The Old Republic saw release a little over a week ago and needless to say the numbers have been staggering. I expected the game to do well, but I didn’t expect it to do this well. There is a good chance that Star Wars: The Old Republic may be able to overtake the World of Warcraft in its twilight hours – at least where the casual player is concerned.
I myself have let my WoW account fall by the wayside and have to put at least 40 hours into SW:TOR since I got the game. That is a large time commitment for me, especially these days. Despite all the praise I have for the game, there are a few things that are beginning to irk me. Here’s four things I’m going to complain about.
1. No LFG/Dungeon Finder
When I began playing SW:TOR I did not expect a Dungeon Finder tool akin to the one used in World of Warcraft. How long did it take them to put that thing together? No, I didn’t expect that, but I did think that there would be some kind of LFG interface linking particular planets if not the entire server.
Maybe I’m comparing SW:TOR to WoW a little too much, but WoW is the standard afterall isn’t it? The Warcraft dungeon finding tool spoiled me a bit, and I do understand that The Old Republic is still in its infancy. Having to search chat for a reliable group is a daunting task and for the casual player it tends to not even be worth the hassle. For now, I suggest getting yourself into a good guild until the issue is addressed by Bioware.
2. Very Linear Early On
I didn’t play the Beta. In fact, I did everything I could to shield myself from any news coming out of that particular camp. Unfortunately, this lead me right into one of the biggest let downs in the game. It is linear during what appears to be the first 30 or so levels. If you start as an alliance character, you can bet the first world you’re traveling to is Coruscant after which you get two choices, or so it would seem anyway.
The planets are so level dependent that you’re really forced to travel a set path early on. You have to go to Taris because if you go to Nar Shaddaa first, the enemy level is too much for your character to handle. It kind of makes you wonder why the developers gave you the choice in the first place. Maybe it was so you could walk around and look at all the mobs that can kick your ass?
I’m being a bit harsh, your travel options do open up as you level. It appears that the developers were very concerned about keeping a player on track when it comes to the class specific quests, but maybe limiting freedom in a MMO isn’t the way to go.
3. Cut Scenes
This is a double edged sword at its best. On the one hand, the in game cut scenes do much to immerse the player in the story. On the other hand, it starts to get really old really quick. The feature must be a god send for role players, but for the rest of us, it is a novelty that eventually begins to grate on our patience.
I’m not saying I don’t appreciate the work put into the system, but forcing me to choose conversation options for every single fetch quest really is unnecessary. I suppose the idea is to try and add some gravity to what you’re doing – most of the time it doesn’t work. I know it’s just a kill or collection quest that I’ve seen in every other MMO and putting verbal garland on it isn’t going to change that.
I don’t care if you’ve got Nolan North talking to me about these quests, just let me get on with them.
4. No Add-Ons
The first three issues I listed in this post are manageable and I can overlook them with relative ease. However, the early exclusion of add-ons almost seems unforgivable in this day and age. I’m a casual player at heart. I don’t really need tools such as Recount or Deadly Boss Mods to fulfill my sense of wonder. There’s a reason I only ever raided once while playing WoW.
Even so, the game really needs the ability to customize the UI. From the experimenting I’ve done, it appears that I can’t really move anything around. On more than one occasion, I’ve gone to click a mob in the upper portion of the screen only to find myself selecting the chat bar instead. At minimum, I’d at least expect to be able to shift hotkey bars around the screen. Hopefully Bioware will release the LUA language support soon. I didn’t buy this damn G-13 for nothing.
All in all, Star War: The Old Republic is a great game that needs a bit of polish and hopefully most of the kinks are worked out by the time we see the first expansion.
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He doesn’t talk about extensions, just about add-ons. It’s not the same: Search “add-ons wow” for some examples.
Relax!
1.LFG DF ruined the community and dungeon community on wow making it a robotic experience instead of an adventure with friends.In wow today you just log in , hit dungeon finder , jump into the dungeon without moving from the city , run the dungeon without talking to anyone and then return to the city and log off.Little interaction and very robotic.Without that however you start making friends, talking while looking for people , etc etc just like it used to be and to be honest looking for a group in chat doesnt take long in TOR from my experience not like I remember in WOW Burning Crusade looking for a group to Shadow Halls…..
2.I agreed with you on this one , it isvery linear the first 10 levels and very basic but you have to understand they also did it for new MMO players not veterans which is understandable.Goblin and Worgen zones were very linear also not to mention the boring first 20 levels of Night Elfs(Darnassus and Ashenvale ,ugh)
3.You can turn off cutscenes on the games options(preferences) and you also can skip most of it all by hitting the space bar.
4.I dont mind add- ons if they are purely cosmetic like customizing the UI but the problem with add- ons is when they release ones like recount or dbm and the players think its obligatory to have them telling guildies or people invited to groups to either have them or leave.
I think the game is in the right direction so far and most of what people complain( not directed at you) is either purely aestethic,it can be solved or just nit picking none important stuff.Other people just need to either stop comparing it to WOW(is like comparing every fps to Modern Warfare because it became the standard just by sells) and just enjoy it or realize that is just not for them.
1. The thing about the dungeon finder is that it was a great help for casual players looking to get into a normal run. I never used the thing for heroics, but you are right and I did notice a decline in community on my server after it was released. I always liked WoW’s old LFG tool. It kept you within server, you had to talk to people and meet up to get a group together, and it made getting into a group all the easier. I really think that would be a great implementation. Maybe I should switch servers I can barely ever find a group in chat.
2. The linear approach is kind of interesting, and I love the class quest lines. Still I’d like the game to be a bit more open in approach. At the moment the game does not lend it self well to alts because of the straight forward approach. However, things like this always change with expansions which will likely add more zones to explore earlier on.
3. Good to know. I have to Google my problems more often.
4. We seem to feel the same way about addons. I like the cosmetic touch ups. Just being able to move things around makes me more comfortable when playing a game like this. I could care less about the ‘performance enhancing’ options. In all honesty I’ve never had a group or a guild require me to have a particular addon, but I know a lot of the ‘pro’ raiding guilds required particular addons. I never had a problem with getting new gear six months after a raiding tier so I never ran into the issue.
Thanks for commenting.
i like 1 2 3 but number 4 i am really happy they did not do. i would not have bought the game if it had add-ons on release. no way. you already pay per month and for the game. there should be 100s of hrs of content for us.