid Shots, and Imperial Agents will no longer be knocked out of cover during combat with it.
PvP
General
The shuttle room in Dorn Base Command Center on Hoth is no longer considered contested territory.
Ka on Voss is now a PvP Sanctuary.
Warzones
Level 50 players now participate in their own Warzone bracket and will not be matched with lower-level players.
Ilum
The daily and weekly mission objectives in Ilum now require defeating enemy players and/or collecting armaments from the center objective.
Players now gain increased Valor from player kills in Ilum.
Players now gain increased bonus Valor for kills based on the number of objectives controlled by their faction.
Increased bonus Valor is now granted for player kills when defending an objective your faction owns.
A notification is now displayed when a player gains Valor.
Three new respawn points have been added for each faction.
Companions are now restricted from the PvP objective area on Ilum.
Notifications are now displayed when enemy players are close to an objective.
Bug Fixes
General
The scoreboard value for “Highest Protection Per Single Life” now functions correctly.
Players who have left a Warzone can no longer receive an MVP vote from teammates.
Your PvP status will now be toggled automatically upon leaving a PvP region.
Additional feedback is now provided when a player attempts to toggle their PvP flag.
The Bolster tooltip now more accurately represents the buff’s effects.
Huttball
Corrected a rare issue that could cause the Frogdogs to be declared the winner in a 0-0 match even if the Rotworms held the ball last.
Ilum
Mountable turrets in Ilum no longer deal damage to targets behind them or outside their range.
Turrets no longer immediately dismount the player after use.
UI
Maps
Fixed a bug that prevented the minimap title from displaying when loading into the game or refreshing the UI.
Corrected an issue that caused some mapnotes to disappear from the minimap when other mapnotes were updated.
Items
Item hyperlinks now display stats for crafted research items properly.
Item hyperlinks no longer display erroneous additional information relating to schematics when examined.
Attempting to place a non-mission item into the mission inventory now displays an error message.
Dragging equipment onto the character paper doll no longer prompts an item deletion notice. Items dragged to the paper doll are now equipped if possible.
Item set bonuses now appear on the tooltip when viewing an item on a vendor.
Items that can be modified now display with the correct loot color in the loot roll window.
Comparative tooltips now correctly display stat differences when mousing over items in the Crew Skills window.
Bug Fixes
Fixed the tooltip display for ability cooldowns over one hour in length.
The interface for splitting stacks of items now displays correctly.
Servers that are online now always display on top of servers that are offline in the Server Select screen.
Corrected a typographical error in the “Additional Commands” context menu option.
Players nearby a player who achieves a new Legacy level no longer receive the Legacy level-up notification.
Legacy name display preferences now persist when travelling between planets.
A new confirmation dialogue now appears when submitting spam reports in game.
Sorting now works correctly in the Guilds tab.
Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
The owner of a holocall conversation is no longer shown in the last frame of the cinematic.
The spacebar button is now recognized when a player presses it to progress after a loading screen even if the spacebar button has been re-bound.
Additional issues that could impact performance on Taris have been addressed.
Vanity pets can no longer be considered targets for any abilities.
Corrected an issue that could cause some preferences to reset to defaults upon area transitions.
An Aim Datacron on Ilum is now accessible and no longer repeats its initial cinematic once used.
A Datacron on Coruscant is no longer blocked by unintentional collision
Looking at all the fixes in 1.1 update, i find it weird the level of polish the reviewer talk about, since he played b4 that patch. Anyway, ppl r having a good time, and any1 can now look at user reviews and make their decision. Still waiting for a more inovative game, tho.
By the way, to any and all of you who disagree with our score. Why not write your own review here?
Aesthetics: 6/10
Environments 7/10:
Environments are nice still the lack of day/night cycles are making the world feel too static. Too many invisible walls. Players evolve in corridors. Games does not promotes exploration.
Character 4/10:
Huge boobs on old fat rebel officer, hobbit hands on our charcters, weird body size proportions, lack of in between body choice, 4 choices for each face setting like 4 eyebrow, 4 makeup color, 4 jewellery choices and no way to choose how to mix them. Awful female faces options: character creation options is a miss
Gear: 5/10:
Huge shouler flaps, demonic horned hoods, brain textures on helmets, warlock robes, no gear dyes, no appearance tabs. Preset gear color for all classes. Even with the modded gear you keep levelling in mismatched gear or in twin costume
Cutscenes 7/10:
Too many off camera angles or weird ones. They should have hired a filmmaker to help them.
