The Old Republic Becomes the Fastest-Growing MMO Ever

[Karathos]

And while I'm ranting, the "slap on a Star Wars dress" argument falls equally flat. World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, LotRO, Age of Conan, DC Universe Online. How many of these games would never have been made without a fanbase ready to buy and play them?

The entire base of MMO's is to make a game based on a certain franchise or original property - be it Warcraft, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, Robert E. Howard's writings, comic book continuity...

 

[EvilMaggot]

Its a great game. Im a very happy subscriber to it.

The story for each character is amazing, the combat is shiny and fun to look at, the voice acting is possibly some of the best in ALL OF VIDEO GAMING HISTORY. (("Fat stack of Credits? You just said my favorite term." -Bounty Hunter))

Theres almost nothing bad i can say about it. Short of "needs more cowbell", its almost a perfect game. And im glad the sales are reflecting it.

Amen to that brother!

 

[ASnogarD]

Mechanically dull as in the worlds are relatively small and the routes are linear, each time I tried to explore or take a shortcut I found myself hedged into a narrow route and had to return to the path to get to my quest area.
LotrO , Aion , WoW ... to name a few has wide open areas for the most part and encourages going off the path to explore... ToR I found punished you for going off the path by making you retrace your steps back to the path.

The mobs are sprinkled around the map and barely move from that spot, just waiting for players to engage them... there was only a few roaming mobs in the 4 worlds I did have the patiance to visit... and attack in the exact same manner each time you engage them, with the same timing each time.

I found the combat skills lacked synergy with other skills, all too often I would go through my skill rotation and find myself feebly beating on the enemy with the basic attack, in other MMO's I played there was a natural synergy with skills and you could work out a good rotation that would if executed well take out your opponent... in ToR either my foes was dead in an instant, or could tank all my rotation and leave me waiting for CD's.
The worst part is the reliance on the companion to even engage most mobs, but that took out a lot of the fun of tactically engaging a group of mobs, or picking off the straggler... each mob fight was with a group of 3 who would all instantly trigger on you.

The much vaunted story and conversation system is not really that special, you lose that sense of being 'the one' as soon as you see a identical companion running with some other player who is also on thier way to do the very same mission you are on.
The choices boil down to rejecting the task or accepting it with different flavours of accepting it.
Personally I couldnt keep the intrest in the story for very long, and often forgot why I was on my way to x spot because of the loooooooooooong distance running you have to do to get to quest spots.
Light and dark choices are rubbish too... I mean I wanted to save a dude as a Imp Agent but was 50 Dark points short of Dark I, I really wanted to see what Dark I does.

You are mistaking the hallmarks of a genre with the mechanics employed in the genre, yes a FPS is all about aiming and shooting but there is certain mechanics in that which make a good FPS and which make a bad FPS.
ToR is a mechanically dull MMO, it barely ticks the boxes to be a MMO... in fact I would say it is more a single player RPG with minor multiplayer components than a MMO.

If you are enjoying the game , good for you and I geniunely hope EA / Bioware can add more content for you to enjoy in the months to come... personally I miss my money that I spent on the game ( and have noted the excitement factor of this game has died in all my gaming community friends... its all GW2 and Diable 3 now ).

 

[ASnogarD]

And while I'm ranting, the "slap on a Star Wars dress" argument falls equally flat. World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, LotRO, Age of Conan, DC Universe Online. How many of these games would never have been made without a fanbase ready to buy and play them?

The entire base of MMO's is to make a game based on a certain franchise or original property - be it Warcraft, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, Robert E. Howard's writings, comic book continuity...

World of Warcraft added to what Everquest brought to the genre, taking all good parts and making MMO's more accessible to the masses ( prehaps not a good thing ).
LotrO brought Tolkiens world to the computer in a spectacular manner, the world is open and demands you explore it... you want to run all over the place to see whats about and theres a lot of variation in the areas... ToR's tiny worlds follow a pattern and dont deviate much on that planet.
AoC tried to add a more active combat system and tried to bring the savage world to life, sadly the launch was marred by bugs and technical issues that messed up the game popularity.
Aion brought a intresting world with seriously outworldly spectacles to view and wonder at, the combat was over the top and brimming with enthusiasm even if it was mostly a press skill at x time type system ..the sheer amount of visual effects going off made the combat more exciting, the skills were more intresting as well.

Can you say ToR's planets are wide open and present a visual treat that begs you to look around and explore every nook and cranny ?
Can you truely say the combat is really that exciting and you really feel your actions have an impact on the fight ?
Seriously ?

 

[Karathos]

And while I'm ranting, the "slap on a Star Wars dress" argument falls equally flat. World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, LotRO, Age of Conan, DC Universe Online. How many of these games would never have been made without a fanbase ready to buy and play them?

The entire base of MMO's is to make a game based on a certain franchise or original property - be it Warcraft, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, Robert E. Howard's writings, comic book continuity...

World of Warcraft added to what Everquest brought to the genre, taking all good parts and making MMO's more accessible to the masses ( prehaps not a good thing ).
LotrO brought Tolkiens world to the computer in a spectacular manner, the world is open and demands you explore it... you want to run all over the place to see whats about and theres a lot of variation in the areas... ToR's tiny worlds follow a pattern and dont deviate much on that planet.
AoC tried to add a more active combat system and tried to bring the savage world to life, sadly the launch was marred by bugs and technical issues that messed up the game popularity.
Aion brought a intresting world with seriously outworldly spectacles to view and wonder at, the combat was over the top and brimming with enthusiasm even if it was mostly a press skill at x time type system ..the sheer amount of visual effects going off made the combat more exciting, the skills were more intresting as well.

