If you do not intend on reading the entirety of the post, please do not respond. This game seems to bring out the fanboy in people. I would like intelligent discussion.

While I was watching Jurassic park, I thought I might as well do something else to fill the time. As for background, I am not English major. I will most likely butcher the language with my internet speak. I am a Computer Engineer; it is a wonder in and of itself that my sentences are not a string of 1’s and 0’s.

I have come here not because I am mad, but because I am concerned. I play video games, and most of you do too. I have witnessed a steady decline of Bioware’s quality since the spawning of DA2.

I have come to give me .02 on The Old Republic. (Emphasis on “Old”) I have played the closed beta extensively, and crafted a list of issues that I am still seeing inside the current release of the game. I want to be clear, I am not trying to hate on this game. I’m trying to inform those who have not yet played it.

Here it goes:

• Massive FPS issues in PvP and PvE content

(Even on higher end machines)

There exist quite a few threads on the ToR forums that acknowledge this issue. Even those with very powerful computers are experiencing this issue.

• Easy end game content

(Has been downed within days of release)

Patch 1.1 due to be online around the 17, proves this point. This is probably the quickest end game content addition to an MMO. Guilds seem to be rolling through this content very quickly. It can be quite alarming when the majority of the forum users tell players who are end-game to “Roll an alt or gb2 WoW”.

• Lack of outside-the-box thinking

(The "sneak peak" of the next raid bosses is droids)

This could be under end game content, but this issue is rather great. I've heard of people say “What do you expect from the starwars universe?". That being said, if that is the main excuse, then there will be some unhappy players.

• Poor story (For Certain Classes)

When I say poor, I mean the last novel I read was in high school, and this manages to have worse dialogue in comparison. There are some redeeming qualities to some of the writing. The writing team was segregated in a sense. The creation of the story for each class differs quite a bit. I am basing my experience on Jedi Marauder. I've been told IA has a much better storyline.

• Camera

The direction for the cut-scenes feels like it was being filmed by a 2 year old. You'd be surprised how accurate I'm being. Occasional foot shots, leg shots.

• Instancing/Sharding

The world feels dead. The sharding used in ToR only allows a small percentage of the total pop to be seen at once. This creates the ghost town effect. This is one of the most confusing issues, and I have not come to terms with it just yet. If Bioware wanted to create the next big MMO, why would they instance the servers so much? The hardware they purchases should have been able to handle large groups of people in an area at once.

If you would like to see what I speak of, there is a rather funny youtube video with the title of, “bioware is trolling their own game”. While I do not condone trolling in order to make a point, this does show some pretty valid footage toward the midway mark.

• Poor Level Design

The areas are massive, but not in a good way. They are large for the sake of being large. Just lots of empty space really. "Alleys" are literally the size of warehouse buildings. I'll go ahead and throw no critters into this section as well. The world isn't populated with tons of NPCs to even make low pop servers feel alive.

Hoth and Tatooine are extremely good examples for this. They are just big, but for no real purpose. Both of the “planets” I speak of suffer from the ghost-town effect.

I have a hard time finding something positive for this part. Some of the architecture is well done for the art style, but it all comes off as very blocky.

• Graphics

I suppose this is subjective, but comparing ToR to modern games in the genera it almost becomes objective. The hero engine only supports up to DirectX 9, and AA is not supported. I have yet to see a modern AAA title release with no anti-aliasing. Also, the textures seem to be rather poor. Some say the High textures are not working as of yet, and I really hope so. This may be an MMO, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for them to hide behind. They did try to go for a “stylized” look, but there exists good and bad stylization.

There is some good in the graphics department. When you see it, you can most definitely tell it's star-wars. The lighsabers look great, and so do most of the ability effects.

• Crafting

This is a topic best left to those who have seen endgame. The gear you create from professions is not better than that earned from PvP or from PvE content. This makes crafting essentially useless for the player and pretty decent for your companions. I would go into how this affects the player economy, but I might as well talk about the auction house. Crew crafting is another issue that should probably be discussed. Having your crew get the mats for you is easier, but at what cost? Streamlining does not equal progress.