Don't forget: High textures not working and AA not even available. Just for the little story AoC was flamed for not having DX10 at launch...
Gameplay: 7/10
Class story 8/10:
Most class stories are nice but playing a dark sided Jedi Knight sucks. Even with the most dark sided answers the NPC don't even notice. Seems they all failed the force sense exam. Sadly too often the dialogs are pretty bland or uninspired.
World quests: 6/10:
Most of them are pretty generic and are getting boring on your first alt. Still better than other MMO though.
Combat 8/10:
Same old stuff. The lack of autoattack is annoying as it make you feel your character is dumb enough to let him be beaten to death without even trying to react. Melee is more annoying than ranged as you keep running between ranged mobs during combat. The main problem is the lack of responsivity from the combat as there is a delay between what we do and what's happen in game. Kind of frustrating, especially for PvP
Warzone 6/10:
Not even as good as what's being done in other MMO plus you can't choose to which warzone you want to queue and there's a major issue with Illum. Also there's no level brackets. Finally Jedi in Huttball with glowbats is ruining the lore and while, somehow fun, feels silly.
Worse to come: Same faction vs same faction warzones and no companions in "open world" PvP either.
Open world PvP 2/10:
Simply put there's no open world PvP. You will be very lucky to encounter an opponent's faction player in that game but in warzones. The way the planets and space routes are designed prevents this.
UI 4/10:
In short AoC UI is better and that's saying something.
You can't even scale the UI, nor choose where to move your quickslot bars. The only moveable UI frames are the chat panel and the loot window and the raid UI. There's no way to disable the smart camera nor change the zoom speed. No mouse look toggle either. The default font is a bit too bold making it painful to read. In windowed mode you can't change the gama level. The trash loot and the blue loot have quite the same in game color on mobs. There's no bindable hotkey to open the Codex, nor hide the helmet slot. Splitting sacks is a pain. Items don't automatically stacks when getting them from an email of moving them to the bank. There's no weapon preview. You can't zoom in/out in the character or closet view. There's no mission tracker hotkey and it always reset to on from zoning or logging out. There's no hotkey to hide/show nameplates. On the planetary map you can't display multiple type of entries at once. When faded out the map still shows the legend and the quest tracker (useless when moving around). Also the maps get the focus when faded out meaing for example you can't mouse4 autorun on/off if your cursor is on the map. We can't even change the companion skills in its own quickslot bar, nor as you guessed by now move the companion quickslot around. We can't lock items in the inventory. All resources nodes share the same icon. No friendly vendor sorting. AH UI stinks. Space map is also lacking: can't right click to get back to previous area. Crafting missions pop up closes all open windows....
V.O. UI: Big bummer can't (shift?) space skip dialogs to the dialog choices
Crafting 7/10:
Light years behind SWG bit better than WoW, Rift, not even as good as LoTRO, EQII, Vanguard.
Can't queue mission, can't sort items by slots or sats. No buy mats button. No separate inventory/bank slot for crafting mats. The good stuff is you can use mats from the bank and you can send your alt to harvest. Still if you are aggroed your companion harvest is interrupted.
Space 2/10:
Even Star Fox is more fun and better made! Also kind of disturbing, in a totally scripted scenario how come the music is too often off? Starting either too late or still running high when the combat pace is getting low or off? X-wing iMuse achieved way better in a much more random setting.
Who said multiplayer? PvP? Manly managed turrets? Space ship chassis choice? Space ship interior furnishing? Space ship exterior customization? Cockpit UI? Radar?
The space ship is a glorified, not conveniently accessible moveable bank storage.
Innovation 3/10
Only things to notice: speaking pets and totally V.O. story. Apart that TOR is the apogee of the lack of innovation and I dare saying it butchered what was being done well in other games especially in terms of socialization, immersion and giving choices to the player. In TOR you play, look like and breathe the way the devs wanted you to by taking you not by the hands but with manacles.
Polish 7/10
Let's see: lacklustre UI, AA not working, High textures not available, many players with regular disconnection errors 9000, Black screen crashing, horrid FPS issues, Taris memory leak @launch, players that can't complete patching the game, many V.O. camera angles off, some quests story lines broken, group and guild chat that was broken, totally flawed PvP design on Illum, poor LFG system, not even dual specs
As reference LotRo and more recently RIFT where polished games @launch. Saying TOR is 9.5 over 10 is an insult for Turbine and Trion Worlds.
This review was more accurate than the mmorpg.com review. The existing errors and lack of modern game features demands below 8/10.