Can you say ToR's planets are wide open and present a visual treat that begs you to look around and explore every nook and cranny ?
Can you truely say the combat is really that exciting and you really feel your actions have an impact on the fight ?
Seriously ?

You list different games that added different things to the MMO genre. And then, instead of talking about what TOR itself added - you compare TOR to what the other games added. Lolwut? Yes, many of those games have a much more open world, but TOR added deeper storytelling than any of those games have brought. LotRO gets close, but otherwise they don't stand a chance. Different games focus on different things. AoC had visceral, brutal combat set in Robert E. Howard's dark world, LotRO had excellent storytelling (which isn't hard considering what they were working off - Tolkien). TOR has excellent storytelling and proper Star Wars-style gameplay.

On the subject of exploration. I don't feel the planets have to be huge open worlds with shit-tons of exploration possibilities; because I like the focused, personal storyline I'm taken through when I quest on the planet. Different games add different things that different people like. Are you seeing the pattern yet or should I go get a crayon and a chalkboard?

And yes, I can honestly say I find the combat very appealing. The Star Wars music, the Lightsaber sound effects as they move around, blasters firing and Jedi and Sith blades colliding. Aion and TOR are two completely different games. Why add an out-of-place, over-the-top anime combat look to a game set in the Star Wars universe? So it would look flashier for no good reason? Herp derp.

As you said: Seriously?

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

And while I'm ranting, the "slap on a Star Wars dress" argument falls equally flat. World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, LotRO, Age of Conan, DC Universe Online. How many of these games would never have been made without a fanbase ready to buy and play them?

The entire base of MMO's is to make a game based on a certain franchise or original property - be it Warcraft, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, Robert E. Howard's writings, comic book continuity...

World of Warcraft added to what Everquest brought to the genre, taking all good parts and making MMO's more accessible to the masses ( prehaps not a good thing ).
LotrO brought Tolkiens world to the computer in a spectacular manner, the world is open and demands you explore it... you want to run all over the place to see whats about and theres a lot of variation in the areas... ToR's tiny worlds follow a pattern and dont deviate much on that planet.
AoC tried to add a more active combat system and tried to bring the savage world to life, sadly the launch was marred by bugs and technical issues that messed up the game popularity.
Aion brought a intresting world with seriously outworldly spectacles to view and wonder at, the combat was over the top and brimming with enthusiasm even if it was mostly a press skill at x time type system ..the sheer amount of visual effects going off made the combat more exciting, the skills were more intresting as well.

Can you say ToR's planets are wide open and present a visual treat that begs you to look around and explore every nook and cranny ?
Can you truely say the combat is really that exciting and you really feel your actions have an impact on the fight ?
Seriously ?

You list different games that added different things to the MMO genre. And then, instead of talking about what TOR itself added - you compare TOR to what the other games added. Lolwut? Yes, many of those games have a much more open world, but TOR added deeper storytelling than any of those games have brought. LotRO gets close, but otherwise they don't stand a chance. Different games focus on different things. AoC had visceral, brutal combat set in Robert E. Howard's dark world, LotRO had excellent storytelling (which isn't hard considering what they were working off - Tolkien). TOR has excellent storytelling and proper Star Wars-style gameplay.

On the subject of exploration. I don't feel the planets have to be huge open worlds with shit-tons of exploration possibilities; because I like the focused, personal storyline I'm taken through when I quest on the planet. Different games add different things that different people like. Are you seeing the pattern yet or should I go get a crayon and a chalkboard?

And yes, I can honestly say I find the combat very appealing. The Star Wars music, the Lightsaber sound effects as they move around, blasters firing and Jedi and Sith blades colliding. Aion and TOR are two completely different games. Why add an out-of-place, over-the-top anime combat look to a game set in the Star Wars universe? So it would look flashier for no good reason? Herp derp.

As you said: Seriously?

i think your hitting a brick wall trying to explain why people find TOR appealing...

(i agree with you, just saying the same tiring argument is placed forth everytime by every single hater)

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

It's not really very fair, when WoW came out all those years ago MMORPG's were very small and unknown. The fanbase grew massively but it was over a longer period of time. It's no suprise that the ONLY decent mmo to be released sold well.

I'd say it's fair, seeing as how every other MMO has failed.

Bravo to EA and Bioware though. They've brought us one step closer to ending the MMO monopoly of WoW. People tend to think that because Star Wars was slapped onto the title that it sold. I think it's more the fact that it's a Bioware game, that it has such high sales.

 

[beniki]

Well, we'll see.

I was sceptical about TOR... the class copies and skill descriptions I read made me think it was lazily designed. And true, there are some places in the game which reek of shoddy level design (Ord Mantell in particular had me pulling my hair out over the constant back tracking and far away dead ends), but overall it's well put together, and some levels are superbly designed (I could rave for hours on how Korriban takes all the hassle out of quests simply through layout).

Bioware have said they're planning to regularly release new plots and Chapters. That has me excited. It would be the worlds first soap opera MMO, and probably the only way to make subscription based seem reasonable to a consumer.

Whilst I feel an MMO should be more sand-boxy, I think that Bioware's more structured style would be a nice counter point to Guild Wars 2. Essentially, TOR for a story, Guild Wars 2 for personal expression.

Kind of ironic if it does turn out like that. Bioware first started in a more creative mode with DnD style, and Guild Wars was rigidly paced. Now they've flipped sides!