A comparition between SWTOR and WOW

So, after 1 month of swtor, an avarage of 10 hours/day gameplayed ive hit level cap and cleared all the end game content on normal mode. I´ve now quit swtor and returned to wow (after 7 months of non-subscription) and here are my thoughts (in case you wonder how swtor was).

LEVELING:
The leveling in swtor was amazing. This due to the choises we had and the voice over and the story (the story in wow is actually amazing as well, it was the way the story was told in swtor that made it so good). But as a player that wanted to reach end game fast i think it appeal even more to casual players.

PVP:
The pvp in swtor was far worse then in wow. We had no decent target system (no target of target and the tab system didnt work properly). They had some nice ideas, but with 3 battlegrounds only it went boring after a while. Arena and rated battleground is really what people will miss when doing pvp in swtor (rated battlegrounds is just released in swtor though).

PVE:
The voice acting makes the flashpoints/raids a bit more fun. But after 1-2 runs you just skip it anyway to progress faster and get your gear. No macros or addons makes the end game experience boring as !@#$, all you can do is avoid the mechanincs in the raid, no calculating your dmg via a damage meter, etc.

I think swtor appeal to the casual players more. The leveling progress is good and its an amazing game but wow is still in my opinion the best mmo out there. My biggest issues with swtor are the following:

1: No diversity between classes.
Tbh, the racials in wow makes you feel more special then the classes in swtor. 50% of the classes wear a lightsaber and at least 15% the same color as you do. The gear looks pretty simular between the classes and levels (at least if you roll a jedi), the siths got some epic looks though. And the abilities are way to simular, 25% of the classes got a sprint, almost 50% of the classes got a leap.

2: No macros/addons:
If you're a casual player i dont think this matters that much, but any theorycrafter or raider whos used to damage meters and addons will have a lacking end game experience. The dual spec is also something i missed a lot (had to be same spec in pvp and pve and the respecc cost was to expensive to try out new fun specs).

3: This is a problem i had (i bet many will disagree here) but the star wars universe is to dark. After playing swtor and comming back to wow its such a great experience again, colorful and awesome enviroment.

Final words: I think swtor will be a great game later on, but at the moment it aint even close to compete with wow end game. With mists of pandoria wow will add even more end game content (pokémon ftw?) and i think swtor will have a hard time to keep up. If your a casual player and would like to try out something new i would reccomend swtor for you but for the others i advice you to wait some and let bioware develop theyr mmo further.

To the wow community i would like to say, dont change your game or try to adapt to swtor. Many people are leaving but i think a lot will come back as well (as me and my freinds who tryed out swtor are). Thank you Blizzard for creating the best game ever created.

1. I have a feeling a lot of this will come as the game ages. As the level cap is increased and builds are tweaked the amount of choices will go up (not to mention new classes will likely be added eventually). Right now I have to sort of forget what it was like at level 85 with tons of abilities and talents to choose from, because I feel almost incomplete when I am healing and only have 6 abilities that heal (including those I get from talents) compared to the bars I had full of different heals.

It's just not really one of those things a game can jump to either, because starting out with no base class and trying to build it to match games that have been around for 6+ years would not only leave your player's heads spinning but would result in horribly imbalanced classes that probably wouldn't even "feel right" when you tried to play them. Building classes a step at a time insures the developers are adding to a stronger foundation and all changes keep with what the players expect for their class.

2. Not being able to see damage/healing/mitigation done over a period of time as a history is huge for me even though I'm pretty casual these days. No game has tooltips and talent wording that's 100% self explanatory and since they all play on one another it's nicer just to have some more compiled data on the *actual* effects. If they don't allow addons they really need a committed UI team to get the UI to where it needs to be for players to really feel like they're in control of their character.

Again, you could argue this is something that should have been in at release, but the game *is* playable without it. As the community ages, however, the desire for these things will only increase.

3. I love the Star Wars universe, but I know what you're talking about. When playing a game as large and "never ending" as most MMOs there needs to be a balance. You want to go somewhere and feel like you're fighting for your life against oppressive evil (or good) but then you want to go back to areas where things feel more cheerful or at least civilized. Even a city planet like Coruscant where you'd expect to be interacting primarily with citizens of the Republic you're fighting criminals in slum environments *the whole time* (which I realize is part of the planet but not what most fans would think of first when the planet is mentioned).

