So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
I have never ever played a AAA mmo that had this bland planet design or had such heavily phased linear zones. It does'nt take much to make it show the dev's put some work into the zones and I don't get the feeling in this game at all
I completely disagree, to me TOR's planets actually look as though an artist designed them, compared to so many games that use copy and pasted terrain over and over again.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
I have never ever played a AAA mmo that had this bland planet design or had such heavily phased linear zones. It does'nt take much to make it show the dev's put some work into the zones and I don't get the feeling in this game at all
I completely disagree, to me TOR's planets actually look as though an artist designed them, compared to so many games that use copy and pasted terrain over and over again.
differn't strokes I guess but I found myself so uninterested in balmorra I actually couldn't even get past the planet on my sith sorc and the fact there was never more than 40 people on the planet didn't help
I just hit the wall with TOR and not sure if i'll resub for another month. The reason, apart from all the problems mentioned above, is that my 34th level Jedi Sentinel is now on Balmorra, a planet my Sith Sorcerer completed all the quests on at 23rd. I arrived by shuttle in the familiar Bugtown and my heart sank, and the first few quests were killing bugs (the same type of quests my Sith had ended with on Balmorra and it was a grind first time around). Ok so now i'm fighting the Imps, and i'm 11 levels higher, but the quests, mobs and areas are all essentially the same. I couldn't believe it. How boring.
It's mmo groundhog day and it's the worst example of lazy development i've ever seen in an mmo.
So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
Actually yes.
There are zones in many MMOs that many people find extremely likeable and inspiring. The Shire in LOTRO is great example, but there are a number of others. I rarely got that feeling in any SWTOR zone. And zome planets people down right hate, like Taris.
The only thing I particularly like about any of the SWTOR zones besides Hoth which I somewhat like for no particular reason, is the datacron hunting.
I bet you a beer you could get a pretty good list going if you made a thread of MMORPG zone people found inspiring and I bet you, you would get double the results from LOTRO, WOW, and Vanguard that you did from SWTOR. Or least if you did it a year from when all the fanbois have lost their ardor.
I just hit the wall with TOR and not sure if i'll resub for another month. The reason, apart from all the problems mentioned above, is that my 34th level Jedi Sentinel is now on Balmorra, a planet my Sith Sorcerer completed all the quests on at 23rd. I arrived by shuttle in the familiar Bugtown and my heart sank, and the first few quests were killing bugs (the same type of quests my Sith had ended with on Balmorra and it was a grind first time around). Ok so now i'm fighting the Imps, and i'm 11 levels higher, but the quests, mobs and areas are all essentially the same. I couldn't believe it. How boring.
It's mmo groundhog day and it's the worst example of lazy development i've ever seen in an mmo.
Well I actually agree with this. Although when I went back to Taris on my Imperial it did feel quite a bit different than when I went through on my republic character. So maybe it's only Balmorra that they did this with.
Around level 20 or so I quit doing quests except the class quests. I ran a lot of PvP,FPs, and space missions. Got to about 42 that way...
I tried leveling alts, but lvl 10s werent welcome or very useful in PvP and space missions...well..yeah...
There are a lot of quests available though, you could probably do a few alts and not do all the quests. Light/side dark side choices can make the same quests mildly different.
Either way there is content for alts. I personally wasn't motivated to do it though.
So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
Almost all other mmos have better zone design. Rift was very well designed, and LOTRO is pratically epic in scale compared to the dirt quarries that make up most of ToR.
The game has many times more replayability than any other MMO I have played on release day. If you don't want to do the quests over again than don't. Do instances, group quests, space combat or PVP and you will level quickly doing any of those. And if all that isn't enough go play the other faction and get a 100% new set of quests.
Honestly what more would it have taken to keep you from complaining? Because I have a hard time seeing any game company releasing a new MMO with more content than what SW:TOR has today. It's hands above what EQ2, WoW, LOTR, etc. had at launch.
its not always about just the content.. its about making the content that's their enjoyable ot play through many times.. to me the planets were just so dull, boring, and so heavily phased going through them multiple times felt like a chore.
