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[JWong]

Got a nice Imperial Uniform from Voss heroics. The rank insignia is higher than the previous one.

 

[benny_a]

And yeah you do get xp from warzones and there are a couple of daily quests as well which you can find in the fleets.

Can you tell me more? I only find the dailies for FPs (Emerging Conflicts) and one for Warzones (I don't remember the name). IF there are more than those, then please point me to where I have to go.
I would love to level in Warzones.

 

[frequency]

The servers aren't dead or life less, its the instancing they did which they said before launch was supposed to only exist on the start planets... it exists on ALL planets. Check the number in the top left corner. That tells you how many people are actually on the planet but they might be in a separate instance, the only way you can communicate with them is general chat (Or merge over to their instance, you can choose the instance you want to be on in the world map). And yes its getting to me too. I know why they did the instancing, but it completely destroys a good part of the MMO 'charm' when they artificially lockout other players from even being seen just for performance reasons. Hopefully as the launch settles they change the limit on how many players can be in an 'instance' we start seeing worlds with lots of people.

That's terrible. It's made much worse because everything is designed for tons of people. Like there's super wide corridors and huge open areas, but you don't really see anyone in them.

I hope they just turn off this instancing thing. I never see more than like 120 people in an area based on the upper left number. Those aren't particularly high numbers.
Instancing the start areas doesn't make sense either. I've rolled many many characters and done the beginning areas many many times and I never see more than like 30 people on the top left.

There are people in this thread saying how they see tons of people all the time. Are they just exaggerating? Because I'd really love to see tons of people all the time. Right now it just doesn't feel like an MMO. And even going by single player game standards, this is still a super sparse world with huge empty corridors. I think the game, in one of the loading screens, said Coruscant has a population of "trillions". But the way the game is now, with so few players and NPCs and with the wide open areas, I feel the population is more like 200.

 

[kyo_daikun]

Right some im a synthweaver, I thought I needed metals for some odd reason to craft and so have got tons of them but I actually needed luxury cloth the whole time, feel dumb I wasted so many creds on the missions (thousands literally)

 

[benny_a]

There are people in this thread saying how they see tons of people all the time. Are they just exaggerating?

Can you quote a post of a person saying "tons"? All I've read is that people don't see many players and then a few that say they see around 6-12 people doing the same quests as you at the same time. The latter being my experience.

The current number in my republic fleet instance is 195. I think I saw it being higher than 200, but I can't remember.

Edit: The Massively Multiplayer in a MMO isn't necessarily as massive as some people assume. Warhammer Online was a game that didn't have instances. The max server population before no more people were permitted was 4500 at launch and later they lowered this. And even later they patched out the way how to check how high the current server population is.
When WoW launched the numbers per server were lower than my previous MMO, Dark Age of Camelot.
The exception to this is EVE. ;-)

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Majority of the population I think is still in the 20-30 range.

 

[Darklord]

The servers aren't dead or life less, its the instancing they did which they said before launch was supposed to only exist on the start planets... it exists on ALL planets. Check the number in the top left corner. That tells you how many people are actually on the planet but they might be in a separate instance, the only way you can communicate with them is general chat (Or merge over to their instance, you can choose the instance you want to be on in the world map). And yes its getting to me too. I know why they did the instancing, but it completely destroys a good part of the MMO 'charm' when they artificially lockout other players from even being seen just for performance reasons. Hopefully as the launch settles they change the limit on how many players can be in an 'instance' we start seeing worlds with lots of people.

The instancing isn't really an issue. They have that for story based bits but that's it. A lot of my questing isn't in instances. It's weird though. I'm not sure if the drop off it really heavy but it seems the imperial fleet is normally got 80-100 people. Same with Drommund Kaas but then you go to Tatooine or Alderaan and there is like 30 on the entire planet. And being as big as they are no wonder it seems lifeless.

I still haven't seem one republic player...

 

[frequency]

Can you quote a post of a person saying "tons"? All I've read is that people don't see many players and then a few that say they see around 6-12 people doing the same quests as you at the same time. The latter being my experience.

The current number in my republic fleet instance is 195. I think I saw it being higher than 200, but I can't remember.