You can also choose to collect crafting mats yourself, and can make quite a bit of profit from slicing in particular. Overall, crafting is OK, it could have been fleshed out a bit better.

• Auction House

This is quite sad, really. So many MMOs have hit the nail on the head when it comes to a user friendly auction house. I'm not sure how they didn't get the memo. It's the definition of clunky. This is really hurting the player economy, because no one wants to use the AH.

• UI customization

This is pretty straight forward. I do understand there are other major issues that need to be addressed.

• No mod support/Addons

I have seen time and time again, that the general community does not want addons. They seem to believe that with addons, comes the destruction of a community. LFG in particular, but I personally believe that not having some of the key addons will just cause un-needed spam in chat channels.

• Ability Delay/Lack of Fluid Combat

This is major issue that has had enormous threads. They have videos along with thousands of posts about this. This makes for an un-enjoyable experience. I noticed this in the beta, and there were quite a few threads about it. This seems to be an engine issue, and may not be an easy fix. Either way, they were told about this many months ago. There is no excuse for keeping this in.

Do not get me wrong, this is not the GCD.

• No duel spc/No cap for Talent Changing

The title seems to describe the issue pretty well, but I will elaborate. There is currently no means to change your specialization without pay very large sums of credits. There is no cap on the cost of respec. This becomes a much larger issue when you reach endgame, as your players will probably be hesitant to spend credits to change spec.

Closing Thoughts:

Obviously, since I have played some of the bugs have been dealt with, but it seems the MAJOR ones have not. Ilum has gotten changed in order to give more incentive to PvP. There seems to be a problem with priority though. Some issues that made it into some of these smaller patches weren't even needed NOW. Bioware has quite a bit of work to do to make this game last. You cannot come out with an MMO or a game in general, calls it a “AAA” title, and lack so much.

As a closed beta tester myself, I can say this game should not have been released. The forums were full of huge bugs for a very long time. I'm quite worried for Bioware because of the previously stated fact. Whoever is making the priority list for fixes is clearly not doing their job. That, or the lack of communication is preventing the player base from know what is to come next.

I do apologize if I come off as harsh. I have become jaded over the last few months. I have been quite up to date on the ToR forums, and at the sign of any criticism, the community seems to put up their blaster shields. I wanted this game to be good, I really did, but it just falls short on so many points. I’m not sure what game most of the reviewers have been playing, I just can’t see how we had the same build.

There are other issues that I have mentioned, but if I keep going I might as well write a book.

Rating: 7/10

In the end I just don't think this game was ready for release. There are just too many rookie mistakes they made. This could be due to EA demanding a specific release date, but that would be speculation. This game feels like WoW, but WoW from many years ago. The lack of Polish in the title leaves you wanting, and so does the content.

I applaud Bioware for at least trying to introduce a new feature to the MMO genera. The story and VO alone cannot keep an MMO "fresh". If they only put more time and effort into this game, they really could have had something special. I just don't see people playing through the game 8 times to get the small percentage of class quests under their belt. It is with a heavy heart that I give this game a 7/10.

(Average/10)

I'm enjoying the game so far. Maybe it's partially due to the fact that I am playing with a few friends but I still enjoy the mechanics and story. Also, the FPS is terrible on my laptop but when I switched over to my gaming PC, it ran pretty smooth. I feel like the performance issues are real hit or miss and most people cannot distinguish between bad framerate or connection lag. (I'm not saying that is you but something I have noticed). The game, while large, is missing some basic features and the AH is not user-friendly at all.

I feel like in a few months with some more content patches, the game will grow into something unique. The thing that makes me want to play TOR more than anything is just the fact that the Star Wars universe is huge and leaves infinite possibility for expansion of the game. While some of your complaints are granted, some I disagree with and can only say that the game will evolve and has had a good starting point. Maybe come back in a few months once the majority of your gripes are, hopefully, fixed and you will find it more enjoyable.

I read it and don't really feel like making a comment on the content of your review as much of it either comes down to "Meh, that doesn't seem like an issue" and "meh, you're just wrong." 
 
