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Value review
norakar
Member Posts: 18
This review was based upon the value of the game from the standpoint of those who pay for it themself, and dont have a whole lot of money.If you are using your mommie's credit card, or have tons of money to burn, you can stop reading right now.
Graphics: Bioware have licensed the 2008 Hero engine to speed up the de velopment process, that means that you will get 2008 graphics in 2012, which is good and bad: good because lower end (cheaper) graphics cards can handle it, and bad beacuse you dont get the eyecandy of newer 2010+ games, but graphics dont matter that much in an MMO vs gameplay.
It appears that Bioware first created a single player adventure game, hence the long winding story interuptions, than tried to shoehorne the game into a multiplayer MMO, and that is why they have such limited grouping options.
The game is aimed at the 13-19 crowd, just like wow rift, and many of the newer themepark MMOs.PVP is fairly limited, to mostly quickfrags, and a few warzones.
The game fairly bug free, playable and enjoyable for those who like strictly themeparks, the small worlds and limited pvp really shows that Bioware just wanted to crank out a simple game as CHEAP as possible, relying heavily on the Star Wars hype.
The space combat part is a very simple "rail-shooter" where you dont have any control where the ship goes, just keep shooting while the ship flies, it is so simple that I am sure that you can find a free downloadable game somewhere just like this.I am not saying that it should not be fun, after all people like pacman, and it is also simple, just dont think that its worth $15 a month.
Overall it is an enjoyable game, relatively bug free, if you like strictly themeparks with limited pvp, and small playing area.
I just dont think its worth $50+$15 a month for a simple game like this, as of now the game is 40% content and 60% hype.
The real value should be around $19 for the game and $6-$9 a month.
A friend of mine cancelled the game and gave his account to me, he still had about 60 days left to play, I would not have payed for it myself based on my beta experience.
Disclaimer: I played wow way back when it was in beta, I tought it was a fine game but ended up not subscribing.
Comments
So a little bit about this. They used the Hero Engine as their base and heavily modified it. SWTOR is one of the most visually stunning and beautiful MMOs to come out to date. A lot of people think GW2 and TERA have beterr graphics, they do not. It is the graphical style of the game. There are so many shining marks of SWTOR's graphical polish you can see throughout the game.
SWTOR turned off their high res textures for general play because with it on the video cards were melting at Bioware. The devs told people "trust me your machine will melt."
As well the difference between 2008 and 2012 graphics are very limited.
Here is Fallout 3: http://blog.brothersoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/rpg_games_2008_top_five_02.jpg
Here is Crysis: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gf0SwdcLHl4/TbpohlJo9-I/AAAAAAAAAdI/mZ2NqzXyk64/s640/crysis1mil.jpg
Both games were released in the exact same year and yet the graphics from Crysis look decades ahead of Fallout 3. Difference? Crysis has used their own engine while Fallout 3 is using a modified Unreal engine.
MMOs are generally 6 years behind single player games as far as graphics go. This is simply because the multiplayer aspect cannot handle loading up a lot of high resolution characters with high res graphics.
World of Warcraft can get away with having a high resolution graphical package because it turns off high resolution spell effect and does not have complicated backgrounds like SWTOR does.
It's really hard to do a price analysis on MMOs because they are the one genre that people are willing to give away for free en masse. The fact that any MMO still charges money shows you the power of their brand.
EDIT:
The only end game feature you talked about was the space shooter which is just an extra. You never once talked about flashpoints or ops as part of the package here. They're a PvE end game and you've talked about the price point of everything but PvE. There is eight hours of Ops and 20 hours of flashpoints per side. Maybe you should try those before you put a dollar value on your time.
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
lol?
What style? the big wow shoulder pads? the low rez texture armors?
SWTOR has average graphics at best, low rez environment textures, no AA, the engine looks like crap and runs like crap, poorly optimized.
Lotro, AoC, Rift, Tera, GW2, ArcheAge... they all look much better than SWTOR graphic wise.
As for the artstyle... ehh cartonish wow shoulder pads... whats so good about it?
"Esport with tournaments is for hardcore pvp'rs that want to be competitive. Openworld PVP with ganking and griefing is for casuals that just wants their pvp mixed with pve from time to time."
otacu
Art styles are subjective. It may be blasphemous to some but I think Warhammer Online had one of the best visual styles of recent MMO's. To each their own.
It is not really about rezolution and pixels, it is about artistry, Lotro is a lot older game, yet is visually stunning (I dont play it anymore btw) Anyone remembers the bugs of Karana in the original EQ? of course if you are typical swtor player (13-19) you were in diapers back than...
Bioware simply wanted to crank out a simple and cheap game hence the uninspired and dull graphics where all the npcs look the same after a while.Its all about making profit fast, provide as little as possible at the highest price.(there is nothing wrong with making profit)
lol. It's DX9.0c. These are 2005 graphics!!! And all you see are YouTube videos that don't come close to what the in-game looks like because of post-processing issues as you convert them into flash-player movies. The quality is substantially degraded.
But forget them... I haven't played them because they're not out. Rift is incredible compared to SWTOR. DDO is incredible compared to SWTOR. LOTRO is incredible compared to SWTOR. DCUO is better in most everything than SWTOR sa it uses the Unreal 3 Engine (DX11) and havoc physics for cloth and physics). This is an HD video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfMx9TTUas0 It's better in game. And the video is better than SWTRO in client.
Heck, I thought EQ2, very long in the tooth, had better graphics that SWTOR. The worlds were more alive, the color pallet broader and details and textures finer.
The patches so far are also low budget, spend as little as possible, and create lots of hype, give very little.
Cheating programs have existed since early beta, bioware have done next to nothing to stamp out these programs, they fixed
some low lvl economic exploit bugs, that about it.
Server populations are dropping very fast ppl are realizing that not much here other than a 2008 single player Star-Wars-esqe game masquerading as an MMO...
I do not find much of worth in your review.
You say the graphics are not good, nor is the engine, but you do not go into enough detail about what are the real issues, just glossing over by saying that it is a cheap production and that it only succeeds on Star Wars hype.
If I were to give a review, I would rate each important category step-by-step. Criticizing artstyle is not very valid as it is so subjective. Graphics quality is better especially in how the game performs overall, which ties into the engine itself. Then there is the criticism of the actual gameplay such as combat mechanics, leveling speed, immersion (sound/music, attention to details such as weather, day/night cycles, etc.), community and social tools, and the like. You don't say anything about those. And most importantly, especially with respect to your thread title, you don't discuss the longetivity of the game which is what ultimately decides whether a game can offer great value to people with limited amounts of discretionary income.
When I saw the title of your thread, I thought you would mention that latter aspect: something about whether ToR would provide a long-term entertainment experience. Just saying that it has limited, small areas, does not tell me whether I would most likely be playing it for 1 month, 3 months, years, etc. WoW is a small gameworld in comparison to VG, but there are people who have been playing WoW for years and years...
How is someone who falls on your review as their very first review on ToR supposed to know what it is like?
You say that it will only attract people between a very limited age range and that to me indicates that you are more out to belittle people who do not fall in that age range and like the game rather than to give a truly fair review.
You also berate those who have decided that the game is worth $15/month to them to subscribe to. Ultimately, it is up to each individual player to decide what they subscribe to and what they value. I absolutely hate Twilight and Titanic, and I would never dream of spending money to go see them, but I do understand that there are plenty of people who do.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.