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For me it was both the lack of things to do at 50 (except grinding for gear whether PvE or PvP) and the lack of a decent LFG tool. I've always liked to mix levelling with doing instances, but I found the later instances impossible to do on my Smuggler. It also lacks a social side to it tbh, outside of questing/flashpoints/warzones there's hardly anything to do (though that's the same in WoW), so it's hard to do anything together with friends/guildies. If my account is still active when patch 1.2 comes out I'll have a look, though it doesn't seem to alleviate any of my complaints (and nerfs my smuggler even more).

Nope, haven't played WoW since SWTOR came out (even though I now quit playing SWTOR). Don't like the direction Blizzard is going with WoW, which seems to be to make everything easier (see the upcoming talent revamp) and seemingly even aimed at kids (Kung Fu pandas). Cancelled both my WoW and SWTOR subs, so it looks like I won't be playing an MMO for the first time in years. Oh well, replaying ME1, 2 & 3 and Diablo 3 comes out on May 15, so I'll be able to keep myself busy anyway .

Got a few more of me invading an Imperial Star Destroyer and ... blowing it up while I fly away in my BT-7 Thunderclap .

Yeah, got my Vanguard to 41 last night and still loving the game. The main thing I wish they'd improve is the LFG tool, I don't want an LFD tool like in WoW, but they should at least have the option to only show people who are LFG & galaxy wide, preferably with some filters. Right now you can flag yourself as LFG & add a comment, but on /who it still lists everyone on your planet (limited to 100), just adds a symbol next to who's LFG. So if you want to group it's mainly spam in General chat.

Even PvP isn't so bad, everyone gets bolstered to 50 (though they intend to make a seperate warzone for lvl 50 now) and the only advantage higher level brings is more abilities. There's 3 warzones: one is where a ball is dropped in the middle and you have to get it to the opponents base which ends up being very chaotic, another is to fight for control over 3 cannons untill you get destroy the enemies' ship and in the last one you have to slice (hack) a terminal, but you need to blast through 2 doors first and attackers and defenders get switched around so you play once as attacker, once as defender. There is some open world PvP on Ilum as well, but I haven't experienced it yet. Part of the fun now is of course that everyone still figuring out what to do. Though I guess you'll get premade teams eventually (not sure you can join with more than 1 group though, kinda hope not).

So far I've liked all the stories I've played through (though I've only done the starter planet with most, only my smuggler is higher than lvl 11).

Don't see how the price of the box is too high, there's many single player games at that price point that are are only about 10 hours long. I've played extensively during the 2 beta weekends (didn't count, but could easely be 40 hours or more) and only got to level 25 (okay, I also tried a few alts, but most didn't get past level 10 and that's only 3-4 hours). There's a huge amount of content included and if you have 1 republic character & 1 empire character the content gets doubled as they don't share quests afaik (they might do later on, never got an empire character high enough to verify, but if they do I guess it's only from lvl 25 on or even higher).

Hard to say if it will succeed long term, it depends on what's there for end-game and whether they can keep churning out things to do at level 50 (and please no grinding dailies like in WoW, hate it with a passion and they keep introducing more). It certainly won't dethrone WoW (but which game could, except maybe Blizzard's own Project Titan?), but it doesn't have to.

As for f2p MMO's, so far I haven't played one that didn't feel overly restrictive (unfortunately even CoH is too restrictive as you can't craft, nor use the crafted enhancements which are the best ones available), which makes sense as the point is too still make money, but if I have to spend money anyway I'd rather pay a subscription and have no restrictions at all. It does allow you to really try the game and see if you like it though. So far the only MMO I know of which costs only the price of the box is Guild Wars (and Guild Wars 2). I know I sound very defensive, it's just that I think Bioware has made an excellent game and I hope they succeed .

On another note, the game was very stable and had minimal lag even though I played on a US East Coast server (some got in the general beta and I joined them). And according to EA there were over 2 million people in the beta tests. During the stress test weekend they even restarted all the servers and I had no issues logging back in, so it looks like they're going to have a very stable launch.

Been in the last 2 stress test/beta weekends of SW:TOR (Yay!) and here are my impressions.

While it doesn't break the mould (neither did WoW tbh), focusing more on story does make a huge difference to the experience. You're part of a bigger story and the fact that you can make some decisions (small as they might be) involves you more & makes your story more personal. The flipside is that so far (up to lvl 25) it's been very linear, so (same-faction) alts will go through all the same (side) quests, though the class quest driving the main story will be totally different.

They've really succeeded in transforming their single player RPG's into an MMO: the dialog options & excellent voice acting make you more involved in those quests and I didn't find myself skipping quest text & just heading to the waypoint like I do in other MMO's. There's also bonus quests that pop up while questing to kill a certain number of mobs for extra XP (they can be ignored) and some even have multiple layers which eventually leads you to kill an elite.

While the game can sometimes feel like you're playing a single player game (along others playing their single player game) there's enough incentive to group: heroic quests, flashpoints, PvP, ... Heroic quests are just group quests while Flashpoints are story-driven dungeons. Only played 3 (the first 2 Republic ones & the first Empire one), but they've all been fun and they do promote teamwork.

Haven't done any PvP, so can't comment on that.

Crafting feels really weird at first (your companion crafts & is sent out on collection missions) as it's slow (crafting an lowbie item takes a minute). But once you pick up more companions, they can craft while you're out with another companion doing quests, etc. So you won't sit in town for hours crafting instead you can do whatever while your inactive companions craft. Supplies are also available in good amounts, never had to go out of my way for mats, got more than enough just questing.

Combat is actually more like CoH than WoW really (Yes!) in that you usually fight groups of mobs and there's no autoattack. It makes combat more active &fun imo. While resource management (mana/energy/power) isn't an issue while questing as mobs die fast, in drawn out fights (heroics, flashpoints and PvP I guess) it adds a nice dynamic without feeling overly restrictive and you always have a basic attack to deal some damage & regain some mana/energy/power.

All in all SW:TOR has me really excited, the story based gameplay makes levelling a joy, so there's a lot of fun to be had on the journey to 50. Not sure how it will be end game, but there will be hard mode dungeons, raids & PvP, again nothing ground breaking. I just hope they will add new content (new planet(s) with associated quests) every few months instead of just adding new raids, but well see. Meanwhile there's enough to do & fun to be had on the way to endgame .

The level scaling in Oblivion was totally silly, especially while having Sneak as a main skill. Levelling up from sneaking around was cool, but then getting beaten by rats hitting like a truck wasn't . Hope it's better this time around and it does seem the setting is more interesting than Oblivion's generic fantasy setting. Did like Fallout 3 a lot, so will give Skyrim a try eventually.

As for DC Universe it looks like it's one big server per region (seperated into PvE/PvP, but looks like it's the same as in WoW, you can still flag yourself as PvP and/or do PvP Arena's and stuff while on a PvE server). Used to be very laggy at first, but after they went f2p they got 10 times as many players and it's stabilized now. The game lacks some guidance, but it's been pretty fun so far, started loads of alts to find a power/weapon combo I liked, shame you only have 2 character slots as f2p player .

Got my beta test invite for SW:TOR, but it seems to be for some huge stress test weekend, so it'll prolly be laggy as hell, but downloading it right now anyway .

Hehe yeah, shame you can't put a silencer on it though ... instead I put the silencer + laser sight on my combat rifle .

It's a great game, really reminds me of the original with the multiple approaches. And yeah you don't need to have played the original as it's a prequel and you'll only miss out on some references.