Hello! I'm part of your community waiting patiently for SWTOR. I've been watching this game for what seems like forever but has only been a mere 3 years. I've lurked on your forums, I've posted a few times on an account, and I've signed up for beta.So far anytime I've read something the majority of the reviews are positive. This makes me happy. You have set hopes high with promises of thrilling character stories and rich detail, but have you listened to some parts of the community?
From what I can see right now there is a large divide. On one side you have the hardcore gamers, who wake up and it's ZOMGRAIDRAIDRAIDRAID and this is pretty much how they associate success in the games they play. Then you have the other people who aren't so big into raiding for one reason or another and want to be able to associate with their friends and do other things apart from raiding, whether it's PvP, RP, or by becoming the richest merchant in the galaxy.
With the recent news that SWG will be closing down it's servers come the end of 2011, I've sat back and thought what would I like to see from SWTOR? I played SWG for quite some time and left shortly before the NGE, I've been playing WoW since it's launch, even beta testing some of it's expansions. I've done the laid back sandbox type playstyle and the hardcore raiding theme park style. As I've gotten more mature in my gaming style I reflect back on both games and wonder if hopefully SWTOR can come somewhere in the middle.
I've raided, 5 days a week, 4 hours a day. I've raided 40 man raids in Vanilla WoW, and every size of raid in each expansion after. I've killed an old god, a segregated demon, a whiny ticked off emo elf protecting the ways of his people, ancient powers, fiery dragons, and a fallen king. But looking back on all these things I only remember a few, instead I remember the people I have met. Many I no longer speak to because they've moved on, but a few are close friends.
Maybe I'm just getting to the golden years of my gaming life I don't know. But to me it's more about the people than anything else. And now those raids have come to feel more like a ball and chain than anything enjoyable.
As I said in my RIP SWG post, I had been thinking recently of giving up WoW and taking SWG back up to surround myself with a richer community, even if it is ending soon. I honestly believe that WoW has sacrificed it's community for the sake of raiding. When you reach level 85 there are only a few things to really do on most servers. Grind rep, grind dailies, grind points, grind PvP, grind raiding.
Sure the game has in-game events, like the ongoing Midsummer Festival, but it just doesn't hold a candle to what I felt when playing SWG. I would log into SWG and it was a friendlier atmosphere, people actually spoke in general chat with civility, it wasn't a cesspool of hate or immaturity like it is in some games >_>. People actually enjoyed helping other people, and just hanging out.
I've gone back to simply lurking on SWTOR's community forums, because I've started to see that change begin to happen to a game that isn't even out yet. You can see all the WoW-kiddies beginning to emerge, and sooner or later it'll be just like Barrens chat.
Please Bioware, try to find that balance. Try to give the raiders what they want, but give everyone else what they want as best you can. Try to give your community the ability to have fan made events, their own stories, have GM's hang out and take part in the fun with the community. It's not all about raiding you know.
Signed,
A raider who wants more.
Would love to see a thoughtful answer from BioWare about this.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more. Current high end MMO's seem to find long spaces of inactivity, and during those times the flaws in the game start to become more and more apparent. The lack of "non combat content" is my biggest issue, I would love to see a game that has more than meat and substance to it than "kill boss, collect loot, profit". A good MMO cannot be mostly about end-game, the journey needs to part of the process as well. I have far more memories of leveling 1 to 60 the first time than I do of anything else, now it's just rush rush rush to the end to get rid of the xp bar and start being able to PLAY the game, and this, to me at least, is not a great model. So many new players show up and just burn until the end without stopping to smell the roses..but sadly most of those roses have been paved over these days, and I can't say I really blame them for just rushing through. The quests have improved, the depth IS a little deeper currently in WoW than it has been, but still...the game is all about the destination these days and not the journey, and really...how many alts can you raid the same places on before you finally realize you're doing the same thing over and over on differant characters. So please Bio-Ware, give the game more substance than kill, loot and profit. Give me something to do when Im not fighting, something to hold my interest during those times when there is nobody to shoot at, nobody to force choke and cackle with glee as purple lightning death strikes down those who would oppose me. Give me some flowers to stop and smell once in a while, or at least to stop and stomp on and revel in my glorious evilness. MMO's are just as much about the social atmosphere as they are about the game, and one game at least has lost so much of it's community, they've all become math wizards and dps accountants, and I for one would love to find myself forgetting about numbers and find new and interesting things to do for more than two weeks after the beginning of an expansion. Something that doesn't always revolve around entering combat and looting a corpse.
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