official Star Wars: The Old Republic

[HawkMan]

Join a guild and do pre-made teams in PVP. you will pretty much crush the opposition even if everyone on the team are crap players and low level.

[metal_dragen Veteran]

So I just started experiencing some issues that really worry me.

We've been farming hard mode flashpoints for a while gearing up our 50s and just started doing operations. We've cleared 8-man and 16-man Normal Mode Eternity Vault and are working on clearing 8-man Normal Mode Karagga's Palace.

Eternity Vault is bugged to all hell. It's no wonder people are complaining about end-game. The last boss in EV (Soa) is so buggy, it's almost funny. We had to run 6+ attempts on him to take him down purely because of bugs. We had him drop the floor early at one point and wipe the raid. We had one guy get tossed and teleported to an inaccessible point when the floor dropped - 3 times in a row, same guy (healer), 3 attempts. We've come back twice and found that the encounter hasn't reset properly (floor still dropped). We've had Soa bug during the last stage twice - when no-one but the tank is on him while he's shielded and the tank is dragging him under the pillars, he'll randomly decide to switch targets and move away from the pillar. And this is with no DPS on him - DPS are killing Mind Traps - literally the only person with high threat is the tank (healer is guarded).

Of course, the regular HM FPs are also bugged - many have bugged encounters and for whatever reason, HMs don't award social points.

Luckily for our guild, most of this content is still fresh, so the bugs, while annoying, aren't really hurting our morale or stopping us from progressing. But it does need to get fix as soon as possible or more raiding guilds will be dropping players like flies.

I guess the good news is that one of our guys filed a ticket that said "Soa broken." and got confirmation from Bioware that they are aware of the issue.

[:: Lyon ::]

Yeah, encountered a bug in the Foundry too where HK randomly enraged too quickly (we tried 5 times with the same amount of dps and gamestyle til we won). There was also a case in Black Talon HM where one of the champion get back to full health after he/she was 1/4 health down (no medic around). Happened 3 times and we gave up

[Slane]

My guild is 5/5 NM EV, 4/5 HM EV (not even going to attempt SOA in the current state). 4/5 NM KP and 5/5 HM KP. Yup, Karagga's Palace is easier on hardmode than normal mode. Stupid fabricator boss.

Anyways makes us number 1 on server as the only other raiding guild is an imp guild who hasn't started KP on HM. Yup, my server has two guilds raiding and 3 guilds that PvP. Mine (only rep) and two imps. Gotta love low population servers.

[Kirkburn]

Anyways makes us number 1 on server as the only other raiding guild is an imp guild who hasn't started KP on HM. Yup, my server has two guilds raiding and 3 guilds that PvP. Mine (only rep) and two imps. Gotta love low population servers.

I would also suggest it's likely partly because it's still a relatively new game, giving a much wider spread of player levels.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

I would also suggest it's likely partly because it's still a relatively new game, giving a much wider spread of player levels.

ee, the spread of players isnt because its a new game, you can get max 50 in a week. the spread is because of people re-rolling as thats all to do because of bug's stopping end game. i dont think there is a single instance that isnt bugged to hell and back

[Slane]

I would also suggest it's likely partly because it's still a relatively new game, giving a much wider spread of player levels.

No. We on an insanely low pop server. My guild has 400~ members and it's rare for the 1 10-49 WZ to not have at least 4 of my guildies in it at a time. It's also almost always 6-7 of my guild (even when not running premades) in the 1 50 warzone. Yup. My server has 1 50 WZ at a time for about 2-4 hours a night (this is also the only time Bioware classifies are server as "standard") and that's it. We have never had more than 1 wz at a time since the introduction of the 50's only bracket. Since the beginning of January my guild has always had more people online at any given time than fleet + ilum population combined.