But, I will say, considering you just wrote an entire review where every bullet point is something negative, why in the world do you give it a 7/10?  Seriously now.

@Patman99:

You are correct in a few aspects. Games are meant to be fun, and are usually enjoyed with friends. I do hope you have a good time, I just want to make sure people are educated on specific issues.

Also, you are correct in that Star Wars is a very large universe. They can go in many directions. It seems they are keeping things close to the chest though. The "Sneak Peak" of the next set of bosses seem to be Droids. They need to be a little more creative when it comes to end-game, otherwise there will be a loss of interest from guilds. It's just really odd for them to already be releasing end-game content. The leveling is just too fast atm, and Bioware is having to come up with content fast.

I hope they take some risk, but from what I've seen in the past and now there is no evidence that proves they will risk features that have not already been proven a success.

The "wait and see" tactic holds as long as you and your friends are enjoying yourselves. Otherwise, doing what I have done in my original post is meant to get the attention of the devs, in order to create a better product for everyone.

@Turambar:

I don't mean to come off as completely negative. There are some good aspect in this game, and I should probably go into them. The game does deserve some credit to being a decent MMO for 2012.

The reason I give it a 7/10 is because while there are many problems, there is a decent game somewhere inside all of the rough. I suppose my liking of the star wars universe did contribute a little to the score not being a 5/10.

There are just better MMOs on the market at atm, and I don't see why someone would presumably leave WoW for a significantly less polished experience. (especially for the $60 price tag plus sub)

@thefriend: Yeah I agree, I hope they take some risks with it all because the Star Wars universe is just too big just to play it safe. I have hope, however, that the game will develop into something both enjoyable for noobs and veterans along with being a fairly popular MMO. But if Bioware of late has taught us anything is that they play it real safe and will not stray too far from what EA expects. Hopefully a game this big with the early success it has had will let Bioware let loose a little bit on it.

Your "review" is all over the place. You claim to not want to hate on the game, then go through bullet points (some of them opinion,) with every one of them being negative. Then you give the game a 7/10 score (above average) immediately followed by "this game should not have been released." I'd like to give you the intelligent discussion you ask for, but I honestly have no idea where to start.

@animathias:

7/10 is average. I do go over a lot of the problems in this "review", which makes it seem like I do not like this game. I do not mean to come off as such.

I do still believe this game should not have been released. In it's current state I can only give it a 7/10, but if it had been in beta for a few more months, there is a chance it could have gotten an 8 or 9. I don't seem to understand what is so confusing about that.

I don't think I ever said that this game is downright AWFUL. It isn't, but Bioware's ability to prioritize fixes is the problem here. Most if not all of these issues should have been ironed out in the Beta.

This review is not good. You only talk about the bad. Nothing good was said about the game that I read and yet you give it a 7/10.. I enjoy the game for what it is and I played wow for 6 years. I dont spend a ton of time on MMO's anymore but I can understand if one is good / bad or New / Old,, And everything in your review says New game that sucks and you give it a decent score though. You need to go into the details of good along with the bad. Also, you should finish a game (You personally do End game / pvp) instead of constantly stating that there are a ton of forum posts about those issues and actually give us your personal thoughts. You wrote alot but it does not mean that Alot is good. If this is your first review Id give ya a 3/10 but if it is not then I would suggest going more indepth or summarize it alot more to get straight to the point.

I only read the 7/10

Haha.

A 7/10 for a game you think should not have been released? That makes no sense. You're falling into the trap of using a 10 point scale, where in reality it's only 7-10 that gets used. You spend all that time saying what is bad about the game, you don't think it should be released, that does not make sense for a 7/10.

7/10 isn't average, btw. 5/10 is average.

@McShank:

I'll do my best to inject some "good" Into my "review", but not this night. After playing a game for an extended period of time, The worst parts of the game seems to rise to the top of your memory.

If you have to look at my post as not being a review in order to come up with legitimate discussion, then by all means do so.

I have come up with a list of issues this game suffers from, let us discuss that if it will get some good conversation going.

@DeeGee:

I don't think you're understanding what I'm trying to say. This game has very large issues, that if dealt with, would make this a pretty decent MMO by today's standards. It just needed more time in development, but as is this game deserves an AVERAGE rating.

