I don't see what the problem is. As long as you're not 'The One' on whom the fate of the universe depends on, but that you're just one of many people/heroes helping out in several ways in the larger conflict, I see no problem with believability.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Did Blizzars did another mmo before WoW? No..so your point here is stupid.
4.) Star Wars is Serious Business
Yeah....agree on what you said but why a serious concern about a fail from Bioware?
3.) Voice Acting = Too Much?
Totally agree with you here. To much talk about this..."feature" and to much silence about other more important issues regarding ALL the other things that put together merge into a mmo.
2.) Companion Characters
Agree with you when you said that "I realize this sounds a bit alarmist given how forthcoming BioWare has been in saying that companions won’t make the game a solo-fest"....but indeed this could be a major fail if Bioware will not manage to implement a good AI for companions. I say that thinking especially for pvp.
1.) Will It Just Be WoW with Lightsabers?
Well, this is indeed number one. Yes! And I may add that you're not the only one who think about this problem. We like it or not, Blizz put a mark about a blueprint of success in mmo market and is more...handy, to take a recipe and pull out a game rather then try to create another recipe....and here is not about the brains inside Bioware team but more..not more...but ONLY economic strategy and nothing else.
After SWGNGE people still play that smacktarded game anything Bioware does will be 100 or 1000 times better than any jedi game seeing that they did the KOTOR game and that is good enough for me. WoW is a great game and if ToR has similarities -- everyone I know is saying Awesome bring it! As for having buddies and space ships and lightsabres and hot looking Sith babes I say lets get busy!!! As for the rest for the stuff all I know its gonna be way better than STO and that is that!!! If you don't like it go back to SWGNGE or shoots and ladders or something...
Personally I don't give a crap, these aren't things to be wary of these are things that come with any game to begin with "ooooooooo this might go wrong" or "aw crap this is to much for my little brain to take cause it's so full of good content". I say forget that and play it before you say whats wrong and whats right, and not state the obvious.
I'm not worried that it's going to be WoW with lightsabers, i'm worried that it's going to be KOTOR 3 with a subscription.
It will be. A single-player heavy, instance heavy, non massively multiplayer, wow mechanics type game-play with light-sabers. Bioware has all the bases covered.
At least the creator of this point brought out real thoughts about what could be bad about this game....
You just should delete the post, it's not even sarcastically funny.
^ This. First person I have noticed who understands that SWG was NEVER in anyway shape or form Star Wars...3 stormtroopers in the middle of nowhere doing jumping jacks by a flag.. lol
i refuse to read anything in any article as soon as "wow clone" or "wow with..." in the article. WoW has not yet had a single inventive idea in their collective devs. THey take everything and copy it.
And to think a "journalist" would use this term is abhorent, and juvenile at best. Sorry....but all credibility goes out the door once these words are uttered.
5) First just means we have no history of the company to compare it to. Sure, it might have hiccups, but honestly... with the monetary backing they seem to have, I can't imagine anything technical being game-breaking.
4) Star Wars is serious business, but like people have said, different time lines have more leeway, and the biggest box they need to fit in there is a box of their own creation, so no big deal. And the SWG comparison isn't really fair - if they pay more mind to their community than SWG did, they should be fine (or as fine as it gets with MMO communities).
3) I kinda feel the same way. If it's voice acting that rambles on and on like in Dragon Age, there better be a handy skip button and subs to skim what people have said. If it's to the point or interesting, I might listen. Otherwise... wasted $$ on their part, immersion or not.
2) Companions... possibly a brilliant idea for collecting and if you can't find a group. If they replace a group more than stand in for one... Well, why pay a monthly fee for KotoR 3?
1) Probably not. The universe is a different feel, imo, and that's enough of a distinction. End game... could be an issue, but honestly as with my concerns with companions... if it's just KotoR 3 with co-op and a sub (which is what I'm most suspicious of right now, even though I still want to play it), get through once or twice and cancel the sub till it's more than that. Less cash flow is the easiest way to convince any business to improve.
