My work with Star Wars: The old Republic is coming to an end. My article about the classes I was asked to play is due in a few days and with that out of the way, I'll resume business as usual in Azeroth. Blasphemy, I know.
The game is rightfully receiving one superb review score after another, though I am hoping for some of the longer-term reviews from sites such as Gamespot or IGN to highlight some of the game's weaknesses and to dare go below the insanely high average rating of 89%. Because, the fantastic storytelling and voice-acting aside, not only does SWTOR do absolutely nothing new or innovative - certain aspects of the game, such as the lame skill trees, boring combat system, hideous UI and frustrating pvp take the genre right back to the stone age and not a single step forward.
My main problem with the game is how, once you've reached the inevitable level cap, the whole experience becomes so incredibly much like every other MMORPG out there, I just don't have the motivation to keep on playing - and with nearly 3 months of free play time left on my press account, I could go nuts if I wanted to.
I just don't feel like repeating the same 3 battlegrounds... sorry, warzones, over and over again for purple gear. Yes, yes, WoW didn't even have battlegrounds when it came out, WoW this, WoW that, I don't give a fuck. It's 2012. And the pvp in SWTOR is shit, plain and simple. When the game puts you in a group of level 20s and you have to face a bunch of overgeared level 50s, all the stat-boosting and equalizing in the world won't make up for their wider selection of abilities and skills as well as added damage, resistance and healing from high level pvp gear. If you are forced to fight your own faction all the time, because everyone chose Empire and nobody wants to play Republic and there are no cross-server pvp-queues, then pvp gets even more shit. It's badly-balanced, it's unfair and the warzones simply aren't very enjoyable to play. I get up to 40 people on each side on WoW, I only get 10 people per team on SWTOR and it lags like fuck. Which is amazing, considering the game looks like it's a decade old. Sure, so does WoW, but at least that one doesn't run like crap.
Of course there's hard mode dungeons and daily quests, where I could farm tokens and other crap to get epic items, which allow me to do even harder stuff and... well, you know where this is going. Don't get me wrong - I am fully aware that the 'endgame' looks exactly like that in literally every fucking MMORPG out there. It's just that I've grown sick and tired of it years ago and I don't give a shit about the item treadmill now, just because I'm rolling for a lightsaber instead of some epic battleaxe.
Sure, I could go and roll another toon to experience their storyline, play all the way to level 50 again and by the time I have seen every bit of story there is, chances are there's gonna be a shitload of new content and new stuff to do. Problem is, in between every two small bits of story, the game feeds you boring, tasteless filler. Kill 10 of this, loot 5 of that. Bonus: Kill 30 Sand People. Bonus update: Kill another 20 Sand People. Fuck off!
Yes, sure, having companions is awesome. Discovering them all, enjoying their quirky personalities, chasing after your personal story mode nemesis, all of that is cool. But there is so much dreadfully boring "kill 20 Sand People" crap slowing down the already unexciting pace of the whole experience, I just can't see myself doing it all over again, awesome plot or not. And having to chase after 40 or so Datacrons on every character doesn't add to the fun. Might be fun the first time around, then it's just a time sink, especially when certain Datacrons can only be reached if you spend a huge amount of credits or team up with another player.
The skill trees are another dreadfully boring bit I just can't see myself getting used to. No matter which of the 3 trees I pick on my level 50 marauder, the changes in abilities, play style and rotation are so minimal, they could have skipped them altogether. And having to waste 2 or 3 points on skills, which otherwise only proc 33 or 50% of the time is no fun. What's worse, a huge part of my special attacks is so incredibly situational, it makes combat feel awkward and frustrating. For instance, one of my attacks can only be used on incapacitated targets, the next one only on slowed targets, yet another one works only right after a parried or dodged attack, one works when my target is below 20% health... the list goes on. Sure, other games have those attacks, but you don't usually get ALL OF THEM ON THE SAME CLASS! Sadly, they all do more or less the same amounts of damage, as well. That shit is unnecessarily complicated and simply not very clever.
SWTOR is the best MMORPG released in years - you'd have to be an idiot to deny that. But frankly, I don't give a crap about Star Wars, so the game's #1 selling point is completely lost on me. And beneath that shiny Sci-Fi surface, there is simply nothing left that I haven't already experienced a million times before. And it's boring me to death.
Oh and if you're looking for proper RP-Servers, where certain naming and chat behaviour guidelines are enforced... well, let's just say you might as well be playing WoW.
Now, if you're a huge fan of this game and you're having a good time, god bless you, keep playing and do both of us a favour: Refrain from boring both of us to death with pointless arguments about how the bonus quest storylines are really interesting or how SWTOR isn't meant to be a pvp game. I don't give a shit, how fascinating a story about killing 10 NPCs is, because at the end of the day, I still have to kill 10 fucking NPCs, over and over again. And yes, other MMOs do the same thing. Doesn't mean I have to like it. And just because one should consider the PvP in SWTOR an "added bonus" is no excuse for it to be so lackluster and shit.
-Cat
Yuck, Azeroth ;)
AntwortenLöschenTo each their own, I guess. When I see Azeroth nowadays, I am aware of the fact that if you put spaceships and lightsabers into it, you might get SW:TOR. Without voiceovers and even shittier graphics, but hey, dinosaurs don't have to look good.
