Game launch has shown how bad server workload was planned - we became the hostages of Early Game access.
The server, where our guild has been assigned, is full with more than 30 mins wait time. The reason is
quite obvious - when BioWare assigned guilds they probably didn't count "normal" people who didn't preorder
SWTOR but were a part of the guild. Today most of them got their key and logged... but they can't choose another server
as they are assigned to the one where their guilds are. The result is kinda disaster. We can't play and can't
transfer us and the guild to another server (there are like 10 servers atm with "light" population).
Actually BioWare dropped the same brick as Blizzard 7 years ago. What a shame...
On a positive side - I got first impressions of SWTOR after a week of playing. Let me share some with you.
Game is huge. 3 planets I was playing at are like a half of a continent in WoW and there are many more yet unvisited
planets. Tons of dialogs for each quest, at least 3 different ones depending on your answers. In fact, that becomes an issue for
me because is started to be boring. But I should applaud the titanic work made by BioWare, voices and accents are
brilliant. In certain areas walking/riding is also boring since it is too long street or road...
Planets are different but landscape designers are also different from the ones from Blizzard. I do understand
they follow the concept of Star Wars but personally I want more diversity. Perhaps I just need to see all planets...
Game is sometimes very difficult, which is very good. That reminds me my best days in vanilla WoW - in the
beginning 2 packs of trash mobs will kill you easily. And so does SWTOR trash. ;) Heroic areas are, in fact, heroic.
You need a company or should be a Molten Core veteran and run the class which could heal him/herself...
Besides inappropriate server workload allocation I should admit that BioWare staff has been watching WoW very
closely and corrected many "errors" in ideology and game mechanics like your own quest zones where in WoW there was
a hard competition for quest mob that required to be killed. In SWTOR it is your own small "instance".
Unfortunately, there are some design flaws that are so obviuos... E.g. some quest items cannot be looted with
one click - you need to, say, open a chest (one click), then kill spawned mobs, then loot an item from that chest
(second click). Indeed some kids loot it while you are killing trash... Also, the number of quest object you need to click
on or loot are to low for certain areas.
Personally I have troubles with orientation... Well, I'm old man but still. I'm lost in spaceports/docking areas and alikes.
First instances (flashpoints) we've been visiting with Dun are jokes. Well, we do have "some" WoW experience. But
just 2 of us (with 2 pets) instead of 4 did two of them without a single wipe...
All in all, SWTOR looks like good alternative to WoW. Not sure this game will last that long but for the time being
I'm having fun in there. Join me and OSG there!