Edit: The Massively Multiplayer in a MMO isn't necessarily as massive as some people assume. Warhammer Online was a game that didn't have instances. The max server population before no more people were permitted was 4500 at launch and later they lowered this. And even later they patched out the way how to check how high the current server population is.
When WoW launched the numbers per server were lower than my previous MMO, Dark Age of Camelot.
The exception to this is EVE. ;-)

No. I can't quote a person saying "tons". I was paraphrasing. I'm not going to go through several pages to find quotes because that's silly, but this one triggered my post

I see a shitload of people at different choke points in the game. The imperial fleet always has people running around everywhere.

I know "massive" isn't "MASSIVE". But that doesn't change that this game feels like there's a lot less people than other older MMOs.
Of all the MMOs that I'm still subscribed to or played recently, SWTOR feels the most lifeless/empty. I know there are more people here, but whatever they do to split people up was too much.

I am currently subscribed to, or have played in the past few months:
- FFXI, FFXIV, Rift, Aion, LOTRO, D&D Online, Runes of Magic

I've seen more people in all of these games in one area than I've seen in my entire time in SWTOR so far. So I'm not even comparing to WoW. The last time I played WoW (WOTLK), there were significantly more people than any other MMO I've played.

Is the fleet the "capital" city for each faction? I would expect the capital to have a lot of people just hanging out. The fleet right now feels like a side city that no one cares about. If you've played FF14, the fleet feels like Limsa Lominsa or something. It's a nice surprise when you see someone actually running by you. I expect more of an Ul'dah where people line the streets, crafting, selling, chatting, looking for groups, etc.

I'll need to get into a guild soon. The chat outside of the Jedi starting area has been fairly inactive for me too. Now if only I could choose a class to stick with...

 

[benny_a]

Of all the MMOs that I'm still subscribed to or played recently, SWTOR feels the most lifeless/empty. I know there are more people here, but whatever they do to split people up was too much.

I agree that it's too empty. Hence my first post on the topic that I hope it's for design specific reason and the tech can handle more, because the way I don't have to wait a lot to trigger items in the world is better than fighting over spawning mobs.
No reason to have two instances for Tatooine a 45 when one with 90 would still be pretty empty as it's so big.

I am currently subscribed to, or have played in the past few months:
- FFXI, FFXIV, Rift, Aion, LOTRO, D&D Online, Runes of Magic

I've played LOTRO a few weeks ago and that game had less people in it than SW:TOR. Granted, this is to be expected by an older game vs. a newly released one.

Is the fleet the "capital" city for each faction?

The fleet is where you do all the flashpoints from and also the point where you get your daily quests.
It's the inofficial capitcal, yeah.
As I said in my previous post it had 195, now I just looked up and it has 213.

I'll need to get into a guild soon. The chat outside of the Jedi starting area has been fairly inactive for me too. Now if only I could choose a class to stick with...

I have an alt on a RP-PVP server and the chat there was much more active compared to a regular PVP server for me.

 

[Darklord]

Wait, wait. I didn't realize they were splitting the PLANETS. No wonder they're fucking barren. I didn't know they were sharding and doing it without even filling up one. They stick people in any bit. That's just stupid.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Wait, wait. I didn't realize they were splitting the PLANETS. No wonder they're fucking barren. I didn't know they were sharding and doing it without even filling up one. They stick people in any bit. That's just stupid.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to work like in EverQuest 2 where another instance of a zone would be created only when the population reached a certain number. In this, it seems like they have a bunch of instances of any given zone constantly online and randomly insert people into the instances when they enter the zone.

 

[frequency]

I agree that it's too empty. Hence my first post on the topic that I hope it's for design specific reason and the tech can handle more, because the way I don't have to wait a lot to trigger items in the world is better than fighting over spawning mobs.

I'm kind of okay with less people in quest areas. It's the cities and stuff that bothers me.

I've played LOTRO a few weeks ago and that game had less people in it than SW:TOR. Granted, this is to be expected by an older game vs. a newly released one.

I played some weeks ago too. I started a dwarf character and saw a lot of people. It probably depends on the server though.

The fleet is where you do all the flashpoints from and also the point where you get your daily quests.
It's the inofficial capitcal, yeah.
As I said in my previous post it had 195, now I just looked up and it has 213.