Overall I still feel like there's more for me with this game than WoW (especially being an altaholic with the upcoming Legacy system) even though I did give up a *lot* when I left. If for no other reason, I'm still making friends here where in WoW I had a very difficult time meeting anyone new from my own server without guild hopping. I just hope this game can survive the incredibly high expectations people had coming into it long enough to grow into a game that has space to include a lot of what people miss when switching over.

We have enough data from WoW to know exactly where it's headed and what decisions will be made and I've never been the sort to be okay with repetition even when it's candy coated. So far I like what I see from TOR (story focus, SW lore, less grindy, etc...), but admit there's still plenty of things I'm still waiting for.

You play each day for more hours than I work.

No wonder youve run out of things to do.

This game is facing the same problems every new MMO has faced: WoW is years old and people expect too much. This is SWTOR, not WoW. It's BioWare, not Blizzard. Two different games run by two different companies. Same thing happened when RIFT launched last year; "Wahh this isn't WoW I quit wahhh!"

There's only 4 things that I want to see added to SWTOR that were in WoW:

• Combat Log access
• Dual Spec
• Rudimentary Dungeon Finder tool (at least something like the original one in WoW)
• Being able to select which Warzone you want to queue for (cuz screw Voidstar)

And btw, lolpandas pretty much guaranteed that I will never go back to WoW. I quit just before the Ruby Sanctum raid came out due to guild drama, came back at the release of Cataclysm, and quit 3 weeks later because I was just bored (and because they completely screwed with healers). It's just the same old same old over and over.

I honestly don't see how this is a bad thing. With too many spells it just gets so complicated. That was one of the things that I didn't like about Clerics in RIFT... so. many. damn. spells. All you need is a resource efficient (spam) heal, a time efficient (emergency) heal, an AoE heal, and a HoT. Any more than that and you're just adding unnecessary complexity.

With as much free time as they have, jumping around between a few games is probably the way to go. Especially if (as it seems) they're willing to grind the same content they've already done repeatedly for a long time if it means more time doing things. There are plenty of games that offer that shamelessly.

At least this wasn't like the posts on the official forums where they feel cheated for having "wasted time" playing a game they enjoy. Right now this game is fun. As it ages and more content is added it's less likely to turn away people like this who admit to enjoying it but want something that can waste more time.

Matter of preference I guess. I love the challenge of using the perfect ability at the perfect time, and actually very much preferred the changes they made to healing in Cataclysm (where being mindful of resources were more equal to reaction than ignored in favor of it). I never felt like I had a spell I didn't have a purpose for.

I still remember my second heroic at 85 on my holy priest (who was an alt) and getting compliments through the run on how I was doing amazing at keeping everyone alive and how I could last so much longer than most healers. Then I won a roll and equipped it to get the achievement for having at least blue level in every slot... for WotLK ilvl. Their reactions were priceless.

It's also probably bad that my first healer in this game is a scoundrel. Anything that's not a HoT requires Upper Hand except the only ability that reliably generates UH (not generated on random chance). If HoTs aren't enough in PvP (who can't out damage a HoT?) you have to choose between using UH (which you can have a max of two of, and should only have one most of the time for max efficiency) or using the ability that has a long cast time. Once Underworld Medicine is interrupted you can't use that ability anymore, and also have no way of generating UH for any other ability. All you can do is run around spamming HoTs and using any UH you may have already had.

I will start by saying I never played World of Warcraft. I came to SWTOR from EvE Online (which IMHO is a far superior game to WoW and any other MMO due to the player driven nature of the game). I also played Aion for approximately 9 months as well.

I am a casual player. As such it took me just shy of two months to get to level 50. I am now starting to experience what end game content there is.
I thoroughly enjoyed the leveling system. It felt very smooth and each planet successfully levels you in preparation for the next planet/zone by accomplishing the quests without needing to grind on mobs or repeatable quests (an issue that Aion had).

The PvE content in SWTOR is very enjoyable. This is largely in part due to the voice acting used as opposed to dialogue boxes and the immersion of conversation that players participate in. I agree that on repeatable content, such as Flash Points players end up spacebar-ing through the dialogue. Nevertheless, I would prefer to spacebar through the content than not have it at all. I agree that there is a lack of diversity between the classes. But no less diversity than many other games currently out. This is one aspect that WoW and Rift excel in.

