SWTOR post-mortem

[King Crispy]

But you've got to be willing to play along with their intention though, that of providing the illusion that you're speshul. If you're not willing, you're not doing it right.

I really want to like this game. It does a lot of the Star Wars things right, if only being atmospheric in their effect. I like the concept of having your own ship, your own crew, and your own "destiny" in the game. Overall, I feel it can work, someday.

But BioWare clearly bit off more than they could chew. The technical problems are so far reaching as to be probably irresolvable. Endgame mechanics, from what I'm reading, look like they're typical in being interest-killing. There seems to be no economy to the game, so far as I can tell. And the entire premise of the game, the thing that's suppose to separate it from the pack -- its arching and personally-tuned storyline -- wears out its shine quickly unless you're willing to absolutely grind your way through and to it. I'm going to stick with it, keeping my sub active for now, but I think they're going to need to pump a couple million more into the game's budget and its upkeep to keep afloat. Some big overhauls are direly needed.

Not sure if I'm willing to wait that long.

 

[Mangoose]

Meh it's really just a passable single player RPG in MMO form. No point in doing anything but rolling new alts to see the storyline.

 

[Sergiu64]

It must feel special sharing the Darth title with all the other 10,000 Sith Warriors.

It does when you're alone in a cut-scene and the NPCs are referring to you as Emperor's Wrath and obey your orders to kill or spare other NPCs due to you being a representative of the Emperor.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Meh it's really just a passable single player RPG in MMO form. No point in doing anything but rolling new alts to see the storyline.

This.

A single-player game with a subscription fee and content stored on an online server. This is like that thing someone was talking about.

 

[Mangoose]

On the other hand, you can finish one character within the first month so no one is telling you to resubscribe. And the 8 storylines are pretty distinct, giving you unique content on replay.

On the other other hand (foot?), every playthrough is going to be plagued by the same MMO trash mobs to wade through from 1 to 50.

 

[Roguey]

Jennifer Hepler as writer.

I think this alone explains everything anyone needs to know to have an idea of what to expect of the quality of writing and the why of such quality in this PoS that already went total EA sheeple scamming with its unsubscribe button removed from the beta as a "glitch" to force all beta-testers to pay for it.

Fuck, the TOR team isn't even Bioware, as we know them. They are Mythic with the Bioware label whacked on them. And yet Mythic's writers are now sounding exactly like Bioware's writers. That can only be caused by topdown demands.

Just wanted to let you know there are a few exceptions here. TOR has James Ohlen (longtime Bioware designer since Shattered Steel) as a lead designer, Georg Zoeller (systems lead from DA:O) as lead combat designer, and Drew Karpyshyn, Daniel Erickson, Mary Kirby, and Chris and Jennifer Hepler as writers (though a lot of new people too, I got the list from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320395/fullcredits). There are likely others.

Jennifer Hepler. Fuck that explains a lot.

Eh, I don't know why you two are scapegoating her. She just wrote the level 20+ Smuggler quests. Daniel Erickson, the lead writer? He was responsible for the city elf origin in DA:O ("Grab a whore and have a good time!") and he's actually proud of it. Then you have Drew "terrible tie-in novelist/Knights of the Old Republic/Mass Effect" Karpyshyn. I mean there's plenty of blame to spread around here.

 

[Ulminati]

Can't speak for the stuff Hepler wrote since smuggler VA and dialogue was so painful I abandoned it within 3 levels. But the IA storyline was actually pretty good. Bear in mind that it's 100% linear and railroaded as fuck to conform to the WoW carbon copy game mechanics. It's pretty clear the story writer was told "you go to planets x, y, z at levels a-b, c-d, e-f etc. The secondary plot for planet x is foo, for y it's bar, for z it quux. You get your ship after this planet. You get new companions here, here and here. Now make it feel starwarsy". But he actually managed to pull off a somewhat compelling story that manages to feel like it's starwarsy, pulls off a couple of appropriate twists and has a pretty satisfying ending. It's not great prose by any stretch of the definition. But it is quite enjoyable pulp fiction.