Comments
Hahaha exactly. To top it off, the fact is that if the game was how all these critics wanted it to be... it wouldnt have millions of subscribers.
Hell, if we went by what most people want on this site, Vanguard and SWG should have been the most popular MMOs in history. But they werent.
I'm embarrised to say I subscribed. I wanted a game with GREAT 24/7 persistent realm vs realm conflict...and today this game doesn't have it.My perception is Bioware continues to have no clue as to what great realm vs realm conflict design is ....nor any inclination to implement such a system. Never the less I was so desperate with the paucity of decent mmo games...I had to have something that would hold my intereste and provide hope against hope that I'm wrong about Bioware's intent and capabilitys.. And so I play ...... until games like Guild Wars 2....Dominus.....ArcheAge...Secret World come along....or Bioware proves me wrong.
Yeah, I honestly never understood that "SWG-Pre NGE was the best" crap talk.
It it was indeed the best why was it that no one played it, at least in decent numbers, and Sony felt the urge to release the NGE?
Honestly, the problem with all this so called Sandbox people, is that they can never fully enjoy or appreciate anything, they simply like to be left in the dark.
They released Darkfall, the sandboxers bashed Darkfall, they released Mortal Online, the sandboxers bashed Moratl online, they end up destroying any sandbox attempt by bashing it till it's dead.
They then feel that, because they don't have any decent sandbox, the players that actually enjoy Theme-park games, should not enjoy them because they think theme-park games should not exist.... I swear, I never met so self-centered, jealous people...
And that tells me that there definitely is something going on behind the scenes in this industry.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
{mod edit}
1: Aesthetics: It definitely takes alot more then just pretty painted walls to impress the rest of us. The characters are static and hardly move until a cinematic sequence, there is NO life on the planets (no critters running around), the character customization is laughable as you will most likely look exactly the same end game as every other class of your type. No dyes to speak of. Non-essential NPC's are statues, never walking anywhere and when you click on they they say pretty much nothing. The only saving grace this game has is it's cut scenes.
2: Gameplay: they did a warcraft style combat system with a global cooldown, that's boring. People have seen that a million times. There is no real home instance to speak of accept a limited and laughable ship, no consequential open world pvp, the auction house doesn't work, and they used the Trinity, their crafting system is entirely too expensive for below standard items, armor that's more like WoW's heirlooms doesn't cut it when you do end game raiding, the issues that every mmo has had ever with GCD abilities that don't fire at all when clicked or hotkeyed. Why would i play this game again? Oh yeah the light sabers. Zero space combat to speak of, even tho the title has always had it throughout their movies.
3: Innovation: This should have been a 2. There was nothing new accept choices that gave the character story a different path at each story point. Nothing was done end game to make the character's story aspect of the game continue beyond level 50 and the story really only effected the companions and not the environment. There were no worldly events, no random events, nothing to play accept a strict line of events to choose from and nothing more. It was simply a themepark style questing system with voice overs. Not even the ship changes in any significant way after you've made choices. The ui was the same as all others I've seen in other mmos. It's missing many features we've all want as standard or expected in mmos.
4: Polish: While it can be said they didn't have much crashes let's look at the whole picture shall we. They had serious server population issues from the start that could have been fixed via making sure that there were servers waiting for what the makers of the game knew would happen on launch day, instead they booted people kept people from signing up and generally did alot of appologizing. Surely someone there is an mmo gamer and someone could have told the executives that launch day is a serious challenge for any company so they could have been much more prepared. Not to mention, a recent rash of multiple obvious bugs in their game should have been caught long before launch day that were basically completely ignored for which the players are now having to suffer for. Invincibility anyone? Just dance.
5: Longevity: You are kidding me?! an 8? Riiiight. They are definitely going to have to release more then a single instance to keep fans from leaving this thing. Really the only end game content is pvp, and raiding. We've all seen that multiple times before. Not to mention the age old and failed system of gear treadmill. Getting onto a game just to have to grind out gear is no longer fun, that style of mmo was really just a boring in game work now and people haven't enjoyed that since the year 2000. Seriously it was dead five minutes ago. The least they could have done is made it more like RIFT however i get it that they didn't really have time to put out new currencies and dynamic world events, they only had 4 years.
6: Value: Definitely NOT a ten when you look at all it's end game problems. It's not worth the $15 a month to play because it pretty much halts end game. There isn't enough content to fool with after level 50 and adding a single instance really isn't going to make it worth the time. They told the fans what "We'll release it when it's ready" well part of being ready is having enough content when players hit end game level.