Macros and Add-ons – What is the point? Honestly? Macros are for the lazy and Add-ons are for people that don’t know how to live with limitations. Get over it!

You don’t like how dark the Star Wars universe is? Again, oh well, that’s your issue. Bioware developed the game to be that way for a reason… the story. If you need bright shiny happy… go play hello kitty online.

The game has been out for two months (not including Beta). You expect it to have everything mature games have? If you do, then you need to become a programmer yourself. I want to see you develop a game that has 6+ years of content and expansion in two years. You will not be able to, despite how much you want to.

Also, as Dhamp said, “You play each day more hours than I work” The timeframe in which you leveled and played through all the end game content is not realistic for most people that play this game due to being in College or the professional work force. Though I appreciate you posting what you have. I do enjoy people sharing their perspective. However, take a look at how unique your perspective may be compared to most people that play SWTOR.

SWTOR is also created with one thing in mind that other MMOs haven’t, a unique story for each class. Perhaps you should play through the other story lines. That should provide you a few more months of content. In the interim, Bioware will be working and releasing additional content I’m sure. Also, no one said you can’t play other games along with SWTOR. Perhaps that is what you need to do in order to avoid burning out on SWTOR, or any other game for that matter.

PVP- yea we could use more warzones, but 3 is more than what wow had at launch and frankly the swtor ones are more fun than all the wow ones since they changed AV.
The targeting complaint made me laugh at the so called hardcore player that can't adapt like everyone else is and blames his failings on his tools.

PVE- we do need a damage log but everything else you mentioned is fluff, doing more with less is what the best players do, people complaining that rift wasnt wow is what took a excellent idea and turned it into a mediocre mess. Dual specs will probly get here sooner rather then later, I mean it took WoW forever and it happened a long time after City of heros did it.

Number three is quite frankly the oddest thing you wrote, because swtor has some really pretty landscapes and the story is much less depressing than wow, also much less melodramatic. I mean we start out with old god invasion, ok, then to Demon army invasion, ok, End of the world undead army where they use poison, disease, and your dead friends and family to murder you then enslave your corpse in a forsaken wasteland I would'nt even want to look at while flying over it in a airplane, Then they blew up the world and destroy the natural order of the universe by having a giant dragon god thing explode out of the ground say he will end all life, and only 1-2 years listed story time inbetween each event. No offense but my town in Simcity had fewer world ending events and i loved the godzilla button.

It could be swtors leaning towards more realistic story bases and character motivations, as well as a more detailed and thus gritty feel to some enviroments. However with wow i'd like to quote RvB for a problem i had, "The Burning Plains are next to the Freezing Plains? I bet there's some pretty wet plains in between.".

Don't get me wrong, there are alot of problems i have with this game, many of which ive posted in these very forums, but your's just seems like so much whining, plus your maths wrong since only 3 out of 8 class's get a leap<sure you could double both to include both sides but thats just padding>. But all in all you post screams of fanboism and a fear of something new, as all your complaints are things that are different from wow which makes me wonder why you bought the game since if you wanted to say this game was'nt Wow, you could of done so without an account and stayed with your "safe" game. O and the panda expac sounds utterly ridiculous, I guess its just one more bit of evidence that blizzard is completely out of idea's and is now just taking them from anything and everything. Looking forward to them adding a RTS mechanic to the one after that, that way they can just reskin SC2 with WC3 sprites.

Comparing a game that is just a few months old to a game that is more than a few years old is absolutely crazy.

To me, that's like comparing a toddler to a teenager, complaining because the toddler isn't as tall or as strong as the teenager.

Yeah WoW is going to have more tools then TOR, but that doesn't make it worse of a game. If anything I like TOR now more than WoW.

It reminds me of Vanilla WoW. Where you actually had to try for things you wanted. To me, WoW has become way to easy. I understand Blizzard did it to keep players to make alts and make the game more attractive to new players, but at what point do you make your customers not try to beat a game? If 25 complete stranger can come together and kill the most difficult boss to date with near no strat, that's too easy for me. ( I understand that the Looking for Raid makes it extremely easier, but it's the concept that kills me.)

That is all of course an opinion, if you agree with it then that's great. If you don't, then more power too ya'.