I have played a large number of MMO's on launch day and for me anyways SW:TOR is the first one that I accually was able to level mulitple toons though the content without giving up halfway though the second toon. I have 2 level 50's and 2 mid 20's right now, all empire and am still enjoying the experience. Although I will say that I am spending a lot more time doing instances, PVP and space combat on my 20's so I can pick and choose what planets I spend time on.
Some planets I like a lot more than others but I am also pretty sure if someone did a poll of favorite planets the results would be pretty even so I'm not going to hold it against Bioware for trying to make the planets feel different.
Dude, in order to "pick and choose what planet I do". You have to literally grind an ass ton of non-quest stuff. Each planet is roughly 3-5 levels (although quesh is very brief in comparison).
PvP in SWTOR is awful, IMO. Also many people do not even like PvP in general. Acting like that is a sufficient answer is BS.
Anyone claiming they are doing significantly leveling through space combat is doing tons and tons of missions. The repeatables do not give the same xp as the initial mission. There are only about 6 unique missions by level 35. Completely one space mission the first time give similar XP to 1 quest. 1 quest.
In addition to that, I did all the space mission on my character so the progression I mentioned in my first post is with Space Combat in cluded but not grinded. And grinding space missions is terrible xp.
In SWTOR when you first leave Dromund Kass on your class quest you given a fake choice between two planets to continue your class quest. One planet is a level 16 quest the other planet is a level 20 quest. There is no choice they just give you two quests to make it appear as if it worked like KOTOR games. Then they completely discard the BS illusion after that and your class quest is completely linear is both appearance and function rather than just function.
Anyone not griding instances and mostly leveling by quests. Is not skipping any planet. And griding instances IS NOT A FRESH experience.
The only way you can make this fantasy work is by claiming that grinding the same thing over and over = replayability. Its BS.
If you do all the group quests on a planet that will equal about one extra level. Those are repeatable daily but lets just say you do them once. The space missions even if you only do the dailies will be a full extra level at lower levels and about half a level at higher ones repeatable daily. Every planet has a flashpoint instance around the same level that if you do can easily make near a whole level. Even without PVP you could easily skip every other planet in this game and just go to the planet to complete you class quest (1-2 hours max if you at the high end of the level content). All that isn't even looking at PVP which even if all you do is the daily quests will be a significant amount of XP.
People who complain about SW:TOR not having enough content are just to lazy to look for it or want it handed to them on a nice dungeon finder interface. I played EQ2 day 1 and finding content from 1-50 solo was impossible. Duengons were a grind that you had to do for if you were lucky 10% of a level every time the timers could be reset and there was no PVP queue or XP. Newer theampark MMO's have plently of solo content but SW:TOR still has them all beat for at launch content by a mile IMO.
Sandbox MMO's are a different story but since SW:TOR isn't a sandbox and never has pretended to want to be a sandbox comparing them to each other would be like comparing Skyrim to Modern Warfare.
I have never ever played a AAA mmo that had this bland planet design or had such heavily phased linear zones. It does'nt take much to make it show the dev's put some work into the zones and I don't get the feeling in this game at all
I completely disagree, to me TOR's planets actually look as though an artist designed them, compared to so many games that use copy and pasted terrain over and over again.
I agree with you here. I think the zones are really well designed. However, the npcs and mobs inside them are a bit too stagnant for my taste however. This is not a dealbreaker for me by any stretch, but it is something that I would like to see improved. More life to the world would be great.
To respond to the OP. I'm on my 4th alt right now. On my first char, I almost had to skip entire planets because I was outleveling content. I skipped most of the bonus content. I also skipped most of Alderaan, Nar Shadaa Belsavis and a lot of Hoth. Now on my alts, I won't skip these planets, I will skip those that I've already done. There's so much content that for me, it's going to take at least 2 alts (probably 3) to see it all. This is in 1 faction only. It will take another 2-3 chars to see all the content in the other faction.