I've never seen numbers that high. I should log in and check it out. But my experience so far has been that, regardless of the number, I still don't see any sort of crowd.

I have an alt on a RP-PVP server and the chat there was much more active compared to a regular PVP server for me.

I guess I should try another server to see if it's any better in terms of activity. I want to be where GAF is though... but lifelessness could chase me away from the game, which I don't want. I'm enjoying the unique story elements quite a bit so far.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

I wish /who could show greater than 100 characters.

The game is populated, it is just because of the nature of the game it feels not that active.

 

[Thoraxes]

 

[zulfate]

hola GAF, i went to buy swtor on origin(never bought anything there) and when it charged origin decided i was doing fraud, so i have to wait 3-4 day till that resolves :/

so my question is is there anywhere else i can buy the digital version?

 

[Thoraxes]

hola GAF, i went to buy swtor on origin(never bought anything there) and when it charged origin decided i was doing fraud, so i have to wait 3-4 day till that resolves :/

so my question is is there anywhere else i can buy the digital version?

Nope. Origin only for digital as far as i'm aware.

 

[benny_a]

I'm kind of okay with less people in quest areas. It's the cities and stuff that bothers me.

I went back to Tatooine, as Warzones are broken again right now.

Two Tatooine instances. One with 62 when I switched and the other with 59.
In this specific case I see no reason for this. I truly hope this is just not tuned yet.

 

[dimb]

The amount of bonus mission content on Nar Shadaa is blowing my mind. Thought this was a short planet the first time through, and it would have been easy for me to skip this stuff.

 

[kayos90]

I've been stuck on 65 for Artifice for a long time and I can't get any more points. Can anyone help me with this?

 

[kai3345]

is there any way I can preload this so that as soon as my copy comes in the mail i can start playing immediately?

 

[kyo_daikun]

The amount of bonus mission content on Nar Shadaa is blowing my mind. Thought this was a short planet the first time through, and it would have been easy for me to skip this stuff.

I had to go back recently for a mainline quest and found out I had totally skipped all the bonus missions at the end, started doing them and it took me pretty much a whole day to get them done, I didn't even do the 2 man heroics as no one else seemed to be near them and couldn't be bothered to shout out all day long just to finish them.

I've been stuck on 65 for Artifice for a long time and I can't get any more points. Can anyone help me with this?

I think its basically saying the stuff you are creating is pretty low level so that's why your not really progressing, you need to get a schematic for some Artifice level 60 gear to start progressing again, try looking on the galactic auction house.

 

[daoster]

You know, up until Taris, I didn't have much to complain about in terms of how crowded a city seemed.

But...Nar Shaddaa...that is one dead, lifeless city. Maybe cause the GAF guild is on an east coast guild, so people were in bed, but at around 12:00 AM PST time on Keller's Void, the game showed only about half a dozen people on Nar Shadda....GAF Guild at that point had more people active than the people on Nar Shaddaa!

But...whatever, I'm still loving the game, and it seems like Nar Shaddaa is much shorter on quests compared to Taris (though I hear the next planet is kind of a killer in terms of quests)..and after doing the Mandalorian Heroic on Nar Shaddaa, I finally got an upgrade to my armor...instead of looking like I'm from the circus, I'm a superhero now

 

[kayos90]

I think its basically saying the stuff you are creating is pretty low level so that's why your not really progressing, you need to get a schematic for some Artifice level 60 gear to start progressing again, try looking on the galactic auction house.

Wow, that is unbelievably lame. Is there any other way to get schematics and such?

 

[kyo_daikun]

You know, up until Taris, I didn't have much to complain about in terms of how crowded a city seemed.

But...Nar Shaddaa...that is one dead, lifeless city. Maybe cause the GAF guild is on an east coast guild, so people were in bed, but at around 12:00 AM PST time on Keller's Void, the game showed only about half a dozen people on Nar Shadda....GAF Guild at that point had more people active than the people on Nar Shaddaa!