Comparing a game that is just a few months old to a game that is more than a few years old is absolutely crazy.

its competing with wow today, not wow at launch. they should have thought of this before they launched the game. the perfect model for ideally is there already, bioware just needed to improve on that. and they did, but they also didnt implement crucial features that shuld be standard in mmo gaming.

Correct except this one point i seem to have an issue with, I expect a company charging me a monthly subscription fee to have some form of customer service to deal with my issues as in retention game play etc not oooh noooes i dont have that cool cloak where can i gets it..

Instead i get told my issues are general discussion and warned via swtor web forums.

I also do not appreciate being told Participation is mandatory by in game gms.

As well Nerfing a class before fixing glitches is a fail in my books..

The skinny: Last week there was roughly 15 full servers 24/7 these servers were full

This week 0 full servers there standard or light meaning TOR has lost the majority of there players in 2 months of play time dec 20th - jan 20th -feb 09th i can personally tell you it took me three months to hit 60 3 thats not doing every single quest and playing 10+ hrs a day i also enjoyed certin areas and spent more time cleaning out quests in spots..

I have stated this all over tors forums here at least theres no bias and it will remain Free to play by 2013 unless some major overhaul is done..

Welcome Aussies the Best of the best in pvp in wow your going to hate the pvp in tor like an aunt who always wants to pinch your cheeks its painfull seriously and i am one of them pvp clowns from Dara Mactire-Darkspear

i have 10 days paid time before wow expires i dont see them making changes that will fix all the annoyances in that time. not huge things either these are glitches/bugs i reorted in beta and yet still here. kind of like the node despawn that was brought into wow in wrath and disappeared with crapaclysm!

let me say this as a Glad in wow i ahte pvp in tor, its do nothing but sit mid and farm kills then get bi**ed at by gms if you dont partake in this useless slaughter of your own faction mates! at least in wow it was Horde vs Alliance not horde v horde ally v ally..pvp was factional in tor its 99% Sith v sith (Sith empire)

could be there isnt any Republic players who pvp could be that your stuck on your own server for pvp..

open world pvp is worse then a warzone all they do is form a group of 4 stealthies and lay in wait for one person to show up and sit killing them! sound like a good time for you? not me!

Arena is needed badly except theres no real skill as the game is so new, If you love pvp in wow stay in wow!

"and i am one of them pvp clowns from Dara Mactire-Darkspear"

is swifty as much of a failure in pvp in sw tor as he was in wow?

I think it's fairly easy to sum up:

SWTOR > WoW for leveling
WoW > SWTOR for end-game

Cheers.

'WoW > SWTOR for end-game"

but what about comparing the end game to when world of warcraft was 3 months old.not 7 years old

cuz i mean,ive heard the argument of wow's end game being better then sw tor's.but people always seem to compare it to todays world of warcraft end game,which has had 7 years to fix the bugs and stuff and polish the game

Can we stop this argument? As a product it needs to be comparable to the competition as it exists.

If I started making cars and they weren't as good as the other manufacturers, would I be able to say "No, you need to compare my product to the Model T"?

The reason the criticism exists is because we want the game to be better, if I thought it wasn't salvageable I would quit and never look back. Stop coming up with excuses as to why a company doesn't have to deliver a good customer experience. There are a lot of positive things out there right now, but there are some glaring flaws. If Bioware doesn't fix the major issues fast enough, we won't have a game to play.

No new game I know of has shipped with large amounts of endgame content, so if that was what you are looking for, you are bound to be disappointed, that is like buying a new console platform, and being disappointed with the selection of games. I am guessing most people are not there yet (I know I am not, with my highest character being level 43), and I will make the call if there is sufficient for me when I reach that stage. Bioware still has a pretty big window for making sure there is stuff to do for people, once they have been at cap for a while.

The lack of character look diversity is a good point. On the other hand I have found swtor to have more environment diversity than other games I have played, but that of course is very subjective.

This car analogy has always been bad. It would be better to compare a car that's 5 years old but has been modified heavily to one that just rolled of the assembly line. Sure, in some ways you still expect a new car to be well... newer (maybe it has a more modern style or certain technologies), but in other ways you definitely expect a customized car to blow the newer stock model out of the water (and it would be silly to expect a new car to be better, in every way, than one someone put a lot of extra time and money into).