So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
Almost all other mmos have better zone design. Rift was very well designed, and LOTRO is pratically epic in scale compared to the dirt quarries that make up most of ToR.
Hmm, I thought Rift felt pretty corridor like as well. I agree about LotRO though.
So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
I have never ever played a AAA mmo that had this bland planet design or had such heavily phased linear zones. It does'nt take much to make it show the dev's put some work into the zones and I don't get the feeling in this game at all
I completely disagree, to me TOR's planets actually look as though an artist designed them, compared to so many games that use copy and pasted terrain over and over again.
Some of the look of parts of the planets are good. I rather like the background mountains on Aldaraan. But the feel of the zones is often pretty meh.
There is a reason people talk about "look and feel" of an application. I don't find the "look" of SWTOR zone to be bad (I am sure some do as its highly subjective) but the feel starts to get INCREDIBLY bland. Painfully so.
Seriously by the time I did dromund kaas the 3rd time I could have written a bot to do it all for me and that would be able to play every other persons character on the server and that bot would have behaved 90% to same as most players simply because there are no real options outside of datacron hunting strange paths.
I just hit the wall with TOR and not sure if i'll resub for another month. The reason, apart from all the problems mentioned above, is that my 34th level Jedi Sentinel is now on Balmorra, a planet my Sith Sorcerer completed all the quests on at 23rd. I arrived by shuttle in the familiar Bugtown and my heart sank, and the first few quests were killing bugs (the same type of quests my Sith had ended with on Balmorra and it was a grind first time around). Ok so now i'm fighting the Imps, and i'm 11 levels higher, but the quests, mobs and areas are all essentially the same. I couldn't believe it. How boring.
It's mmo groundhog day and it's the worst example of lazy development i've ever seen in an mmo.
Well I actually agree with this. Although when I went back to Taris on my Imperial it did feel quite a bit different than when I went through on my republic character. So maybe it's only Balmorra that they did this with.
The best planets are the ones split into two, like Tatooine, where you can actually bump into other factions. On Balmorra I felt like I was in an alternate universe, and i'm still not sure how the republic map relates to the imp map, it's almost like a different time zone, it felt very weird.
So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
Almost all other mmos have better zone design. Rift was very well designed, and LOTRO is pratically epic in scale compared to the dirt quarries that make up most of ToR.
Hmm, I thought Rift felt pretty corridor like as well. I agree about LotRO though.
Yeah I agree, corridors, but nice looking corridors.
So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
Almost all other mmos have better zone design. Rift was very well designed, and LOTRO is pratically epic in scale compared to the dirt quarries that make up most of ToR.
Hmm, I thought Rift felt pretty corridor like as well. I agree about LotRO though.
Rift certainly leads along things. There is mostly a road to follow that goes to the next hub. But Rift also had FAR FAR more open space than a SWTOR zone and put rifts into that space. In addition there is more diversification between the zones in higher levels.
In Rift you could go from quest hub to quest hub and be fine and play the game that way. You could also go all over the place and do various novel things in that same zone. In SWTOR you can't NOT go from quest hub to quest hub. Its almost impossible.
Around level 20 or so I quit doing quests except the class quests. I ran a lot of PvP,FPs, and space missions. Got to about 42 that way...
I was thinking of doing this. Only doing the class quests is probably the only way to keep me playing. I wish there were more reasons to group as well, other than Flashpoints and Epics (both pointless). I'm starting to think (for the first time ever) I want to play a game that forces me to group. GW2 maybe?
There was some debate before the game released about how replayable the game is, ie. by my definition how fresh and interesting a second or third character is.
I have played 4 characters past level 20 on the same faction. I have played to characters past level 30 and one past level 40.
