Lewis at Tap Repeatedly gives his first impressions of SWTOR and finds the product to be quite flawed.  He remarks that the game is quite similar to WoW and was disappointed that the game did hardly anything new, different, or exciting.  Here are a list of his disappointments:

• Combat:  “the game plays exactly the same as World of Warcraft or Rift or any number of replicas that have launched in the last five years. Combat against NPC’s is a case of targeting the enemy and hitting one of your skills to await the global cool down or skill specific cool down. Though this is fine, combat is incredibly slow and does not in any way encapsulate what Star Wars is all about.”
• Healing: “The first of my major concerns is the fact that although classes have a minor heal skill (Recharge & Reload in the bounty hunters case) you have to remain stationary to use them.”
• Skill Purchasing: “To be unable to buy a new skill because you don’t have enough money, in some circumstances having returned all the way back to town, is yet another way of creating a time sink for the player. Would it be so difficult of Bioware to make it so when players reach a certain level they automatically unlock said skill, that them becomes available for use immediately?”
• Game Dynamics: “There are other concerns; the lack of pace in combat due to it being dictated by global cooldowns, the complete lack of necessity to be mobile whilst taking part in combat as well as the lack of movement from enemies or the ability to dodge incoming projectiles and attacks. Sadly, these are all due to the fact that Bioware have copied a formula that was popular (and still popular) five years ago.”

I must confess that I agree with most of these points.  SWTOR does not to anything terribly different.  Yes, it is going to be fun and the story arch will be well done and immsersive.  But, will it be enough to keep players coming back month after month?  I’m concerned that SWTOR will have a great 3-6 months and then suffer a significant subscription decline as a large portion of the player base will dub it a “WoW clone,” get bored, and move on.

SWTOR will have to turn out a great product to compete with other games on the market and keep their player base interested.  Kill 10 Rats listed some of the features that Guild Wars 2 is going to have.  Could you imagine if SWTOR had even a couple of these elements?

• No mob tapping or kill stealing.
• Rather than traditional quests, the PVE content is mostly in the form of Dynamic Event chains that branch and cascade through out each game zone.
• The game does away with the “holy trinity” of class roles; tank, dps, heals. It also allows any class to fulfill any role situationally, with some skill swapping mid combat.
• The game has an advanced side-kick system. Characters are always automatically scaled down in level for content that is a lower level than they are. This makes it easier for friends of different levels to group meaningfully for content of any level. It also prevents higher level characters from going to lower level areas to trivialize content for lower level players there.
• There are no targeted heals or buffs. They are proximity or area of effect based and effect other players, grouped or not.
• There are no factions.
• All classes have self heals.
• There is no real death penalty in the game. No debuffs or XP loss.

GW2 is taking a great risk and attempting to solve some of the design/play flaws that have plaqued other MMOs for years.  SWTOR is taking a much more conservative approach and attempting to stick with what works.  I can’t say that I blame them.  If I had already spent over $100 million on a game, I would want to emulate a design model that has had a history of success.

However, GW2 may prove that their fresh take on a MMO game may prove to be the winner in the long run.  Many may grow tired after playing the same MMO over and over again and flee to something completely different.  Oh, and GW2 will be free to play to boot.

I’m still looking forward to December 20th with great anticipation.  However, I hope that anticipation hasn’t turned into boredom by March 20th.