I don't mean the classes are going to be unanimously the same, I obviously know a Trooper is going to have a different story line than a Sith Warrior for example. What I do mean is that every Trooper will go through the same hoops as another Trooper and will ultimately make the same "Life or Death" choices that the others will make, therefore your choice only matters in some imaginary world that has no effect on the canon.
To clarify, I mean each class will be the same within itself (With small differences over all) - not the same as all the others.
People think it's fun to pretend your a monster. Me I spend my life pretending I'm not. - Dexter Morgan
I wonder if you'd had 6, whether you would have mentioned the whole "single-player game" concern that seems to be worrying people, including me. Although you've mentioned Bioware's MMO inexperience, you haven't actually come out and say it...will this feel like a single player game?
My two other major concerns are:
1) Graphics look decidely mediocre so far. Not a deal-breaker..but if this is the game I'm going to be playing for the next 2 years I expect it to look better than games I bought 2 years ago.
2) Combat and pvp. Reading an article about the smuggler's dependancy on cover, and just watching a trooper standing stock-still in the middle of a battle does leave me with concerns about how fluid the combat (particularly pvp) will feel
On the bright side, they're releasing housing at launch..something other games haven't got round to years later. Not a big thing for me, but some old school gamers will enjoy it, and using the ships as housing adds some immersion and I think it's a good facilitator for moving between planets and moving the game into space combat in the years to come.
I think the companions may be a make or break thing. If anyone can pull this system off, it's Bioware..but if mine annoys me and I can't dump him -it may be reason enough to quit.
Good to see these "pro" and "con" articles, keep 'em coming.
5. I'm not worried about this at all. From what I have been able to see so far, I think Bioware will bring a very entertaining MMO to the table. I'm not expecting WoW sub numbers here either, but they will still do well.
4. I am a Star Wars fan, but it's hard to argue with a timeline we know almost nothing about. Considering Lucasarts has to approve everything, I'm not worried at all.
3. VO is awesome. I was so disappointed when AoC VO stopped after Tortage. I even thought my sound went out at first. To me, VO is immersion. I'm hooked on the story and dialogue when there is a voice connected to it, because I hate reading walls of text. I couldn't hardly tell anyone about the lore of the MMOs I've played because I don't read the quests. When I played ME, ME2, and DAO I listened to every VO on first play through. It made things more interesting and entertaining.
2. Companion characters are half an half for me. i like that they will bring more content tot he game and allow for a few different circumstances, but I'm not sure how much they will contribute in battle. Will it be too much or too little to matter?
1. I don't even have a Blizzard account and I know that WoW took ideas from other MMOs and used them so this is no concern. What scares me more is the fact that WoW was the first MMO for millions of players and the only 1 for some. TOR can't completely copy WoW because technically they are just using the ideas/concepts MMOs have had before and after WoW. What they are going to do is try to take some things WoW did to make it so profitable and hopefully improve upon that idea and make it their own.
MMO companies are trying to create a form of entertainment, not a lifestyle, in the pursuit of profit.
"If you're going to act like a noob, I'll treat you like one." -Caskio
Honestly I think the one of the most important points wasn't mentioned... There are only two sides you can play... thus balancing light vs. dark is going to be an issue. And especially when those sides are not equal. Honestly I think player should approach a new MMO with "there is no good or bad side to choose from... just several sides with different names". This, ofc, can't be avoided in Star Wars, but still it concerns me. My guild is already starting to fight what side we go for. And I for one know I would never go dark side.
I still hope TOR to be the first MMO since Dark Age of Camelot to deliver.
Honza, Paladin RR7L9, proud member of Herfølge Boldklub, Excalibur, Dark Age of Camelot ... retired
Honestly I think the one of the most important points wasn't mentioned... There are only two sides you can play... thus balancing light vs. dark is going to be an issue. And especially when those sides are not equal. Honestly I think player should approach a new MMO with "there is no good or bad side to choose from... just several sides with different names". This, ofc, can't be avoided in Star Wars, but still it concerns me. My guild is already starting to fight what side we go for. And I for one know I would never go dark side. I still hope TOR to be the first MMO since Dark Age of Camelot to deliver.