I hate cross server queing (for pvp) and hate they are going to introduce it as, the little action of PvP we do get is great (seeing the same imps over and over and over) as it builds grudges/friendships/rivalries. But damn if I work a late shift (like I usually do) and I miss that small gap of PvP I'm screwed. Can't wait for cross server queing just so I can PvP whenever I want.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

started playing again Monday, and so far the changes they did for PvP ( max 4 commendations a match for everybody nothing more count, illum dalies now count for participating in WZ's ( 3 pts a match ) as well as other things, makes it to where im not pulling my hair out at the team, as either way im getting bags normally and not penalized for being a tank.

and suprisingly the PvP change has promoted teamwork even among pugs to a degree. i hear PvE is still hosed up though

[Kirkburn]

Patch 1.2 is looking pretty good, judging by the preview video. Seems like they're quickly getting new features out. Not that unusual for MMOs (given the long development cycles, lots of things would have queued up), but still good to see.

[Island Dog]

Patch 1.2 is looking pretty good, judging by the preview video. Seems like they're quickly getting new features out. Not that unusual for MMOs (given the long development cycles, lots of things would have queued up), but still good to see.

Yeah, I'm excited for 1.2. I'm still having fun with the game, and that's what counts for me.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

well they already announced the Free 7 Day Friends invite last week.

now they announced Free Weekend Pass's, every weekend.

first Steps to Free To Play im thinking

[Miuku.]

Not surprising, after beta testing the game for an extended period I was already predicting that it'll fail pretty hard due to lack of content and excessive emphasis on single player.

And it's just too damn WoW-like.

[HawkMan]

well they already announced the Free 7 Day Friends invite last week.

now they announced Free Weekend Pass's, every weekend.

first Steps to Free To Play im thinking

Sounds more like the first steps to recruiting more. the servers in europe at least have very stable numbers.

in the competitive enviroment today, MMO's can't afford to not have a free test period long after launch, not when even games like WoW had to go with free up to 20 trials.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

Sounds more like the first steps to recruiting more. the servers in europe at least have very stable numbers.

in the competitive enviroment today, MMO's can't afford to not have a free test period long after launch, not when even games like WoW had to go with free up to 20 trials.

i think with wow it was at least a couple years.

as far as servers on anchorhead Imperial Fleet has less then 200 Prime Time East Coast, which from what i hear is average.

im far from knowing what goes on behind the scenes, but seems verry fiew people stay 50 for long ( max level ) when they hit it, they reroll, when they did the other class's they quit. i was in guild with Rage ( GL is member of Neowin ) the whole guild disbanded in about a month with no members seen so far. and reports of other guilds having same result.

but who knows, the various members of guild could have rerolled and went to more active guild/Republic side, no idea.

BioWare does seem to be going the route of a dying ship, which i hate to see due to both being BioWare ( expected of EA though ) and being a fan of Star Wars, id hate to see it die

[HawkMan]

i think with wow it was at least a couple years.

yes, but that's rather irrelevant. with WoW the competition was only EQ and SWG which was much more niche. WoW didn't have competition and is so big due to friends playing it because friends are playing it because friends are playing it because....... The end result is that in order for other MMO's to get customers they need a free trial. and free trial in no ways equals F2P. with over 2 million paying customers and still rising (subs, sold boxes are much higher with people that didn't stay past intitial 30).

It'll also help get back the people that have left as 1.2 arrives.

200 at imperial fleet is also not a bad number, add in the number that are on various planets, and the fact that even when you add in all the "visible" number of people in game, you only have a fraction of the people playing on the server since the game is heavily instanced. and all the 50's are either PVP'in or Flashpointing.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

yes, but that's rather irrelevant. with WoW the competition was only EQ and SWG which was much more niche. WoW didn't have competition and is so big due to friends playing it because friends are playing it because friends are playing it because....... The end result is that in order for other MMO's to get customers they need a free trial. and free trial in no ways equals F2P. with over 2 million paying customers and still rising (subs, sold boxes are much higher with people that didn't stay past intitial 30).

It'll also help get back the people that have left as 1.2 arrives.