Similarly, it's unrealistic to expect a game that just released to have as much polish or content as one that came out years ago and has been modified since specifically because those things are built over time and require both an existing game and community input. It takes time to learn what tweaks should be made to optimize it based on player preference.

Personally, I prefer the design of TOR over WoW, and while it lacks both the polish and content older games have gained over time it's simply a more entertaining experience for me. If that's not the case for a player it's also perfectly reasonable for them to stick with the tricked out older model. Also, as much as people complain that BioWare "isn't listening" and that some problems were "in Beta and are still around" they have done an amazing job of fixing a lot of problems (this game went from unplayable on my laptop to perfectly smooth, albeit at lower graphic settings than my desktop, in less than a month) very quickly and are still pushing out fixes nearly every week.

Summary: While it's important to point out issues and offer suggestions, saying things like "this game lacks content" as though it were a problem isn't helpful. Of course BioWare is going to release more content. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could tell you that's coming (and already has some). It would be much more helpful to frame these comments in the context of what you like and what you would like to see more of, than to just sit around griping about lack of polish and content.

I'll agree with you that I don't have a perfect analogy, yours doesn't really fit well either. You're comparing a car which can be purchased with a product that has been customized, custom cars aren't really in the same competitive market as cars on a lot at the dealership. WoW vs SWTOR is a direct competition in the MMORPG category of games. When you build an MMO it better be competitive with WoW when you launch it.

Like I said in my original post, this game has merit and it did have a pretty smooth launch. The problem lies with what happens when you get to the top. It isn't there there is zero endgame content, it boils down to a few things in my eyes.

1) No combat log - This is one of the more frustrating aspects of the game, when I am trying to work on hard modes I want to figure out what caused the problem on a boss fight. As it stands, we make an attempt, we wipe, and we sit around speculating as to why we wiped. Did the healer not put out enough healing? Did the tank fail to grab aggro? Did the dps not do their job? Nobody knows for sure.

2) No addons/macros - I understand that this type of thing takes time to build a community and get quality addons built, that is fine. The problem is that they haven't even let folks start using them yet. Just the ability for me to write a macro where I can cast an interuppt without changing targets would be nice.

3) UI customization - This goes along with the addons to an extent, but it wouldn't have to if the UI were a bit more customizable within the game.

I don't think that these items need to be solved today or even tomorrow, but these are issues that need to be resolved. I don't see where it was implied that the "lack of content" was the actual issue with the endgame. I don't actually agree with that statement. My problem is that certain aspects of the game make is difficult to experience the end game content that exists.

Summary: There are valid issues and it seems to me that even if you make valid points about this game and why it isn't working, someone will come along and tell you that we shouldn't expect the game to work because it is new.

My point is that it is in a way. It offers things WoW does not (fresher community, interactive story, etc...) From UI polish and functionality to content, WoW still has the advantage of funding having been poured into it for years and feedback being provided for just as long. A game doesn't have to be better in every way to be competitive, the total experience just has to be better. For a lot of players, the overall experience IS already better.

I agree that all 3 of your points would improve quality of life for players, but the game is enjoyable as is and there's no reason not to provide the experience it currently does while they work on more (and rely on the community to fund continued improvement because ultimately they're not here to lose money). A game that releases only after it's better in every possible way than everything else out there ends up being Duke Nukem: Forever. By the time they give up and release it nobody wants it anymore anyway.

People should play a game for what it is, and while it's acceptable to request improvements it's also important to realize that a game isn't "noncompetitive" just because in some ways other games have done things better.

"A game that releases only after it's better in every possible way than everything else out there ends up being Duke Nukem: Forever. By the time they give up and release it nobody wants it anymore anyway."
^^^
that.

The way I see it the core of Swtor is already better then Wow in numerous ways. The few things that Wow does better are things that take time and natural growth to build up. The casual gamer is still leveling their characters, and fixing immediate bugs and problems should be bio's main concern at this point. When the majority of kinks are worked out, adding additional FP's and Operations will inevitably make the game better for everyone, especially in terms of end game content. As time goes on you can slowly add in the customizations that people want in a responsible way. Taking small precise steps makes so much more sense then trying to cram a bunch of stuff in at the expense of quality.

Haha, I LOVE THIS!

I joined WoW during WOTLK and there is always lots of noob bashing about how they werent around when things were tough, when they didnt have this or that addon etc.