Faction balance is only critical if the game attempts RvR. An example mmorpg is WoW which at the start had open world PvP, but due to hype faction imbalances at launch due to many players being Human Paladin, Blizzard went down the mini game/arena route rather than open RvR route largely in the end.
Can't also see the worry over companions as it would if nothing else make the game less WoW-like
Who cares about IP? This is about making money. I don’t remember reading about redhorn goats that you could ride in LOTR, but they have them on the MMO. I see Bioware doing the same thing, mostly sticking to the lore but going of on a tangent when they want to, SW theme park ahoy!
The gameplay could make it seem like WoW, but then few MMOs these days use anything other than the WoW template.
I dont see any evidence of RvR. Not sure there are factions, if so are the classes not mirrors of each other?
Buy after you have seen the reviews, not the previews.
I never get the idea that they are too happy with what they made. Just looking at the dev diaries first on how excited they are to be different, then looking at the actual gameplay which is identical to WoW's, it seems all forced and I honestly don't think they like the project.
The most impressive thing to come from this game has been the Cinematics they've shown. And those aren't actually things in the game, just some dumb movies with Star Wars stuff.
Personally, I'd like to recommend to MMORPG.COM that in future if they are going to do these pro and con type lists then they either publish them as separate articles at the same time, or publish them in one complete article. At least then they stand a chance to offer a balanced perspective. I'm not critisising how they were written, but publishing them at the same time would be better in my opinion.
Next time perhaps you might consider actually contributing a post that is both constructive and relevant to the OP, rather than using it as a vehicle to troll and make wild assumptions based on such a small amount of evidence.
This game obviously aint for you. Leave it at that and move on friend.
When I went out of tortage in AoC and there were no more voice acting it felt so bad. The game started to feel kinda different. If the main way of leveling is by quests than those quests better be well implemented. Voice acting helps the story feels more immersive for me.
2) Companions
I just don't get it. Why should we have companions in a multiplayer game. I liked em in kotor and other single player games but in a mmo? I always wanted those companions in kotor to be real peoples. The companions are supposed to be the other players or friends in the game. The single player games emulated that in an artificial way but in a mmo is not needed. Just a bad decision for me.
I just don't get it. Why should we have companions in a multiplayer game. I liked em in kotor and other single player games but in a mmo? I always wanted those companions in kotor to be real peoples. The companions are supposed to be the other players or friends in the game. The single player games emulated that in an artificial way but in a mmo is not needed. Just a bad decision for me.
Hopefully Bioware will understand this and ensure that they don't impede on any encouragement to group up with people. If they don't, then this could spell the downfall for the game.
I just don't get it. Why should we have companions in a multiplayer game. I liked em in kotor and other single player games but in a mmo? I always wanted those companions in kotor to be real peoples. The companions are supposed to be the other players or friends in the game. The single player games emulated that in an artificial way but in a mmo is not needed. Just a bad decision for me.
Hopefully Bioware will understand this and ensure that they don't impede on any encouragement to group up with people. If they don't, then this could spell the downfall for the game.
This is the one thing that bothers me the most. The rest i think I can live with. It kind of reminds me of lotro with it skirmish system.
Never had to have a companion in swg, you either solo or group. Having some padi-won following me around is going to be a bit stange.
i refuse to read anything in any article as soon as "wow clone" or "wow with..." in the article. WoW has not yet had a single inventive idea in their collective devs. THey take everything and copy it.
And to think a "journalist" would use this term is abhorent, and juvenile at best. Sorry....but all credibility goes out the door once these words are uttered.
Jesus, seriously? We get it. WoW didn't do it first. How many times do you guys have to keep telling us the same shit over and over again? People use WoW as the relation to all MMO's right now, and it's not our fault if multiple, read: MULTIPLE, MMO's a year come out with strikingly similar UI's, gameplay, and aesthetic choices to match Blizzard's product. We understand they didn't create these idea's themselves. We get that EQ and Meridian 59 and a bunch of other boring MUD's came first. We hear what you're saying.