But...whatever, I'm still loving the game, and it seems like Nar Shaddaa is much shorter on quests compared to Taris (though I hear the next planet is kind of a killer in terms of quests)..and after doing the Mandalorian Heroic on Nar Shaddaa, I finally got an upgrade to my armor...instead of looking like I'm from the circus, I'm a superhero now

Taris has a lot of quests still, comparable with the other big ones, the main quest there is extremly short tho, have you been to the bomber base and the tower command and done those missions?

I accidently triggered the world boss this morning on Taris as well, managed to get away but my companion wasn't so lucky...

Wow, that is unbelievably lame. Is there any other way to get schematics and such?

You can find them from killing enemies but im level 37 now and not seen a single artifice schematic, investigation and slicing skills give out schems as well I think, its all diminishing returns, you cant reach max level by making basic low level rubbish.

 

[Calidor]

After getting a little burn out with my Gunslinger I decided to make an Alt and made a Inquisitor...

This is so much fun!! Also the story is waaay better than the Smuggler's, makes more sense too. Like someone mentioned before, in the Smuggler's story you get asked to do tons of Republic's chores... you are a criminal! FFS!

OTOH as a Inquisitor I love being a slave who isn't on the dark side, just putting with the shit that the Sith throws at her

 

[Felix Lighter]

Wow, that is unbelievably lame. Is there any other way to get schematics and such?

Buy more from the crew skill trainers as you level up.

 

[TheYanger]

I'm pretty sure it's longer than 4 hours, too, if you don't just beeline the main quest.

If you just rush through a starter planet, it takes like an hour and a half tops. I did it many times in beta.

However, if you think powertech is a 'cool mix' of ranged and melee you'd just be disappointed anyway, Powertech IS a melee class. at range the only useful ability it has is hammer shot (basic attack). Mercenaries do vastly more damage at the moment as well.

 

[mackaveli]

Wow, that is unbelievably lame. Is there any other way to get schematics and such?

just talk to a crew skill trainer for artifice.

They have new schematics all the time when you level up.

 

[Ferrio]

So on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not remotely, 10 being exact copy), how close to WoW is this game? From the screenshots, posts and what not it seems it's almost a carbon copy, sans voice work, setting.

 

[frequency]

The fleet is where you do all the flashpoints from and also the point where you get your daily quests.
It's the inofficial capitcal, yeah.
As I said in my previous post it had 195, now I just looked up and it has 213.

Hmm... What server are you on? I logged in and the Imperial fleet is just between 130 and 140.

There are even less people in the Republic fleet. 80-85.

This is on Keller's Void

 

[Thoraxes]

So on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not remotely, 10 being exact copy), how close to WoW is this game? From the screenshots, posts and what not it seems it's almost a carbon copy, sans voice work, setting.

6-7 on the scale I would say. I've played WoW for 6 years and achievement whored and raided excessively in there, so that's where i'm viewing this from.

 

[dimb]

So on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not remotely, 10 being exact copy), how close to WoW is this game? From the screenshots, posts and what not it seems it's almost a carbon copy, sans voice work, setting.

Depends on how you take to the story stuff really. I personally find it to dramatically change the pace and remove a lot of the mundane nature of the questing in MMORPGs. Instead of Quest -> Quest -> Quest -> Quest -> Quest as the leveling structure you have that stuff broken up with a lot of story stuff, much of which is fairly enjoyable in comparison to other RPGs.

Additionally, there is loads of content exclusive to each class. I find this concept to be very interesting as WoW flitted with the idea back in its original release, but quickly abandoned the concept to turn out as much content that the lowest common denominator had access to. I'm playing with three other people and when someone goes into a class quest phase it is not at all uncommon for it to be a twenty minute mini-dungeon. I think I spent something like an hour or an hour and a half on wrapping up Act One for my character in a class specific instance that had major story choices. These concepts are unlike anything in World of Warcraft.

But yeah, the combat is still something in the same vein, and the way the game plays is very similar to WoW. It shares a lot of things with other MMORPGs, but at the same time it doesn't really feel like any other I've played. I'll also say that it is much more challenging during the leveling process than any other MMORPG I've ever played. Normally in MMORPGs the idea of leveling up feels like a grind because players faceroll content to level cap. SWTOR has some pretty impressive balancing at play that demands more attention, and I think it's more fun to play the leveling content as a result.

 

[benny_a]

Additionally, there is loads of content exclusive to each class.