People use different scales. Maybe next time I should just use AVERAGE/10.

No. This is the WoW killer. I DEMAND IT TO BE SO!

Joking aside, it's an MMO. It's just like every other MMO you've played since 2004, except this one wasn't totally broken and unplayable at launch. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Some people are just playing it because it's what their friends are playing (I'm in that category). It's not bad, but it's not great either. Can it get better? Sure. But I also said this about Aion, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Rift. Didn't really work out any of those times so why would it this time?

@thefriend:You're right, people do use differenct scales. You, for instance, use a very silly one. Let's take a look at your scale:

1-6 - Bad

7 - Average

8-10 - Good?

You see how horribly weighted this is, right? Makes no sense. For a game that you said yourself has so many issues that it should not have been released, you still think it derserve a 7? You should get a job at Gamespot, man. This is why stars are great, because 3 stars is average, slap bang in the middle of 1 and 5 stars.

You realize that WoW would open up a new raid, and make it mathematically impossible to defeat bosses until the next patch, and then within 8 hours of the patch that balances the raid, it would be cleared? If they made the bosses killable as soon as it comes out, they would be down just as fast.

Also, really love freaking out about end game content because two guilds have managed to take down a boss. The actions of about 50 people somehow more important than the other 2 million.

I am bemused that you chose Hoth and Tatooine, the two most inhospitable planets in Star Wars, to support your criticism of TOR for feeling too large and barren.

Good Post. Although it's more of a "problems with TOR" than a review; most of these points are spot on.

@StarvingGamer said:

I am bemused that you chose Hoth and Tatooine, the two most inhospitable planets in Star Wars, to support your criticism of TOR for feeling too large and barren.

lol, I'm glad someone else noticed this.

Anywho, why don't people use the freaking user review feature for posting reviews instead of the damn forums? It's there for a reason people.

Dragon Age 2 is so much better than Jade Empire so stop it with the "Oh my god Bioware is doomed"

@thefriend said:

• Easy end game content

(Has been downed within days of release)

Patch 1.1 due to be online around the 17, proves this point. This is probably the quickest end game content addition to an MMO. Guilds seem to be rolling through this content very quickly. It can be quite alarming when the majority of the forum users tell players who are end-game to “Roll an alt or gb2 WoW”.

I'd like to add to your review that the guilds that actually have beaten the content on the hardest difficulty have said that this was some of the hardest content they have ever played in an MMO. While I cannot comment on the normal modes, if you want a challenge, it seems to be there for those who want it.

Good review, its a rare thing to see actual content in a forum post.

I have not seen the end game content yet, my high lvl is 27, but I have to say that I wish that they would have put out kotor 3 instead. It would have cost a fraction of the budjet and it would have bin way more satisfying for me personaly.

@Patman99:

Who gives a shit about the 'hardcore' really? You review the game by quoting the 1% of hardcore raiders and PvPers and their problems with control responsiveness and end game difficulty. The controls are plenty responsive (outside of considerable lag in warzones during peak hours due to high traffic) and the content is challenging enough for the casual crowd. Everybody who isn't a hardcore player should not even notice most of your complaints. It seems to me like you regurgitate other people's opinions into a review and sell it as your own - I just can't take it seriously. Come back when you have an own opinion. Thank you.

As for your other complaints (I've but skim read your review), there's always bad coming with the good, you chose to disregard the tonnes of good and deliver an extremely onesided opinion piece. Blech.

How comez you didn't attach this to a proper review on the TOR page?

...there are so many faulty points to your "review" (seems more like organized bashing) that I just don't know where to start in discussing with you.

@Seppli: I didnt write the review.... I think you accidentally replied to me rather than the OP. Im loving TOR so far but I think there are some aspects that need to get better. I feel the "hardcore's" complaints will be slowly fixed as the game gets tweaked with every coming patch. If the hardcore are expecting the best endgame MMO they have ever played at launch, then maybe they should temper their expectations. The game is huge and off to an incredible start and I cannot wait to see where it goes from here.