200 at imperial fleet is also not a bad number, add in the number that are on various planets, and the fact that even when you add in all the "visible" number of people in game, you only have a fraction of the people playing on the server since the game is heavily instanced. and all the 50's are either PVP'in or Flashpointing.

agreed.

but the numbers arent that high for various planets, Hutta was 3 last night single instance, when i would run around getting datacrons i rarely saw above 20 single instance.

i do not think the game is dying per say ( even a good game can go F2P and not be dead ) but they MAY not be making as much as they hoped to recuperate their costs from development / continuation. that was the main cause of STO and other games, they wernt dead, just not enough. atm reports are stating SWTOR is hovering around 1.7 Mil. with the cost to develop and new content ( which so far has only seen 1 Raid added ) would prolly need over 2Mil if not 3, there are not many diffrent voice actors though, more around a couple with Sound effects and trebble/bass changes to make sound diffrent. so i think a majority of that cost is not associated with Voice actors. but more IP related.

[HawkMan]

They already have the voice overs for at least the next expansion and several free content packs ready. that's part of the original dev costs, and for the non main story quests a lot of the VO's can (and are) re used. I mean there's only so many ways a person can say "yes", "ok", ",no", and so on ;)

Even if the game went F2P a year down the line. it wouldn't matter to me or the majority of current players, we'd still pay for it since, all those F2P games, you still have to pay for the full game, or pay even more in microtransactions to get the full game.

Me and the GF actually started playing the F2P DCUO, and ended up paying for 3 months each because we enjoyed it, and we had toto get the full game, of course after a month the SWTOR beta came and we sort of lost interest in DCUO and just waited for the release of SWTOR :)

[Emn1ty]

Not surprising, after beta testing the game for an extended period I was already predicting that it'll fail pretty hard due to lack of content and excessive emphasis on single player.

And it's just too damn WoW-like.

This was the exact same problem I had with STO. Too much single player emphasis. What is the point of an MMO where the massively multiplayer portion only matters in arenas?

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

This was the exact same problem I had with STO. Too much single player emphasis. What is the point of an MMO where the massively multiplayer portion only matters in arenas?

There lies the problem, companies see pvp as away to keep people entertained with minimal content an money/resources involved.

Just one or three PVP maps can keep people entertained for months at a time, instead of one raid end game content that is one map with multiple encounters and multiple mobs and multiple chances for something being broke

[Kirkburn]

WoW is pretty single player oriented for most of the levelling experience. I'm not sure it's an entirely fair criticism.

[S00N3R FR3AK]

WoW is pretty single player oriented for most of the levelling experience. I'm not sure it's an entirely fair criticism.

Yeah and outside of refer a friend I feel like it kills xp more when grouped then SWTOR does.

[Slane]

Anyone on PTS?

[metal_dragen Veteran]

Anyone on PTS?

I wish - until they implement a character transfer or instant 50, I'm not wasting time leveling on the PTS.

However, they did just post the 1.2 preliminary patch notes. As far as the economic, bugfix and itemization changes go, I'm very excited. It looks like they really are listening and intending to fix a lot of the issues people have been complaining about.

On the downside, the class re-balancing they are doing is worrisome. They are nerfing healing across the board (especially for mercenaries, which I play as a 50 alt). We have a hard enough time as it is, but they're reducing our ability to vent heat with talented skills, reducing our overall healing output, reducing our critical chance and making our free periodic heal shield cost heat. But apparently it's OK because our Kolto Missile now hits 4 random targets instead of just 3. :wacko:

My main is a marksmanship sniper and they're nerfing our DPS too. Although this applies to everyone - any class that had a talent to buff critical chance - was at 2%/point it's now at 1%/point.

[HawkMan]

I think Clans who applied got free transfer of the clan members who signed up for it to PTS. or character copy.

[Slane]

The merc/commando nerf aren't as bad as they seem. Had to come up with a new "rotation/priority" at least that's been the word of the 50's on the PTS so far.