How happy I was when, I think, Darkness Falls for Dark Age of Camelot came out and every class got its own class specific quest-line. It was very enjoyable. Of course that was in an era where you didn't have 20 quests active and a quest tracker displayed at all times. WoW put quests in MMO into hyperdrive.

This game is basically that class-specific DAoC quest all the time. Except it's voice-acted, has cinematics and choices.
For now it has pulled off the story within a MMO quite well. But that's the point, it's a post-WoW MMO. They all build on top of each other. The biggest thing I miss are public quests from Warhammer. I don't know how well they worked later in the game, but I think the concept of a common goal in an area where everyone can partake in is cool.

 

[autobzooty]

i'm a smuggler and when do i get someone besides corso to fight with? i actually hate him.

i like the droid i got with my ship, but he doesn't fight, unfortunately.

 

[eznark]

Huttball is pretty simple. You take the ball (that starts in the center of the map) to the opponents side of the map across the big line on the floor. You can pass the ball with a ability on your toolbar. And when someone has the ball they have a large beam (like when you have loot) so you can spot them anywhere on the map.

And yeah you do get xp from warzones and there are a couple of daily quests as well which you can find in the fleets.

Thanks, I didn't realize there was a toolbar ability.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

How happy I was when, I think, Darkness Falls for Dark Age of Camelot came out and every class got its own class specific quest-line. It was very enjoyable. Of course that was in an era where you didn't have 20 quests active and a quest tracker displayed at all times. WoW put quests in MMO into hyperdrive.

This game is basically that class-specific DAoC quest all the time. Except it's voice-acted, has cinematics and choices.
For now it has pulled off the story within a MMO quite well. But that's the point, it's a post-WoW MMO. They all build on top of each other. The biggest thing I miss are public quests from Warhammer. I don't know how well they worked later in the game, but I think the concept of a common goal in an area where everyone can partake in is cool.

It really didn't, though, since the vast majority of WoW and beyond quests are bullshit bite-sized tasks. You get a bit of lore text (or lore voice-over in the case of SW:TOR and early EQ2), and off you go to kill 10 magical pigs, right click on 5 levers (which cause space pigs to spawn, meaning you end up killing 10+ doing this anyway), or picking up 10 magical pig dung piles.

WoW's system replaced the group camp'n'grind with bite-sized solo tasks. I think this was detrimental to the genre, since it killed the multiplayer and social aspects of earlier games in favor of making it quicker and easier for everyone to reach the level cap.

So on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not remotely, 10 being exact copy), how close to WoW is this game? From the screenshots, posts and what not it seems it's almost a carbon copy, sans voice work, setting.

In terms of actual what-you-do gameplay, it's easily 80% a clone of late-vanilla WoW, but not executed quite as well. If you're not coming to the game for the voice acting, story, and Star Wars universe-feel, then you're doing it wrong.

 

[chickdigger802]

soo... how do you join guilds in this game?

 

[Won]

Finally came around doing Heroic Esseles. There is an Enrage timer on everything. lol and all that.

Didn't get any useful loot though and goddamn Bioware, reduce the amount of marks. commendation or whatever it's called.

 

[StudioTan]

That's terrible. It's made much worse because everything is designed for tons of people. Like there's super wide corridors and huge open areas, but you don't really see anyone in them.

I hope they just turn off this instancing thing. I never see more than like 120 people in an area based on the upper left number. Those aren't particularly high numbers.
Instancing the start areas doesn't make sense either. I've rolled many many characters and done the beginning areas many many times and I never see more than like 30 people on the top left.

There are people in this thread saying how they see tons of people all the time. Are they just exaggerating? Because I'd really love to see tons of people all the time. Right now it just doesn't feel like an MMO. And even going by single player game standards, this is still a super sparse world with huge empty corridors. I think the game, in one of the loading screens, said Coruscant has a population of "trillions". But the way the game is now, with so few players and NPCs and with the wide open areas, I feel the population is more like 200.

Well, look at it like this, the server caps are probably around 3k-5k. Let's say 4k max people as an example:

4000 / 17 planets = 235 people per planet
2 instances per planet = 117 per instance

Plus each planet might have 5 or 6 areas in it.