PvP in WoW less shitty than in SW:TOR (because that is what I think you are implying)? Are you kidding me? Both systems suck royally. Both are th exact same: woefully unbalanced.
The reason for that is that PvP in both games follows the same routine: Spend time, get better gear. Have better gear -> win more -> get even better gear. That, and the fact that there is an RNG at work which takes from "skill" and adds to "luck".
But why such a counterproductive system in what should be a measure of player skill vs player skill? To make people forget about the fact that their heroic battles against the enemy change nothing about their server. Warhammer at least had the idea (terribly executed in a non-working way) of having the consequences of the war be felt serverwide.
Oh, and let's not forget the "special" kind of people "competitive play" tends to attract - in PvE you can avoid dickheads to a certain extent. In PvP, not so much. Main point as to why I avoid PvP like the plague and why I cringe everytime I have to read these three letters in any chat whatsoever.
Oh, and why are you being so defensive about it? You change your preferences and likes/dislikes on an hourly basis (Adenauers "Was stör mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?" would've been coined by you instead, had you been born at that time :P) - so friggin what? Noone you'd have to apologize to about it, I guess. Not sure about Claire. :)
If you enjoy WoW at the moment, fine - I am perfectly sure that in, at the most, 2 months, we will see a blog entry claiming WoW doesn't cut it for you anymore :)
How I know about that? Because, face it, we are nomads with little to no self-control.
Why do I stick with SW:TOR for the time being? Simply put, potential. I know the endgame of WoW by heart and don't derive any joy from it anymore, and right now, SW:TOR's endgame bores me to tears equally - still, I am giddily waiting for new Legacy stuff, guild flagships, playing new classes etc. I am actually looking forward to more than "the next tier" which is a good thing, I guess.
Oh, and by the way, your press account free playtime going to waste is a bloody shame! :P
As for the pvp in WoW vs SWTOR - once again, at least the pvp in WoW actually fucking works with up to 80 people, which I seriously cannot say about Huttball and 20 people - not to mention that Huttball is the only pvp you'll ever get to see on Empire side.
AntwortenLöschenI'm just as bored and fed up with Azeroth as the next guy, don't get me wrong. However, if I wanna shell out a ton of money every month, wonder what the fuck I'm supposed to do and end up farming more and more crap, which will ultimately become useless with the next content update, I prefer to waste away my time and my life with a game, which actually works (to an extent). And to me, SWTOR doesn't. Aion had potential, I'm sure GW2 is gonna have potential, even fucking Vanguard probably had potential (and the best damn crafting, EVER) at some point, but I can watch said potential without actually playing what feels like an unfinished beta.
Because once you take away the story and dialoge (AKA hit level 50), this is exactly what you get. WoW with lightsabers, even shittier pvp, even dumber, more soul-crushingly boring skill trees and a combat system, which would have passed as 'alright' half a decade ago.
I won't lie to you - if it wasn't for the Clairebear, I'd finally give up on WoW (and probably MMOs in general) and never look back, because grinding, farming and repeating the same old crap over and over again for virtual items lost its appeal back in Ragnarok Online, before WoW was even released. But for now, WoW, annoying and boring and sucked-dry as it certainly is, annoys me less than SWTOR.
I don't see an Adenauer-esque change of heart here. WoW still gets on my nuts with all of its changes, the dumbing down and its incredibly stupid community. And I still think SWTOR gets people more attached to their characters than WoW or any other MMO out there ever could. That said, it doesn't do anything new or special on top of it. And the rest of the highly derivative content simply isn't that great or polished. And you cannot, in all seriousness, tell me that SWTOR's combat system, pvp, UI and skill trees are anywhere near the best you've ever seen out there. WoW is better in every single one of these aspects (I knoooow, Pandaria...) and while Bioware may or may not change that in the future, right now I have zero motivation to play any other characters on there, let alone start farming warzones and hard modes for purple stuff.
I think everything you fine people just said is awesome. I'll just bump most of that. However, I do stick around with SW:TOR simply because from time to time I like to swing a saber; nothing more really; pathetic I know. Aside from that, the lifetime membership I paid for Star Trek Online when I got back from Afghanistan seemed like a good idea at the time. Stupid me. every once in a while I do like to login and fuck around with a Constitution Class (Completely Underpowered for an iconic ship) and pretend I am Captain Fucking Kirk... 20 minutes later I feel like a jerk off for logging in to that game as well.
AntwortenLöschenWoW on the other hand; I played the shit out of that game until my fingers bled, leveled every class to end game, some purple some not so much... but fuck me... when the fuck is someone going to get truly creative during this pinnacle of computer technology and widely available and affordable broadband? There are not a ton of limitations in what we can do to make a truly immersive and compelling MMO except for the lackluster creative intelligence of these no talent developers and the GD greed of the production producers. I m mean really, $200 Million on an MMO and we get what for Star Wars?
But in their defense, I think they have a big challenge to overcome. It seems to me a lot of gamers are the point where the only thing that will satisfy them is when killing an opposing player, he/she will actually bleeds all over their keyboard; especially dickhead PvPers and Grievers. I don't know. At some point I hope I fucking outgrow these damn games so I can maybe go to the park again one day and get a tan. Plus 15 bucks a month is a couple packs of American Spirits. That's four days of lung killing I can do and maybe even one beer on a good day.
Anyway, see you guys in game on one of those fucking severs. peace!