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Star Wars: The Old Republic: PAX Interview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
At last weekend's PAX convention in Seattle, Washington, MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy had the chance to chat with Star Wars: The Old Republic Lead Writer Daniel Erickson about cinematics and the overall experience that Bioware is trying to create for players in the game. Check it out!
This year at PAX, out in the glorious Emerald City of Seattle, we had the chance to see Star Wars: The Old Republic game in action on the show floor. What was on display was essentially the same content we explored at E3, only this time it was a real treat to see how the general public reacted to the game since this was the first time in the US the players could get their hands on the title (outside of beta). Eventually we caught up with the Lead Writer, Daniel Erickson and chatted about the game and the cinematic experience BioWare is aiming to achieve with their first MMORPG.
Read more SWTOR: Daniel Erickson Interview.
Comments
This game sounds so fanatically themeparkish it atually hurts my eyes!! (even tho Im terrible sandbox player and I do prefer themeparks)..
and the vaporware they gave about...well everything, was very very...dissappointing at least
(
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
yeah yeah yeah story story story...
Why can't someone ask them a real question?
Like why no demos over level2? Or why is space an arcade game and not like Rogue Squad / BF2 / X-wing?
There is something bewteen Eve and tube shooter...
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
You do know there is a PAX Demo of Characters around level 10 [ they all have a advanced Class ] and its played by both Bioware and the Community.
Yeah 3 guys playing for 5 minutes isn't really a deep demo. They need to let a reported or fans play a demo like GW's advance level one.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Maybe they are not as ready yet. Those are two different companies you are talking about. No one even knows when SW:TOR is going to released, so there is no basis for expecting anything at these shows. Comparing it with GW2's development progress makes no sense.
At least the interviewed writer is honest about what you can expect from the spacepart. Their goal isnt SWG JTL or EVE like spacecombat. This means that SW:TOR spacecombat doesnt seem interesting to me at all, but I was going to play it for the story anyway.
They seemed to have put alot of work into this game. It's a shame people are gonna whine regardless of what a company does.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
People who don't know that people have been playing SW:TOR demos at E3, Gamescom and PAX haven't really been paying attention.
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."
I hear that is all we will be hearing from Gw2... pretty much what they showed at gamescom is what you get until release. Kind of worrisome if you ask me.
Bioware has a reason they don't show as much... The reason for that is because they don't like to spoil the story for people. They put together some scenes and did what they could without giving away too much of the story.
You may not think story is important in an MMO, but it is to me, and up until now almost every MMO has had a weak assed story.
AOC was ok... but it was weak, and once you got passed tortage that was pretty much it.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
Everyone who complains about a game deep in development makes me want to open an MMOHater website and make money off their tears.
Thats the new money maker in this genre, not a fan site but a hater site.
I agree with your argument. It's a demo people, they can show whatever they want to show. This should in no way reflect the games capacity in its totality.
However, we do actually know when it's going to be released. it was announced at E3 that they will release Spring of 2011. Take the MMORPG.com "estimated release" numbers with 8 or 9 grains of salt. =P
Someday we'll all look back on the age of computers - and lol.
set that up on paypal and your sitting on gold.
unless some one ends up making a mmohaterhater website to exploit the naive and uninformed,
and then people will clone the hell out of it and make mmohaterhateronhater website.. convolution ensues.
TBF people don't care about finding about the story so spoiling it isn't the problem. People just want a playable demo that is beyond the tutorial. There is a shockingly low amount from TOR consider PAX will more than likely be the last convention. W don't even know what the average gameplay for swtor is is like and what it consists of.
Anyway PAX is far from the end of the information we'll be seeing from gw2. They've already confirmed they'll be going to Paris games week, and PAX East and probably so others as well as details on crafting which they'll be releasing "soon".
TBH, we know alot more about TOR than we do anything about gw2 . IT wil have dymanic events, a warhammer like PQ system. That is their selling point along with the graphics. It bothers me that you can play that game on a minimal machine with graphics like that, it makes me wander how is it possible.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
We don't know more about SWTOR than GW2 that's a blatant lie. I can give pages of articles detailing gw2 mechanics and multiple 40 min gameplay video's of the game, most of the information on swtor doesn't detail anything, it mosly consists of we have this and that but we can't talk about it yet. The answer to the vast majority of Bioware interviews is "we can't talk about it yet", which fine as you don't want to reveal stuff that isn't finished or not actually in the game yet but surely for a game that's being released early next year they should have more to talk about.
Apparently you don't go to the SWTOR site very often. They have listed planet after planet, advanced classes, classes, Races, plenty of game mechanics. Space combat, housing. multiple things. The only thing that really needs to be addressed now is the crafting and the pvp. Then a few minor releases.
There is a wealth of information about the game. GW2 used gamescom to pretty much sell their game. Bioware releases info when they want to. Another thing that worries me, we already know too much about gw2. Does that show how much is in the game?