Problem is, it's ridiculous. TOR is a clone, AOC, Aion, WAR and Alganon were all clones. It doesn't matter who had the idea first, or where these idea's first start sprouting. What matters is that Blizzard came along and combined a bunch of ideas from MMO's that preceded it, and because of it's wildly popular success and popularity, has become the formula which all MMO developers and players relate to. It's pretty obvious just looking at most screenshots for the games I listed: they all look the same. And to attack someone's credibility because you don't like a particular phrase? Stubborn at best, childish at worst, especially since you're unequivocally wrong.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Comments
I don't see what the problem is. As long as you're not 'The One' on whom the fate of the universe depends on, but that you're just one of many people/heroes helping out in several ways in the larger conflict, I see no problem with believability.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
5.) BioWare’s First MMORPG
Did Blizzars did another mmo before WoW? No..so your point here is stupid.
4.) Star Wars is Serious Business
Yeah....agree on what you said but why a serious concern about a fail from Bioware?
3.) Voice Acting = Too Much?
Totally agree with you here. To much talk about this..."feature" and to much silence about other more important issues regarding ALL the other things that put together merge into a mmo.
2.) Companion Characters
Agree with you when you said that "I realize this sounds a bit alarmist given how forthcoming BioWare has been in saying that companions won’t make the game a solo-fest"....but indeed this could be a major fail if Bioware will not manage to implement a good AI for companions. I say that thinking especially for pvp.
1.) Will It Just Be WoW with Lightsabers?
Well, this is indeed number one. Yes! And I may add that you're not the only one who think about this problem. We like it or not, Blizz put a mark about a blueprint of success in mmo market and is more...handy, to take a recipe and pull out a game rather then try to create another recipe....and here is not about the brains inside Bioware team but more..not more...but ONLY economic strategy and nothing else.
After SWGNGE people still play that smacktarded game anything Bioware does will be 100 or 1000 times better than any jedi game seeing that they did the KOTOR game and that is good enough for me. WoW is a great game and if ToR has similarities -- everyone I know is saying Awesome bring it! As for having buddies and space ships and lightsabres and hot looking Sith babes I say lets get busy!!! As for the rest for the stuff all I know its gonna be way better than STO and that is that!!! If you don't like it go back to SWGNGE or shoots and ladders or something...
Personally I don't give a crap, these aren't things to be wary of these are things that come with any game to begin with "ooooooooo this might go wrong" or "aw crap this is to much for my little brain to take cause it's so full of good content". I say forget that and play it before you say whats wrong and whats right, and not state the obvious.
At least the creator of this point brought out real thoughts about what could be bad about this game....
You just should delete the post, it's not even sarcastically funny.
^ This. First person I have noticed who understands that SWG was NEVER in anyway shape or form Star Wars...3 stormtroopers in the middle of nowhere doing jumping jacks by a flag.. lol
i refuse to read anything in any article as soon as "wow clone" or "wow with..." in the article. WoW has not yet had a single inventive idea in their collective devs. THey take everything and copy it.
And to think a "journalist" would use this term is abhorent, and juvenile at best. Sorry....but all credibility goes out the door once these words are uttered.
Good article with some very valid points. I certainly hope the best for the game but we won't know the true impact of it until it hits our computers.
5) First just means we have no history of the company to compare it to. Sure, it might have hiccups, but honestly... with the monetary backing they seem to have, I can't imagine anything technical being game-breaking.
4) Star Wars is serious business, but like people have said, different time lines have more leeway, and the biggest box they need to fit in there is a box of their own creation, so no big deal. And the SWG comparison isn't really fair - if they pay more mind to their community than SWG did, they should be fine (or as fine as it gets with MMO communities).
3) I kinda feel the same way. If it's voice acting that rambles on and on like in Dragon Age, there better be a handy skip button and subs to skim what people have said. If it's to the point or interesting, I might listen. Otherwise... wasted $$ on their part, immersion or not.
2) Companions... possibly a brilliant idea for collecting and if you can't find a group. If they replace a group more than stand in for one... Well, why pay a monthly fee for KotoR 3?