The replaybability is terrible especially if your first character was a stealth class that can skip fights. Every single character will wind up doing the exact same quests in the same area almsot 90% of the content will be shared extactly the same. The only 10% difference is the class quests of which you will do roughly 1-2 per level after leve 15 o 16.
If you solo the game and stealth past some fight you must do almost every single quests that exists. If you solo and don't skip you will need to do about 90% of the quests.
Obviously if you grind instances you may do less or possibly none at all.
The only variation that exists is in light/dark side choices/companion reactions. And in the end simply by playing one light side and one dark side you have basically seen all there is to see except the small portion of quests that is the class quest (which is far too slow to develop to justify griding through the same quests a third time). Compaion reaction is novel and all but in the end only matter from a roleplaying perspective anyway as gifts is the way to go if you have seen it all before. And frankly that is extremely meager picking unless you are really into the role play part.
The game has many times more replayability than any other MMO I have played on release day. If you don't want to do the quests over again than don't. Do instances, group quests, space combat or PVP and you will level quickly doing any of those. And if all that isn't enough go play the other faction and get a 100% new set of quests.
Honestly what more would it have taken to keep you from complaining? Because I have a hard time seeing any game company releasing a new MMO with more content than what SW:TOR has today. It's hands above what EQ2, WoW, LOTR, etc. had at launch.
I haven't played SWTOR but WoW was massive at release. It had a HUGE world to explore and you had multiple leveling paths if you wanted to roll alts. I leveled up 3 chars in vanilla WoW - war, druid and mage - and I wasn't bored even for a second.
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So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
I have never ever played a AAA mmo that had this bland planet design or had such heavily phased linear zones. It does'nt take much to make it show the dev's put some work into the zones and I don't get the feeling in this game at all
I completely disagree, to me TOR's planets actually look as though an artist designed them, compared to so many games that use copy and pasted terrain over and over again.
Some of the look of parts of the planets are good. I rather like the background mountains on Aldaraan. But the feel of the zones is often pretty meh.
There is a reason people talk about "look and feel" of an application. I don't find the "look" of SWTOR zone to be bad (I am sure some do as its highly subjective) but the feel starts to get INCREDIBLY bland. Painfully so.
Seriously by the time I did dromund kaas the 3rd time I could have written a bot to do it all for me and that would be able to play every other persons character on the server and that bot would have behaved 90% to same as most players simply because there are no real options outside of datacron hunting strange paths.
this is my point sorry if i mistyped. The zones themselves and especially the backdrops do look fine and some actually are quite nice.. but the overall "feel" of the zone is so bland and uninspired it just makes you not care to revisit it.
The game has many times more replayability than any other MMO I have played on release day. If you don't want to do the quests over again than don't. Do instances, group quests, space combat or PVP and you will level quickly doing any of those. And if all that isn't enough go play the other faction and get a 100% new set of quests.
Honestly what more would it have taken to keep you from complaining? Because I have a hard time seeing any game company releasing a new MMO with more content than what SW:TOR has today. It's hands above what EQ2, WoW, LOTR, etc. had at launch.
I feel the same way. If I don't feel like doing the storyline then there is always the side quests. If I don't feel like going solo then I do heroics and flashpoints with others.If I don't feel like doing that then I PVP. If I don't feel like doing that then I do some space. If I don't feel like doing that then I explore for datacrons and resources. Plus there is my alts. I've had no trouble finding something to do in this game.
I have never ever played a AAA mmo that had this bland planet design or had such heavily phased linear zones. It does'nt take much to make it show the dev's put some work into the zones and I don't get the feeling in this game at all
I completely disagree, to me TOR's planets actually look as though an artist designed them, compared to so many games that use copy and pasted terrain over and over again.
I agree with you here. I think the zones are really well designed. However, the npcs and mobs inside them are a bit too stagnant for my taste however. This is not a dealbreaker for me by any stretch, but it is something that I would like to see improved. More life to the world would be great.