Then take into account people doing Flashpoints/Operations, on the Fleets or PVPing. Even though these are rough estimates it's easy to see how the planets can seem dead even with a lot of people on the server.

Hopefully they will be upping the server limits as time goes on.

 

[daoster]

i'm a smuggler and when do i get someone besides corso to fight with? i actually hate him.

i like the droid i got with my ship, but he doesn't fight, unfortunately.

We get them on Nar Shaddaa...haven't gotten the new character yet, but I've already met him.

 

[frequency]

Well, look at it like this, the server caps are probably around 3k-5k. Let's say 4k max people as an example:

4000 / 17 planets = 235 people per planet
2 instances per planet = 117 per instance

Plus each planet might have 5 or 6 areas in it.

Then take into account people doing Flashpoints/Operations, on the Fleets or PVPing. Even though these are rough estimates it's easy to see how the planets can seem dead even with a lot of people on the server.

Hopefully they will be upping the server limits as time goes on.

Hmm... when you put it like that, I have a bit more hope.
It really sucks now and the numbers don't mean anything to me. All I know is that it feels empty/barren.

But if people are spread over several instances on several planets, it might be better later on. When more people start to reach cap or whatever, maybe there will be more people hanging out at the "usual spots". The fleet or wherever.

 

[NemesisPrime]

i'm a smuggler and when do i get someone besides corso to fight with? i actually hate him.

i like the droid i got with my ship, but he doesn't fight, unfortunately.

Give him some gear maybe?

 

[StudioTan]

So on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not remotely, 10 being exact copy), how close to WoW is this game? From the screenshots, posts and what not it seems it's almost a carbon copy, sans voice work, setting.

Personally I don't find any more similar to WoW than I do to pretty much any MMO. They're all basically the same. FWIW I hated WoW and I tried on 3 different occasions to get into it since I had friends playing but I never got a character to max. Boring. Meanwhile I'm totally addicted to TOR. YMMV.

 

[StudioTan]

Hmm... when you put it like that, I have a bit more hope.
It really sucks now and the numbers don't mean anything to me. All I know is that it feels empty/barren.

But if people are spread over several instances on several planets, it might be better later on. When more people start to reach cap or whatever, maybe there will be more people hanging out at the "usual spots". The fleet or wherever.

Yeah, this is what I'm hoping as well. I agree with you it can feel empty but I still see people everywhere all the time, there just hasn't been an area where it's like "wow, look at the crowd". Even at the end in SWG Mos Eisley was always packed with people because it's where people hung out.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Personally I don't find any more similar to WoW than I do to pretty much any MMO. They're all basically the same. FWIW I hated WoW and I tried on 3 different occasions to get into it since I had friends playing but I never got a character to max. Boring. Meanwhile I'm totally addicted to TOR. YMMV.

It must have been the atmosphere/world/lore/graphics/sound effects that turned you off from WoW, because what you actually do in the two games is exactly the same.

The reason most post-WoW MMORPGs are basically the same is because, in an attempt to copy WoW's success, they try to copy its gameplay, too.

 

[Varna]

Any gaffers on shadowtown?

 

[Anno]

Just started on my second pass through Dromund Kaas. Man, going through as a Sith Warrior versus a Bounty Hunter really produces a lot of different dialogue. Before I was treated like shit most the time, now people practically trip over themselves to get in my good graces. Makes doing some of the same quests over again much more pleasant.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Just started on my second pass through Dromund Kaas. Man, going through as a Sith Warrior versus a Bounty Hunter really produces a lot of different dialogue. Before I was treated like shit most the time, now people practically trip over themselves to get in my good graces. Makes doing some of the same quests over again much more pleasant.

"Our research is behind! Hurry up and bring me 10 space lizard pelts, you wretch."

"With all do respects my lord, it would greatly help us if you brought 10 space lizard pelts to us for our research."

Too bad the mission contents are exactly the same :/

 

[indigo-cyclops]

I'm starting to feel the drag/pull of the incredibly dull, repetitive quests.

 

[frequency]

Can I turn off a companion ability forever? Whenever I take a taxi or whatever, Corso's stupid grapple ability gets turned back on.

I also have a commendation as an item in my inventory. Is that a bug?