How would you have improved SWTOR?

[Faeelin]

It's pretty obvious to everyone that the game, while fun, isn't gonna last. But what could Bioware have done to make it a game that people were still playing?

(Has it been a financial loss for Bioware? They managed to sell a bunch of copies, I'm sure).

[katmai]

gonna last? not sure your measuring stick (WoW, everquest, Lotor)

I mean last numbers I saw it was at subscription levels of 1.3 million...which was down from 1.7 when first came out. Have to see how it goes over 2nd half of it's first year, considering they have announced new playable species, not to mention the Legacy based changes that have been implemented and are planned.

[Berkut]

I would say they needed to have some balls about the gameplay.

Making it a WoW clone gameplay-wise just meant it was not going to last.

Making the two sides cookie-cutter copies of one another was lame as well.

Trying too hard to achieve cross-factional equality makes the gameplay boring in the long run, and having the classes map so strictly to the standard MMO role structure makes the gameplay too much of the same old same old thing.

Finally, they made it too damn easy, IMO.

[Barrister]

It's pretty obvious to everyone that the game, while fun, isn't gonna last. But what could Bioware have done to make it a game that people were still playing?

(Has it been a financial loss for Bioware? They managed to sell a bunch of copies, I'm sure).

I'm not sure there's much.  It's looking like more and more that Blizzard just managed to catch lightning in a bottle with WoW - that no other MMO before or since has gotten anywehere close to their numbers.

That being said...  I've been playing STO the last few months, but TOR the last two days.  It hit me last night that the only thing to do in TOR is go pewpewpew.  It gets tiring.  Whereas in STO there are nights I'll log in and never fire my phasers once - instead I run around doing a diplomatic mission, travelling to get different Duty Officer missions (there are different missions in each sector, which forces you to travel around to get the better ones), maybe some light trading on the exchange.  So Maybe a little more variety in TOR would help.

I'm going to disagree with Berkut that being a WoW cookie-cutter is the problem.

And it also depends on their economics of the game.  Subs are obviously down, but even if they settle in at one quarter of launch it'll still be one of the most-played MMOs going.  Assuming it is still profitable with those kind of numbers I don't see any reason why it won't continue for years to come.

[Grey Fox]

More end game. You have to plan and release a game where 60-70% of it happens at max level. That is the world WoW built.

[Valmy]

They could have made it KOTOR 3.  Bastards.

[Ed Anger]

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That is all.

[Syt]

TOR was the first MMO where I ever hit the level cap (made it to 40s in WoW, 30s in LotRo, 20s in AoC, RE Lower in STO etc.), so I can understand that people who play these games more earnestly than I find the content too limited/gameplay too short).

Blizzard's WoW was the first MMO to really hit the mainstream gamer demographic, and by the time other games were ready to do the same, WoW had huge amounts of contents that newly released games couldn't match.

I log into TOR now and then and do a few missions, but yeah - the content seems limited and there's not really much to do besides missions and PvP (and I'm not a PvP guy). There's not much exploration (in other games I would go off, randomly exploring), crafting is largely automated through companions (in other games you can at least go and harvest resources and then go crafting).

[CountDeMoney]

gonna last? not sure your measuring stick (WoW, everquest, Lotor)

Is LOTOR really an appropriate measuring stick?

[katmai]

gonna last? not sure your measuring stick (WoW, everquest, Lotor)

Is LOTOR really an appropriate measuring stick?

I was just throwing out games that have been out for more than 5 years. Only way it made the cut

[CountDeMoney]

I think at the beginning there was a fundamental imbalance in the classes;  far too few of them, and some where heavier than others.  I mean, you'll get player imbalance sometimes--OMG I YAM TEH DARK SIDE--just like every retard gravitated to Alliance in WoW before the Great Belf Bone Toss years ago, but far too few classes.

Also, Syt has a point;  for more extensive players, leveling up was too easy, and you were missing so much more content at levels that weren't worth exploring once you surpassed them.

While Berkut bemoans the WoWism of the gameplay, we've seen plenty of MMORPGs that have attempted other angles, only to die on the vine.  Hell, I loved the production and market model of Pirates of The Burning Seas, but the SP modes, combined with the limited timescale of the era and world really junked it.

[Barrister]

There are eight advanced classes though.  The four "classes" exist for story reasons, but each of the ACs play very differently from the other one from what I understand.

I'd also throw in the lack of end-game content.  As I understand it once you hit max level there just isn't much to do, which is quite unlike WoW.

[CountDeMoney]

There are eight advanced classes though. 

Still not enough.

[The Brain]

I don't know if SWTOR has been successful or not so far, obviously. The lack of endgame content combined with quick levelling of characters (compare the grind of release WOW) made me quit when I hit 50. Likely they should have designed the endgame and then built the road to get there, instead they focused on the road to 50.

The setting is more niche than that of WOW, and it is also more limiting. Fantasy MMORPG's have been dominating the scene since MMORPG's appeared.

But a more general question is "how can WOW be beaten?" I don't know if this was SWTOR's best-case goal (I hope not) but it is not at all obvious to me how you would do such a thing without a major unforced Blizzard mistake. I don't know how you would beat WOW today.

[MadImmortalMan]

1: I'd have had Bethesda make it instead of Bioware. 

2: Actual space travel. Combine the traditional rpg part of the game with an X3/Privateer/Freelancer space engine.

3: No commendations or NPC vendors of any kind. All end-use items must be crafted and no such thing as item binding.

4: Skill-based advancement. No levels.


There are other things I would also do that would make it awesome but would also make most of the market hate it. So I'd stick to those.