To respond to the OP. I'm on my 4th alt right now. On my first char, I almost had to skip entire planets because I was outleveling content. I skipped most of the bonus content. I also skipped most of Alderaan, Nar Shadaa Belsavis and a lot of Hoth. Now on my alts, I won't skip these planets, I will skip those that I've already done. There's so much content that for me, it's going to take at least 2 alts (probably 3) to see it all. This is in 1 faction only. It will take another 2-3 chars to see all the content in the other faction.
Thre are only 3 ways to have skipped that much content.
Either you did alot of PvP instances, re-runnung the same heroic dailies, or you did alot of PvE instances. or some combination of these.
I guarantee you did not skip any planet by doing normal quests + space + class quests.
I don't see how having a bland and grindy first play through qualifies as "good replayability". And this is the only thing I have ever seen anybody with the pro-good replayable viewpoint attempt to say.
Basically the argument boils down to "do dailies/repeatable content to level, most of which is the same instance over and over" and then you won't have down the meagre and completely linear quest offering.
Good replayability doesn't mean you can keep doing it. It means its fun to do that stuff a second time. Doing the quest route a second is not different. Its exactly the same up to a factor of about 90% regardless of class.
You can level to 50 and never do a quest. I stated that in my OP. You can do with just instanced content. So what? That is not good replaybility either. That called grinding.
So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
Almost all other mmos have better zone design. Rift was very well designed, and LOTRO is pratically epic in scale compared to the dirt quarries that make up most of ToR.
Hmm, I thought Rift felt pretty corridor like as well. I agree about LotRO though.
Rift certainly leads along things. There is mostly a road to follow that goes to the next hub. But Rift also had FAR FAR more open space than a SWTOR zone and put rifts into that space. In addition there is more diversification between the zones in higher levels.
In Rift you could go from quest hub to quest hub and be fine and play the game that way. You could also go all over the place and do various novel things in that same zone. In SWTOR you can't NOT go from quest hub to quest hub. Its almost impossible.
Rift also had a world merely the size of Outland, even smaller than half of Kalimdor and EK and barely larger than a LotrO region. Personally I thought the rifts were fun the first couple of times but became less fun very quickly and the quests were as boring as they could get. If you talk replayability, sorry, but Rift has even less of that than what you claim TOR has. But, to each their own I guess.
I have never ever played a AAA mmo that had this bland planet design or had such heavily phased linear zones. It does'nt take much to make it show the dev's put some work into the zones and I don't get the feeling in this game at all
I completely disagree, to me TOR's planets actually look as though an artist designed them, compared to so many games that use copy and pasted terrain over and over again.
I agree with you here. I think the zones are really well designed. However, the npcs and mobs inside them are a bit too stagnant for my taste however. This is not a dealbreaker for me by any stretch, but it is something that I would like to see improved. More life to the world would be great.
To respond to the OP. I'm on my 4th alt right now. On my first char, I almost had to skip entire planets because I was outleveling content. I skipped most of the bonus content. I also skipped most of Alderaan, Nar Shadaa Belsavis and a lot of Hoth. Now on my alts, I won't skip these planets, I will skip those that I've already done. There's so much content that for me, it's going to take at least 2 alts (probably 3) to see it all. This is in 1 faction only. It will take another 2-3 chars to see all the content in the other faction.
Thre are only 3 ways to have skipped that much content.
Either you did alot of PvP instances, re-runnung the same heroic dailies, or you did alot of PvE instances. or some combination of these.
I guarantee you did not skip any planet by doing normal quests + space + class quests.
I don't see how having a bland and grindy first play through qualifies as "good replayability". And this is the only thing I have ever seen anybody with the pro-good replayable viewpoint attempt to say.
Basically the argument boils down to "do dailies/repeatable content to level, most of which is the same instance over and over" and then you won't have down the meagre and completely linear quest offering.