I'm loving TOR so far because the story is great and its something familiar. I remember when i first played wow, the world just floored me. I remember just stopping at places to just stare at things. TOR is special for me because the very first movie i saw was The Empire Strikes Back. It's a work in progress and either BioWare makes things better and listens to the player base or well - TOR fails. It would'nt be the first one. What will we (players) do if that happens? We'd find something else.

In the mean time however I am having a ***ing BLAST playing the game.

its just amazing on how many people complain about add ons and macros. those people are WAY too dependent on such trivial things that it would go as far as turn them away from experiencing another MMO in general. IMO, this game is amazing from what ive experienced so far. yes, WOW has flashy colors and grand battles in their instances and raids and all. but you know what? THEY'VE HAD YEARS TO GET TO WHERE THEY ARE RIGHT NOW! SWTOR has only been out what....2 months? read what the developers are saying please. yes, they're working on dual specs. yes, they're working on toon transfers. yes, they may even have server merges. just give them time and they'll give us all what we want. tired of seeing so many QQ's over macros and add ons that they wont play the game just because of those two little things.

just sayin, but i really do prefer this more serious and detail environment than the colorful and cartoony world of WOW.

I'm going to play devils advocate and agree with some of the points the OP made.
I think there is a LOT swtor needs to improve upon. Yeah, they are new to the mmo field, but that whole schpiel is also not that valid either since they had 5 years to develop this game and some of the more common things such as these should have been addressed.

* guild bank
* target of target (would be very useful for healers in pvp)
* a less convoluted Galactic Trade kiosk with shift search ability like WoW , and better division of items
* a less convoluted way to interact with guildies for making a party with guild members , or hell.. even whispering guild members would be nice.. I mean, I like my guildies, but do I have to friend 90+ ppl in the guild JUST so I can whisper them?

I logged into WoW for the first time since ToR released, honestly just to look at the guild log and see any changes, the I said what the heck im logged in why not do a LFR. Well 2 bosses in and I remembered why I havent been on WoW. People with elitest attitudes, and finger pointing over DPS, HPS and overall dmg ( oooh look at me Im 10k dps over you) really does it really matter if the boss still dies and you get loot. Now granted I do pretty decent dmg on my hunter between 30k-25k usually, Im not one to link the meters and point fingers, if the boss dies then whats the problem, the under-geared players not doing the same dps are getting gear they need. I havent seen that at all on ToR cause really there are no meters to point to and call someone out saying "You suck, thats all the dps you can do?" At first I missed the meters myself, just to see how much I was putting out, I wouldnt be opposed to meter that had no linking function, that way a person could work on outputting more dmg with out people being able to point fingers.

My second thing that I missed off the start was not a meter but actully a ToT frame, when Im tanking I like to see the split second I dont have aggro and be able to regain it.

Lol, people don't seem to understand one thing.

ToR launched 20th December 2011.
WoW launched 23rd November 2004.

You can't expect a MMO that is three months old to be of the same quality as an hardened MMO veteran like WoW. This game is fresh, is something different. This is a goddamn RPG, you roleplay your character, in WoW your character can't even speak!
ToR has much room for improvement, true, but it will come with time. In my opinion ToR >> WoW (played it for a really long time), even now when it is unpolished.

Just give this game a chance. Don't think about it as an "Star Wars WoW". It is not that thing.

I think that's the humbling thing, that there is no new MMO that can ever have 8 years of content right out of the box. It's just impossible. The expectations of people are unreasonable. They will also be as disappointed for new MMOs that come out.

I really like SW:TOR and I find that it has a lot of potential.
1. Companion system can be expanded. Maybe in future, there will be content for you and ALL your companions TOGETHER, not just one. So there is incentive to gear all 5 of them up. The success of the companion content also depends on how high their compatibility with you is, much like the ending of Mass Effect 2. Let the grinding begin.
2. Space can be expanded. Space flash points and operations. Complete with their own sets of progression and gear.
3. Another mini game in the form of pod racing? Complete again with its own set of progression and enhancements. And let you use the actual vehicle as a mount.

I just hope that there are enough people like me who will keep the game alive.

Balance, WoW has heirlooms so anyone w/o them gets stomped when not leveling, stats are generally equal due to the buff you get while in a warzone, and there isn't a FOTM class (no, SI is not FOTM, it is not OP, people just like to shoot lightning out of their hands), no getting 1 shot by a twink rogue, or sniped by a hunter who is oozing in gear.