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
There's a difference between stating something and describing something. Tell me some of the content that occurs in those planets, tell what skills those advanced classes have as well as the mechanics, Give me some examples of space combat mission and what it entails, tell me exactly how the housing is customised and what it entails, tell me how the gameplay is like past level 10. They never DESCRIBE anything relating to gameplay only state. Give me some information on how pvp occurs and what it entails, tell me how players craft and what it entails. They always state we have all the usual mmo things but don't explain how they're implememnted/
Over a third of the fanbase over at swtor forums are annoyed at the lack of detailed gameplay information Bioware provides.
We could ask the same questions for gw2... Any rate, I plan to buy tor... I was gonna buy gw2, but with all the hype that game is getting I think I may save the money, they obviously wont be needing it.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
We do have a lot of detailed information on the skills used, we also have a lot of information on what happens on certain planets, but no, we don't know everything. We know what the starting planets are for certain classes. We know the first planet where all classes come together. We know some of the planets that are contested. We don't know everything about them, we don't know what different kinds of end game they will have, as they've mentioned raids, world PvP, arena style PvP, and a 4th kind of "new" end game thats completely under wraps. They have not spoken about crafting much at all. We've seen plenty of missions and have heard about walkthroughs of many different mission choices that are available. We have multiple hours of in game footage not counting leaked gameplay. We have all advanced classes and all the main classes revealed. We have information on space combat, some information on customization of your ships and housing. A good deal of information on companions.... We do have a lot of information. We don't have ALL of the information. Neither does GW2, I don't even think they've released the names of all their classes yet.
TOR are full of plenty of posts of gamers who were hoping for MORE information about these things they haven't spoken about, and its well overdue. I think the major part of why they aren't releasing all of the information is because so much of it is subject to change. They released the advanced class names and already they're changing the Wizard class based on community disapproval. It was pretty much widespread. BioWare has always said they won't talk about something unless it is already in game and decided upon. That leads me to believe everything they haven't spoken about is still being worked out in true detail before they can confirm it.
With at least 8 months out from a release we still have a lot of time for them to release information. It does get frustrating though.
Everything we know about GW2 is pretty self explanatory, basic explanation of all the things we KNOW in details have cca 11pages of text (with detailed explanation of everything including character screen etc...show me something similar with TOR) and GW2 DONT EVEN HAVE ESTIMATED RELEASE DATE!
Admit it info about TOR is just some random vaporware most of the time...
..tho I must admit they certainly improved the animation (not the combat, seems still very static) and the group dialogues do seem interesting...I hope it'll be B2P becaouse it still aint worth of 15$/month but I seriously doupt it...
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
They have at minimum 8 months to tell us how everything is implements and how it works. If they say they have the features then i'm happy because at some point they WILL explain. Just because GW unloaded information at gamescom to create quick cheers doesn't mean TOR should take the same approach.
I don't want to see 40 min gameplay demos for TOR because in my honest opinion TOR's story is far to important and the developers don't want to give away to much because it is a major point to the game.
We will learn about the other features in due time. They don't have to rush information out, if they did we wouldn't be asking for more detail, we would be complaining as to why it looks so god damn awful and rushed.
I was happy with the PAX presentation. Can't wait till this thing is released.
My point is we have a fair few things things about gw2 that have been explained in detail as well as things we know about in game but haven't been explained yet. With ToR there is virtually nothing that has been explained in detail but a lot of things we know are in the game but know nothing about their implementation.
I know a lot of things are subect to change and have a lot of tweeking to occur before release but surely they must of have some core things that they are pretty certain are not going to change that they can explain in detail. The game has been in development long enough for them to be able to mostly explain a few things.
It's just annoying that when you actually think about it we know few hard facts about any of swtor;s features
As much as I love a good story, I fear Bioware makes a huge mistake focusing entirely on it. It is a known fact, that MMO players rarely read the quest text, and skip voice talk, especially in a group (its simply impossible). The concept Bioware seems to use for TOR souds like a linear adventure model, RPG on railtracks, which will hurt it badly in the end, because it is not flexible. MMO's are all about flexibility. Players want freedom, and they want to explore the Galaxy, as they see fit, without being taken by hand like in a movie. A sandbox system with added story lines would be much mroe flexible and offer somethign for everyone. It is something I think ArenaNet is doing in Guild Wars 2.
My Guild Wars 2 First Beta Weekend "reviewette" : http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4944570/thread/349125#4944570
in game, basically KOTOR with friends, endgame = contested world PvP, dpending on how they do it should be fun, as long as its empir vs rpublic and some dcent battlegrounds, not some half ased thing like allods
The continual use of the false dichotomy of EVE or the 1983 Star Wars Arcade game is disgusting, since it completely ignores the elephant in the center of the room. Or elephants: X-Wing, BF2, Rogue Squadron. Those weren't about exploration, or flying forever. Those put you in the middle of it and were "cinematic" without sacrificing interactivity.
This fundamental dishonesty on Bioware's AND the press' part is shameful.