Good replayability doesn't mean you can keep doing it. It means its fun to do that stuff a second time. Doing the quest route a second is not different. Its exactly the same up to a factor of about 90% regardless of class.
You can level to 50 and never do a quest. I stated that in my OP. You can do with just instanced content. So what? That is not good replaybility either. That called grinding.
I noticed this as well whenever someone argues there's alternate leveling paths it's always well you can just do these or those over and over.. for a PVE game I'd think multiple unique leveling paths would of been designed.. especially since they claimed as much when in development
Rift also had a world merely the size of Outland, even smaller than half of Kalimdor and EK and barely larger than a LotrO region. Personally I thought the rifts were fun the first couple of times but became less fun very quickly and the quests were as boring as they could get. If you talk replayability, sorry, but Rift has even less of that than what you claim TOR has. But, to each their own I guess.
agree Rift is pretty small but at least all the zones are connected and nothing aside from dungeons and warzones is instanced or phased and Rift has more quest in the higher zones also..
The game has many times more replayability than any other MMO I have played on release day. If you don't want to do the quests over again than don't. Do instances, group quests, space combat or PVP and you will level quickly doing any of those. And if all that isn't enough go play the other faction and get a 100% new set of quests.
Honestly what more would it have taken to keep you from complaining? Because I have a hard time seeing any game company releasing a new MMO with more content than what SW:TOR has today. It's hands above what EQ2, WoW, LOTR, etc. had at launch.
I feel the same way. If I don't feel like doing the storyline then there is always the side quests. If I don't feel like going solo then I do heroics and flashpoints with others.If I don't feel like doing that then I PVP. If I don't feel like doing that then I do some space. If I don't feel like doing that then I explore for datacrons and resources. Plus there is my alts. I've had no trouble finding something to do in this game.
How many different PvP maps are there? How many different PvP game types are there?
Not many. When you are gaining significant XP via PvP. You are grinding the same content over and over.
Now you may like it. You may get an adrenaline rush from SWTOR's bad PvP and not feel like its a grind.
But its the same thing over and over. There is no way around that.
Of course you can always find something to do in SWTOR. It just happens to be the same canned stuff over and over.
Seriously the whole group content Heroics canard is kind of sad. Do people realize that many herorics are simply one large room with 4 -6 spawns and a champion mob? Or just clearing out an area you could run across in 30 seconds?
This is something that's becoming more apparent unfortunately...
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Comments
I completely disagree, to me TOR's planets actually look as though an artist designed them, compared to so many games that use copy and pasted terrain over and over again.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
differn't strokes I guess but I found myself so uninterested in balmorra I actually couldn't even get past the planet on my sith sorc and the fact there was never more than 40 people on the planet didn't help
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
I just hit the wall with TOR and not sure if i'll resub for another month. The reason, apart from all the problems mentioned above, is that my 34th level Jedi Sentinel is now on Balmorra, a planet my Sith Sorcerer completed all the quests on at 23rd. I arrived by shuttle in the familiar Bugtown and my heart sank, and the first few quests were killing bugs (the same type of quests my Sith had ended with on Balmorra and it was a grind first time around). Ok so now i'm fighting the Imps, and i'm 11 levels higher, but the quests, mobs and areas are all essentially the same. I couldn't believe it. How boring.
It's mmo groundhog day and it's the worst example of lazy development i've ever seen in an mmo.
It's even worse when you end up going back with a Rep character 11 levels later. I felt like cutting my throat... lol.
Actually yes.
There are zones in many MMOs that many people find extremely likeable and inspiring. The Shire in LOTRO is great example, but there are a number of others. I rarely got that feeling in any SWTOR zone. And zome planets people down right hate, like Taris.
The only thing I particularly like about any of the SWTOR zones besides Hoth which I somewhat like for no particular reason, is the datacron hunting.
I bet you a beer you could get a pretty good list going if you made a thread of MMORPG zone people found inspiring and I bet you, you would get double the results from LOTRO, WOW, and Vanguard that you did from SWTOR. Or least if you did it a year from when all the fanbois have lost their ardor.