As for end game, well I haven't got someone to 50 yet, took me awhile to figure out what class I wanted, settled on JK Guardian main with a Trooper Vanguard alt (both tanks), the warzones are pretty fun too, a football like one, a hold the point one (which the added coolness is giant turrets firing a giant ships, you flying into battle on a speeder), and a..not sure how to say voidstar...attack/defense I guess.

And dear god don't give SWTOR macros, I don't want to have to deal with nubs who have one button that they push to win, and dungeon finder removes all social aspect and increases ninjas as they can't get a bad server rep, if they did add dungeon finder, make it server-only -_-

Who cares about launch dates ? I compare 2 games that both charge me to play. When the started dont mean anything to me, what they offer on the other hand, thats what matter.

Swtor offers a great lvling experiance, besides that nothing new really. If you want to enter the MMO market, you better be as good as the best or your dead.

Swtor fails on quite a few points, mostly it fails when it comes to customer service. Now i have no subcription numbers and so do nobody else besides EA and Bio, but looking at the people i know playing mmo's close to 50% of the people i know that started swtor quit again. Now you can say what you want but thats a fact, and unless Bio starts being serious about this it point a pretty good picture in my head where this game is going.

Blizzard could get me to pay for 7 years, bio for 2 months, how can that be ?

That's not a very good measure, specifically because this game doesn't catering to the same loot-grinding crowd that actually stuck around when that's all MMOs offered. My guess is their eventual market will come from social RPG gamers (once all the angry people leave). It's a relatively untapped crowd so SWTOR may be the first good measure of how well a game that caters to that market can do.

The crowd that jumps from MMO to MMO mad they're never as good as the "ultimate game in my head" will move on. However, it will be interesting to see how many actual RPG players also like doing things with friends.

@jetsu
Nope its not the best measurement, but its the best i have until EA / Bio comes out with some.

Even you have to aggre, that the CS in swtor is close to being a joke, and looking at the number of treads on official forum, where people scream for server merges, something is going on.

With diablo 3 and gw2 release dates out, they better move fast if they wanna keep profit up imo.

Dont get me wrong, i was hoping they could pick up the stick to fight blizzard for the throne. The game was looking promesing, but imo they released to early, and are now doing all the easy ( and wrong ) solutions to the issues they find ingame.

does anyone REMEMBER the release of WOW? TOTALLY different game then as it stands now

1. pvp was NONEXISTANT (remember terran mills world pvp?)
2. leveling was REALLY hard from 50 to 60.
3. Talents were....ok at best
4. raiding or even running end content instances were SO hard to group for unless u were in one of about 5 guilds.
5. servers were glitchy and disconnected you at random

i could go on and on with the changes that blizzard had to go through in the course of 5 (or so) years.

point is...this is a NEW game. do u really believe that this game will be the same given the same amount of time that blizzard had to polish up its world?

this game has a GREAT base to work from and TONS of content that can be added.

i remember the everquesters that were saying the EXACT same thing that the OP was saying at wow release.

the one thing that NEEDS to be looked at is the ability to group for flashpoints. unless u are standing at the republic fleet u cant talk to anyone or group with anyone for anything. even grouping (for the most part) on world heroics is diffucult, if u are LUCKY u will get a healer, if u are REALLY lucky u will get a healer that actually HEALS.

i havent figured out he threat system but it seems....random.

lots of stuff that will be fixed. i am having fun with the game and am looking forward to seeing how the game ages.

People scream about CS in every MMO out there. I realize people want a bit more openness when it comes to things they want and when/if it will be added. However, until it bubbles to the top of the list the time spent in effort estimates (the communication itself comes from a different group, but estimates really need to go through the development department if they're going to be anything other than "we might do this some time later") would be better spent on actually working on the stuff that *is* prioritized highest. So far since release a relatively short time ago (in MMO terms):

• People complained about character responsiveness (even claiming it was the one thing that would make or break this game) so they worked on it quickly and it's MUCH improved over release.
• People complained about not having enough content at end game and they released new flashpoint and operation content.
• People complained about PvP and they've made tons of tweaks to Ilum (though I admit I still don't feel they've hit that moving target yet).
• People complained about certain professions being "the only choice" and they've been tweaking it ever since.
• People complained about combat logs and, while not perfect, they are working toward that.
• People complained about UI customization, and that's coming in 1.2 along with a lot more content.