1) Probably not. The universe is a different feel, imo, and that's enough of a distinction. End game... could be an issue, but honestly as with my concerns with companions... if it's just KotoR 3 with co-op and a sub (which is what I'm most suspicious of right now, even though I still want to play it), get through once or twice and cancel the sub till it's more than that. Less cash flow is the easiest way to convince any business to improve.
Referring to my last post obviously...
I don't mean the classes are going to be unanimously the same, I obviously know a Trooper is going to have a different story line than a Sith Warrior for example. What I do mean is that every Trooper will go through the same hoops as another Trooper and will ultimately make the same "Life or Death" choices that the others will make, therefore your choice only matters in some imaginary world that has no effect on the canon.
To clarify, I mean each class will be the same within itself (With small differences over all) - not the same as all the others.
People think it's fun to pretend your a monster. Me I spend my life pretending I'm not. - Dexter Morgan
Well written, and agree with most of your points.
I wonder if you'd had 6, whether you would have mentioned the whole "single-player game" concern that seems to be worrying people, including me. Although you've mentioned Bioware's MMO inexperience, you haven't actually come out and say it...will this feel like a single player game?
My two other major concerns are:
1) Graphics look decidely mediocre so far. Not a deal-breaker..but if this is the game I'm going to be playing for the next 2 years I expect it to look better than games I bought 2 years ago.
2) Combat and pvp. Reading an article about the smuggler's dependancy on cover, and just watching a trooper standing stock-still in the middle of a battle does leave me with concerns about how fluid the combat (particularly pvp) will feel
On the bright side, they're releasing housing at launch..something other games haven't got round to years later. Not a big thing for me, but some old school gamers will enjoy it, and using the ships as housing adds some immersion and I think it's a good facilitator for moving between planets and moving the game into space combat in the years to come.
I think the companions may be a make or break thing. If anyone can pull this system off, it's Bioware..but if mine annoys me and I can't dump him -it may be reason enough to quit.
Good to see these "pro" and "con" articles, keep 'em coming.
Lord of the ring online is a great IP to have, but it is now free.
Companions, no point for an mmorpg unless its an escort quest.
Whole game being voice acting, pointless. Some part of the game being voice acting like age of conan, great.
Next wow, in your dream.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
5. I'm not worried about this at all. From what I have been able to see so far, I think Bioware will bring a very entertaining MMO to the table. I'm not expecting WoW sub numbers here either, but they will still do well.
4. I am a Star Wars fan, but it's hard to argue with a timeline we know almost nothing about. Considering Lucasarts has to approve everything, I'm not worried at all.
3. VO is awesome. I was so disappointed when AoC VO stopped after Tortage. I even thought my sound went out at first. To me, VO is immersion. I'm hooked on the story and dialogue when there is a voice connected to it, because I hate reading walls of text. I couldn't hardly tell anyone about the lore of the MMOs I've played because I don't read the quests. When I played ME, ME2, and DAO I listened to every VO on first play through. It made things more interesting and entertaining.
2. Companion characters are half an half for me. i like that they will bring more content tot he game and allow for a few different circumstances, but I'm not sure how much they will contribute in battle. Will it be too much or too little to matter?
1. I don't even have a Blizzard account and I know that WoW took ideas from other MMOs and used them so this is no concern. What scares me more is the fact that WoW was the first MMO for millions of players and the only 1 for some. TOR can't completely copy WoW because technically they are just using the ideas/concepts MMOs have had before and after WoW. What they are going to do is try to take some things WoW did to make it so profitable and hopefully improve upon that idea and make it their own.
MMO companies are trying to create a form of entertainment, not a lifestyle, in the pursuit of profit.
"If you're going to act like a noob, I'll treat you like one." -Caskio
Adventurers wear fancy pants!!!
Honestly I think the one of the most important points wasn't mentioned... There are only two sides you can play... thus balancing light vs. dark is going to be an issue. And especially when those sides are not equal. Honestly I think player should approach a new MMO with "there is no good or bad side to choose from... just several sides with different names". This, ofc, can't be avoided in Star Wars, but still it concerns me. My guild is already starting to fight what side we go for. And I for one know I would never go dark side.