Well I actually agree with this. Although when I went back to Taris on my Imperial it did feel quite a bit different than when I went through on my republic character. So maybe it's only Balmorra that they did this with.
Around level 20 or so I quit doing quests except the class quests. I ran a lot of PvP,FPs, and space missions. Got to about 42 that way...
I tried leveling alts, but lvl 10s werent welcome or very useful in PvP and space missions...well..yeah...
There are a lot of quests available though, you could probably do a few alts and not do all the quests. Light/side dark side choices can make the same quests mildly different.
Either way there is content for alts. I personally wasn't motivated to do it though.
Almost all other mmos have better zone design. Rift was very well designed, and LOTRO is pratically epic in scale compared to the dirt quarries that make up most of ToR.
If you do all the group quests on a planet that will equal about one extra level. Those are repeatable daily but lets just say you do them once. The space missions even if you only do the dailies will be a full extra level at lower levels and about half a level at higher ones repeatable daily. Every planet has a flashpoint instance around the same level that if you do can easily make near a whole level. Even without PVP you could easily skip every other planet in this game and just go to the planet to complete you class quest (1-2 hours max if you at the high end of the level content). All that isn't even looking at PVP which even if all you do is the daily quests will be a significant amount of XP.
People who complain about SW:TOR not having enough content are just to lazy to look for it or want it handed to them on a nice dungeon finder interface. I played EQ2 day 1 and finding content from 1-50 solo was impossible. Duengons were a grind that you had to do for if you were lucky 10% of a level every time the timers could be reset and there was no PVP queue or XP. Newer theampark MMO's have plently of solo content but SW:TOR still has them all beat for at launch content by a mile IMO.
Sandbox MMO's are a different story but since SW:TOR isn't a sandbox and never has pretended to want to be a sandbox comparing them to each other would be like comparing Skyrim to Modern Warfare.
I agree with you here. I think the zones are really well designed. However, the npcs and mobs inside them are a bit too stagnant for my taste however. This is not a dealbreaker for me by any stretch, but it is something that I would like to see improved. More life to the world would be great.
To respond to the OP. I'm on my 4th alt right now. On my first char, I almost had to skip entire planets because I was outleveling content. I skipped most of the bonus content. I also skipped most of Alderaan, Nar Shadaa Belsavis and a lot of Hoth. Now on my alts, I won't skip these planets, I will skip those that I've already done. There's so much content that for me, it's going to take at least 2 alts (probably 3) to see it all. This is in 1 faction only. It will take another 2-3 chars to see all the content in the other faction.
Hmm, I thought Rift felt pretty corridor like as well. I agree about LotRO though.
Some of the look of parts of the planets are good. I rather like the background mountains on Aldaraan. But the feel of the zones is often pretty meh.
There is a reason people talk about "look and feel" of an application. I don't find the "look" of SWTOR zone to be bad (I am sure some do as its highly subjective) but the feel starts to get INCREDIBLY bland. Painfully so.
Seriously by the time I did dromund kaas the 3rd time I could have written a bot to do it all for me and that would be able to play every other persons character on the server and that bot would have behaved 90% to same as most players simply because there are no real options outside of datacron hunting strange paths.
The best planets are the ones split into two, like Tatooine, where you can actually bump into other factions. On Balmorra I felt like I was in an alternate universe, and i'm still not sure how the republic map relates to the imp map, it's almost like a different time zone, it felt very weird.
Yeah I agree, corridors, but nice looking corridors.
Rift certainly leads along things. There is mostly a road to follow that goes to the next hub. But Rift also had FAR FAR more open space than a SWTOR zone and put rifts into that space. In addition there is more diversification between the zones in higher levels.
In Rift you could go from quest hub to quest hub and be fine and play the game that way. You could also go all over the place and do various novel things in that same zone. In SWTOR you can't NOT go from quest hub to quest hub. Its almost impossible.