7: Social: Typical set of communication tools nothing new. However most of the quests in the game do not support multiple players. They are simply solo dialog questing without groups. Not much to do together as you do most of your quests as a solo player, which as an avid solo player i do like, however this is an mmo and you should be able to group up with other players and do the regular quests.
8: finally calling this game great is just a farce and the public should be told the truth minus the fanboi response or the paid to make it look better response of the websites like these.
In all honestly I can tell you right away whats wrong on this industry. Your perception of it...
Apparently you are wrong on your assumptions of how other people feel.
To the people who said they have not talked to people in days, thats because you need to join a guild, most people now a days join a guild and get to know them.. Also we use teamspeak to talk not game chat because most of the time its filled with 12 years old screaming chuck norris.
So if you wanna chat to people get in a guild, thats what there for.... I have grouped a ton... So for those saying there is not grouping, BS, there is flash points heroics etc, you get points for grouping as well, and they gear is pretty decent, I reached social 4 from grouping..
So if you are not grouping or talking to anyone its your own fault, Bioware is not gonna hold your hand to talk to others or group, its there so stop saying its not, because thats a lie...
ROFL there is plenty of world boss fights explore................................................... You people make me laugh . You can't solo flash points and some of the heroics, you can't either... Sounds like your doing just some of the easy heroics and solo stuff, again your fault..
Look around stop following the path of your main story, there is plenty of side quests that give you better stuff to do OPEN YOUR EYES.
There's no need to presume your action ingame to know what any player, you included, can or can't do in game. The above are simply facts.
First you agree UI frames can't be moved around. It's not about needing it or not it's about can you or not do it? Answer = no => lack of polish (1)
Then Seems you also admit there is not UI scaling. *see (1)
AA will be implemented in the patch 1.1 *see (1)
Camera angles are too often annoyingly off. Maybe you don't notice but trust me they are. *see (1)
For PvP the fixes on Illum also comes in the patch 1.1 *see (1)
Now for the for force side side points, lost emails, companion affections: hlad you didn't experience them still don't go on the SWTOR customer's support you might be surprised at how many players got them and some still are. And for the record as many of these players I also experienced it. As I had fun with the broken group chat for some time.
I disagree with the polish score.
Rift felt polished to me, this game doesn't come close. The technical issues are far outstripping any enjoyment at the moment - this is on a machine that played WoW, Aion, Rift with a lot of reliability and stability. The bugs that have remained after beta are also annoying.
The UI is awful and this from someone who never customised in WoW with mods. The chat box always seems to be in the way and the bars are too small.
Social chat is horrendous, half the time I can't even whisper friends.
Overall, it feels so clunky, unresponsive and laggy. It's hard to explain, maybe it's just my pc/conn but other games just felt so much smoother to play without fighting the UI.
These scores seem off...a 9.5 polish? The game has A LOT of bugs. Sure, early in the game its not noticable, and bioware is tossing out bugfixes...but still, there is no way it is polished to 95% of perfect. I couldn't even finish my class story for a while because the entire thing was broken, people rubberband in pvp warzones, a hand full of the flashpoints radnomly bug out causing you to restart it, the game still needs optimization, the ui is horribly flaky, ai is buggy ect. These are all polish issues, and sure the game is more polished than other big mmo releases like war or AoC, but no way is the polish that good.
The game should get around a 8, but a lot of these scores seem a lot higher than what they should be. World pvp non existant, only 3 warzones, horrible UI, bad responsiveness( I run a gtx560 ti and i5 2500k, so don't bring up my computer), horrible auction house....I wouldn't even call the crafting system crafting.... all it is, is a lootbox on a timer.
I'm currently playing thro my story casually, but some of these scores are questionable, and if you read thro the review, the numbers don't even seem to match up with what the guys saying at certain points.
" Not to mention the game’s worlds are large " compared to what an ant hill? I mean come on, SWG worlds were 5-10 times bigger than SWTOR's so how in the world can you say they are large. They just are not! A more accurate description of their Worlds would be small at best.
I just disagree with 2 of your scores. Innovation is at best a 4 or 5, they introduced very little to the genre, borrowed most everything from other games. I will agree they improved on some things like the questing so probably should be a 5.
Secondly your longevity score is very wishful thinking. Unless someone is a real altaholic, getting a few characters to max level is not going to take that long and there is just very little stuff to do at end game. The lame crafting and spaceflight design do not help at all in that regard. Again I would put it at 5 at best.
Remember EA is well known to cutting off development funds once a game is out. Adding lots of new content is not something EA is known for.