I still hope TOR to be the first MMO since Dark Age of Camelot to deliver.
Honza, Paladin RR7L9, proud member of Herfølge Boldklub, Excalibur, Dark Age of Camelot ... retired
Faction balance is only critical if the game attempts RvR. An example mmorpg is WoW which at the start had open world PvP, but due to hype faction imbalances at launch due to many players being Human Paladin, Blizzard went down the mini game/arena route rather than open RvR route largely in the end.Can't also see the worry over companions as it would if nothing else make the game less WoW-like
Who cares about IP? This is about making money. I don’t remember reading about redhorn goats that you could ride in LOTR, but they have them on the MMO. I see Bioware doing the same thing, mostly sticking to the lore but going of on a tangent when they want to, SW theme park ahoy!
The gameplay could make it seem like WoW, but then few MMOs these days use anything other than the WoW template.
I dont see any evidence of RvR. Not sure there are factions, if so are the classes not mirrors of each other?
Buy after you have seen the reviews, not the previews.
I never get the idea that they are too happy with what they made. Just looking at the dev diaries first on how excited they are to be different, then looking at the actual gameplay which is identical to WoW's, it seems all forced and I honestly don't think they like the project.
The most impressive thing to come from this game has been the Cinematics they've shown. And those aren't actually things in the game, just some dumb movies with Star Wars stuff.
Personally, I'd like to recommend to MMORPG.COM that in future if they are going to do these pro and con type lists then they either publish them as separate articles at the same time, or publish them in one complete article. At least then they stand a chance to offer a balanced perspective. I'm not critisising how they were written, but publishing them at the same time would be better in my opinion.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
LOL@ last screen shot. This is worse than WoW, this looks like the cartoon Clone wars that comes on my kids cartoon network.
All you have to do is watch this boring ass combat video to deduce SWTOR is just more of the same.
And as others have said, the graphics suck.
Next time perhaps you might consider actually contributing a post that is both constructive and relevant to the OP, rather than using it as a vehicle to troll and make wild assumptions based on such a small amount of evidence.
This game obviously aint for you. Leave it at that and move on friend.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
3) Voice acting = too much?
When I went out of tortage in AoC and there were no more voice acting it felt so bad. The game started to feel kinda different. If the main way of leveling is by quests than those quests better be well implemented. Voice acting helps the story feels more immersive for me.
2) Companions
I just don't get it. Why should we have companions in a multiplayer game. I liked em in kotor and other single player games but in a mmo? I always wanted those companions in kotor to be real peoples. The companions are supposed to be the other players or friends in the game. The single player games emulated that in an artificial way but in a mmo is not needed. Just a bad decision for me.
Hopefully Bioware will understand this and ensure that they don't impede on any encouragement to group up with people. If they don't, then this could spell the downfall for the game.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
This is the one thing that bothers me the most. The rest i think I can live with. It kind of reminds me of lotro with it skirmish system.
Never had to have a companion in swg, you either solo or group. Having some padi-won following me around is going to be a bit stange.
Jesus, seriously? We get it. WoW didn't do it first. How many times do you guys have to keep telling us the same shit over and over again? People use WoW as the relation to all MMO's right now, and it's not our fault if multiple, read: MULTIPLE, MMO's a year come out with strikingly similar UI's, gameplay, and aesthetic choices to match Blizzard's product. We understand they didn't create these idea's themselves. We get that EQ and Meridian 59 and a bunch of other boring MUD's came first. We hear what you're saying.
Problem is, it's ridiculous. TOR is a clone, AOC, Aion, WAR and Alganon were all clones. It doesn't matter who had the idea first, or where these idea's first start sprouting. What matters is that Blizzard came along and combined a bunch of ideas from MMO's that preceded it, and because of it's wildly popular success and popularity, has become the formula which all MMO developers and players relate to. It's pretty obvious just looking at most screenshots for the games I listed: they all look the same. And to attack someone's credibility because you don't like a particular phrase? Stubborn at best, childish at worst, especially since you're unequivocally wrong.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)