I was thinking of doing this. Only doing the class quests is probably the only way to keep me playing. I wish there were more reasons to group as well, other than Flashpoints and Epics (both pointless). I'm starting to think (for the first time ever) I want to play a game that forces me to group. GW2 maybe?
I haven't played SWTOR but WoW was massive at release. It had a HUGE world to explore and you had multiple leveling paths if you wanted to roll alts. I leveled up 3 chars in vanilla WoW - war, druid and mage - and I wasn't bored even for a second.
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this is my point sorry if i mistyped. The zones themselves and especially the backdrops do look fine and some actually are quite nice.. but the overall "feel" of the zone is so bland and uninspired it just makes you not care to revisit it.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
I feel the same way. If I don't feel like doing the storyline then there is always the side quests. If I don't feel like going solo then I do heroics and flashpoints with others.If I don't feel like doing that then I PVP. If I don't feel like doing that then I do some space. If I don't feel like doing that then I explore for datacrons and resources. Plus there is my alts. I've had no trouble finding something to do in this game.
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Thre are only 3 ways to have skipped that much content.
Either you did alot of PvP instances, re-runnung the same heroic dailies, or you did alot of PvE instances. or some combination of these.
I guarantee you did not skip any planet by doing normal quests + space + class quests.
I don't see how having a bland and grindy first play through qualifies as "good replayability". And this is the only thing I have ever seen anybody with the pro-good replayable viewpoint attempt to say.
Basically the argument boils down to "do dailies/repeatable content to level, most of which is the same instance over and over" and then you won't have down the meagre and completely linear quest offering.
Good replayability doesn't mean you can keep doing it. It means its fun to do that stuff a second time. Doing the quest route a second is not different. Its exactly the same up to a factor of about 90% regardless of class.
You can level to 50 and never do a quest. I stated that in my OP. You can do with just instanced content. So what? That is not good replaybility either. That called grinding.
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
Almost all other mmos have better zone design. Rift was very well designed, and LOTRO is pratically epic in scale compared to the dirt quarries that make up most of ToR.
Hmm, I thought Rift felt pretty corridor like as well. I agree about LotRO though.
Rift certainly leads along things. There is mostly a road to follow that goes to the next hub. But Rift also had FAR FAR more open space than a SWTOR zone and put rifts into that space. In addition there is more diversification between the zones in higher levels.
In Rift you could go from quest hub to quest hub and be fine and play the game that way. You could also go all over the place and do various novel things in that same zone. In SWTOR you can't NOT go from quest hub to quest hub. Its almost impossible.
Rift also had a world merely the size of Outland, even smaller than half of Kalimdor and EK and barely larger than a LotrO region. Personally I thought the rifts were fun the first couple of times but became less fun very quickly and the quests were as boring as they could get. If you talk replayability, sorry, but Rift has even less of that than what you claim TOR has. But, to each their own I guess.I noticed this as well whenever someone argues there's alternate leveling paths it's always well you can just do these or those over and over.. for a PVE game I'd think multiple unique leveling paths would of been designed.. especially since they claimed as much when in development
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
agree Rift is pretty small but at least all the zones are connected and nothing aside from dungeons and warzones is instanced or phased and Rift has more quest in the higher zones also..
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
How many different PvP maps are there? How many different PvP game types are there?
Not many. When you are gaining significant XP via PvP. You are grinding the same content over and over.
Now you may like it. You may get an adrenaline rush from SWTOR's bad PvP and not feel like its a grind.
But its the same thing over and over. There is no way around that.
Of course you can always find something to do in SWTOR. It just happens to be the same canned stuff over and over.
Seriously the whole group content Heroics canard is kind of sad. Do people realize that many herorics are simply one large room with 4 -6 spawns and a champion mob? Or just clearing out an area you could run across in 30 seconds?
This is something that's becoming more apparent unfortunately...
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