All in all a good game to replace the winter blues, but you will be looking for something new by spring.
First Let me say that I haven't played SWTOR.
Second, let me congratulate Deewe for the real review made by him. I think MMORPG should have a column called "Reviews with a different eyes." where you could make reviews like this to other games.
Third and last: I wounder what rating will MMORPG give when GW2 gets out. 14/10?
To be fair my post lacks, at least, the answer to 2 very important questions:
All in all Is the game FUN?
While TOR is far from perfect and the polish is uneven, it is indeed a FUN game. Still the poor UI, the unappealing character customization and the stinky space sim hinders the whole experience, a lot.
How about long term subscriptions?
For more casual gamers there's plenty content to do. Now for more hardcore ones, the game is really thin. For example, on your first alt on the same faction, sooner than else you'd wish you would not be obliged to spam multiple times in a row the space bar to skip the dialogs to the choices.
World PvP is flawed from design as you can't PvP on too many planets. They are restricted to specific factions. Same faction vs same faction PvP is a nasty plaster. There are too few warzones and Hutball is a farce joke for light sided Jedi.
For RPers BioWare didn't empowered the players with the ownership of their characters but set them on rails. Ex: choosing your class = mandatory: species, gear look, gear color, weapons, space ship, story line, faction. The modding system (for now) does not do the trick (compared to simple appearance tab) and you don't even have gear dyes. The character body customization is very thin. There ain't any socialization tools in TOR.
For PvErs playing alts on the same faction becomes a bit repetitive, hearing the same NPC sentences makes quests gets old bit faster but for when you just hit accept in others MMO. Crafting isn't something that will make you subscribed to the game by itself either. And space sim wil lkekly make you quit faster then else of boredoom.n Pretty soon when the servers becomes less populated (it has already started) you'll wish they have a better LFG system. And unless they add story content and many instances fast the desire to play will look like just fair.
Now here's what I wrote on the beta forums some time ago:
An Humble take on SWTOR road to keep subscribers.
I am having a good time playing the game, but I don't think I would give it an iota more than an 8 in it's current form. Maybe 7.5. It has potential to be better, I mean this is the Star Wars universe here, tons of things to add and different directions to take the game. But there are bugs, pvp does pretty much suck, and the linear aspects and kill 30 bad dudes quests are wearing on me. The combat is a blast though, and the class stories are fun.
It's different than War or Rift for sure. I would say overall this game is crap ton better than WAR was when it was released, however even broken at the time, the PvP was leaps and bounds better (when I wasn't CTDing, and stuttering). Rift seemed to have far fewer bugs and felt like a slightly more 'finished' game when it came out. Personally I am enjoying this game the most out of those three merely due to it being Star Wars and the RPG aspects are more to my liking.
Anyways....score is a tad high
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I think there are a few places in the middle East that have your 24/7 persistent realm vs realm conflict.
There isnt enough max levels players to have persistant world pvp yet. sorry there isnt. my highest is a 31 and i play alot, im not like some of u who power level through content to hit 50 in a week.
in fact most tor players are like me then those that rush to 50
To be honest with u this a good review and the worlds are huge, tatooine for instance is the size of northrend on its own, dont belive me go run it without sprint on.
i just started alderaan and its a big world also. im sorry but those sayign the worlds aren't huge havent left starter worlds. even droumd kaas and coruscant are pretty damn large.
yeah i played it the last 6 months. I agree on the ui but let me tell you this ive played lotro for over 4 years that was my main mmo but i got sick of thier lies and grocery store. I post about fixing pvp constantly and in 4 years they still cant do it. I post about pvp on swtor and the game isnt even out a month yet and this is what i see below. Btw i tested it on the test server its pretty dam good but i do agree that longevity is the key if they put more bases to take on other planets and do more it should be fine. I just dont like this "review" for a game not even a month old yet. Then on top of it they give me an infraction/warning for asking about it lol ok............................
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1276185#edit1276185
Star Wars: The Old Republic - Game Update 1.1
General
Classes and Combat
Companion Characters
Crew Skills
Flashpoints and Operations
Items
PvP
Missions and NPCs
PvP
UI
Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
Looking at all the fixes in 1.1 update, i find it weird the level of polish the reviewer talk about, since he played b4 that patch. Anyway, ppl r having a good time, and any1 can now look at user reviews and make their decision. Still waiting for a more inovative game, tho.
Good review, dead on pretty good. haters gonna hate, but all in all, it is very fun
yeah its pretty cool i just wish they had least gave it a month though...
great review! i cant wait to play it!