From my perspective this is the best kind of CS. Instead of sitting around offering vague and generalized promises of "soon" like so many companies do, they say they're "looking into it", look into it, and release fixes very quickly.

As for server merges: I think that's a combination of a few things.

• People aren't out making connections like they did when the first started whatever MMO they came from. Being veterans they are just used to *having* someone online they know. Because of this, they feel there's no community on their server.
• The community is not all congregated at max level yet (being a newer game) so instead of having 90% of people sitting around at max level looking for something to do on a server there are only 50% sitting around while the other 50% are spread across all the planets.
• BioWare launched with server caps low and with a lot of servers to prevent the type of overpopulation that occurs with most MMOs at launch (leading to frequent server crashes and long queues).

Now I'm not going to say that people should just buck up and that BioWare is perfect, but I think as this game ages (assuming it gains in popularity the way other success stories have) we're in a better position the way things are now than we'd be in if they'd have forced the whole population into a few servers.

-Agent Smith

Allah, Buddah, Christ, or Chuck Norris could design the best MMO ever and ppl would b!tch and complain. after playing MMOs for over 10 years i realized one truth above all. if you don't like it then uninstall and GTFO.

WoW has been out for 8, going on 9 years.

SWTOR has been around for less than 6 months.

Comparing the two is like saying the Roman Colosseum is better than the Apollo Theater.

A's said 200 times before, i dont care how old wow is. All i care about is witch game is the best when im going to play tonight. If swtor cant beat wow tonight, swtor lose end of story.

Swtor is 4 months old, and are now handing out 30 free days to players ? Something is going on here, even hardcore swtor fans must be able to see this ?

Imo it smells like desperation from EA's side to hand out 30 free days to players, shortly before a new quaterly report are to be released. Looks to me like they are trying to boost subcription numbers to please everyone out there.

First of all, this is a game that is WORTH comparing to WoW, and its a good start. I've played WoW long enough, maybe too long. Blizz was slowly changing the game in the direction that I do not like even a little bit. While it's still a good game, its not a game that I used to enjoy. SWTOR is different. It is catchy. I see potential in it. It became much more stable (read - less buggy) after 1.2, and I hope bioware will keep it up. I can play 2-3 hours a day at max, and not even every day. What can I do in WoW for this time? Run a couple of dungeons? Daily run (and man I HATE those from the very day they were implemented back in BC)? PvP a bit (with a class that was so much changed and twisted in last couple of expansions that its nothing like class I played before)? Milk AH? Pretty much it. Boring, done it all thousand times before, nothing new here. Plus a bonus of idiotic LFD system that is full of jerks who are clueless/dumb/selfish/ninjas or just dont care about their rep, cuz chances of me seing them again are pretty slim. BTW, I really hope if bioware ever adds LFD here it will be server only, not cross-server.

Anyway, what I can I do here (for 2-3 hours a day). I can play the universe I like, I can really role play my character, I can enjoy the storyline (and its really good). Right now I'm not rushing anything, leveling 4-5 alts at the same time, running oocasional dungeons, and just having fun.

I know these thoughts are rather biased. But I just cant play WoW anymore. I need something new, and SWTOR provides it.

And this is why there are forums and online reviews of people hating on SWTOR while most of the players I meet in game are having a blast and wouldn't play any other game.

At it's heart TOR is an MMO as much as any of the current generation of games with similar feel. I grouped up *more* while leveling in this game than others to see the stories that required groups, and at 50 almost everything I do I try to group up for (even dailies since there are quite a few heroics).

The difference is that people who are willing to do the most inane, repetitive content with a majority of their playtime aren't held up on a pedestal the way they are in other games. This grinds on the people who play more for a feeling of self-worth than simply to have fun. Personally this is the first game where I'm always doing content because I want to and not simply because it's what I have to do to keep up with my friends.

I totally agree, Deathwing in my mind should have been the Baddest, Hardest boss to ever beat!
Not some lame a$$ que for a 25 man raid of noobs with no talent to raid.

walk in and faceroll. Then when I heard about mist of Pandabears that was it. I will
never play wow again.