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This will prob be SWTOR's undoing!
Wrender
Member Posts: 1,386
Imagine if World of Warcraft had story segments in the game that locks you in a dialog with npc's and such for 10-15 minutes at a time like Bioware loves to do in thier games and as SWTOR is going to do. People would not play it and it would NOT have the sucess that it has today. Think about it! I have several real life friends that have played WoW since it's inception and have yet to even see ANY of the games several cinematic movies yet. They hate waiting to play and spam the escape button to bypass any and all story elements such as these. I for one love watching. Sometimes the opening cinematic is worth the price of admission for me. I don't know what's wrong with some people nowdays.
Most hardcore gamers today have no interest whatsoever about story elements and unless Bioware adds the ability to bypass all this with the "escape" button or something it will be the number one reason why people will not play thier game.
yeah I know...it is really sad. Kids today are so impatient
They don't stop to read quests and they damn sure aren't gonna want to stop and watch a story play out for the same reasons... Think about it!
Will this "bother" any of you?
Comments
A hardcore gamer in my opinion is someone who likes to play video games alot and I consider myself to be one but I have no problem watching cinematic trailers and such so I don't think it will have a negative impact on every gamer that tries it. More importantly though I feel like if it was something that people looked upon as a problem it wouldn't be too difficult to add a function that allowed a player to speed the process up.
So whilr I see the possibility of complaints about this I don't think of it as something that could make or break the game.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Guess it depends on exactly how much story to action ratio there will be. One of my friends has already told me that was the main reason he was not going to play it. Of course this guy is the worlds worst at hitting the escape button to bypass cinematics and dialog in an MMO. And he is an older guy. I just don't get it. I always at least watch the opening cinematics in every new game I have ever bought.
I think it should be noted that BioWare isn't only targeting "existing" mmo players, but also trying to pull their current fans into the mmo genre. Their current fans LOVE the movie-esque feel of their games. I am one of them and will love being able to see my toon incorporated into these story segments.
Also, I'vce been playing mmos since AC, so you could call me a "hard-core" player.
WoW is typically believed to have little or no story worth speaking of, so why would somebody want to sit through it. TOR is made by bioware, who loves telling stories, so why would the players expect to enjoy the game if it were stripped of cutscenes, VO conversations, "cinematically synchronized combat", and story choices?
I don't see this as being TORs undoing, but I doubt the actual game will be propped up by the bioware story components (or vice versa).
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
I didn't mind the long sequences of storyline until I realized that most things you say lead to the same response.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
I think I might have misused the word "hardcore" here. Mainly just gamers in general i guess. True Bioware does have a pretty decent following from the Fallout, Mass Effect and Dragon-Age types. I love those games actually as well.
I suppose it may turn some people off with the dialog, but i guess that goes with every game. There is usually a healthy amount of action though in the kotor games. i'd say dialog takes up about 30% of the gameplay time? leaving 70% for the action? Just a guesstimate.
Most of the time in the Kotor games you were running through dungeon type scenarios fighting enemies or solving puzzles.
Some people aren't going to like the dialog and will skip past it. Only thing i can say is their loss. Some people hate pvp, some hate raids so they as well skip these. Can't please everyone all the time. As for if this will be a bad thing? i don't think so. Some will love it (me) some will hate it. Most will be, hey thats kinda cool.
I think (now this is speculation) what could be cool is they stated it's fully VO, what could be cool is if your walking along and you hear two npcs having a conversation (quest related or not) this could make it seem as if the city is somewhat alive as you catch only bits of a conversation as your walking along. Much like you do in a RL city.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I would also think the biggest risk for this game to fail is if they do not get the massive number of subs they expect. To drop 150 mil on this game and then get 300,000 subs that stick around long term will be a big problem if it happens.
This is very true and I believe WOW is a good reason for this phenomena of not reading quests even started. i have never been in a big hurry to lvl up in an MMo and now that I think about it, WOW is prob the 1st game i played where I quit reading quests in. i have always read quests in games. Gues that's why I have always preferred LotRO to WOW for the better story elements. I think Cataclysm is gonna try to change this somwhat. I was in BETA and although CATA further dumbs down some aspects(if that is even possible) but did def make some things a bit more interesting. Can't wait to see how Bioware handles the story in an MMO.
Hardcore doesnt equal ADHD, you have no 'real life friends' and cinematics and player character to npc dialogue arent really the same thing but i guess you skip the whole reading thing all together. You should just drop the RPG and stick with MMOs.
[Mod Edit]
i'm not into sci fi mmos, and the graphics are pretty bad in this game compaired to others, but i plan on trying this game for the reason of the story.
most mmorpgs have a story line, but it's pretty lame, and in the form of text. i understand this game to have a cut scene after main quest turn ins that follow a class specific story line. this is pretty cool as far as mmorpgs go. i don't think it will win with everyone, but it's enough to want me to try it.
I don't think anything really wrong with how you use the word because truth be told I rarely "rerun" cinematics. In games where content is repeated I usually bypass them after I've seen them once but if things work as I expect they may then alot of the cinematics might not repeat.
The other thing about cinematics is really a production style issue, I've never had a problem with the length or amount Bioware uses but certain other companies can tend to tick me off with it, such as Square Enix (and squaresoft before them), and Konami.
I spoke mostly about cinematics before but the industry is suffering from the same issues as far as quest text goes too, and while I understand some peoples lack of excitement over and criticism of text based questing I tend to read those with much the same reasoning as cinematics, if I've never read it before I always read up on why I'm going to do what is asked of me. Of course after the first time what is really the point? so long as I understand already why my character is going out.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
WoW doesn't have much of a story? Tell that to Arthas, Jaina, Thrall, Varian, Uther not to mention Grom, Garrosh, Malfurion and his ill tempered brother Illidan. Moreover, bestselling novels, lore panels reeking of nerd-dom (including our hero of Blizzcon 2010, the 'red shirt guy') are only tips of the iceberg of WoW's story.
The story of SWOTR won't be what sets it apart. I'm sure gamers will just 'escape out of' the long conversations after a while and get to killing asap.j
Star Wars games will always have one massive disadvantage regarding story: we all know where everyone ends up...no matter how heroic you are, it all comes down to Luke vs Darth..and ultimately the Emperor.
I'm outta here for a bit guys. Gonna go play some Starcraft 2! Pwn sum nubs!........
The biggest thing about this story that is going to set itself apart is in most games your just there to see the story. You are told what to do and how it should go about. You don't have a say other then yeah i'll do it or no i won't and the npc reverts back to start and you can click him again and start over from the beginning of the conversation
While ToR allows you to make choices as they state that will affect not only the short term but the long term play as well.
Most people skip the quest stuff as it's usually oh dear something something has happened and i can't do it myself, oh your a hero can you do it for me? and then you get a little accept/decline button, theres no choice here as you either go on the quest, or you don't. it's down to the rewards, you either want to do this or not. RP can inject some choice in there, but it's down to. Do i do it and get the reward or do i not and let the npc stand there and the quest rot.
Now if that same person said the same thing but you could wiggle some money out of them (from a skill you raised) and when you get in there rob em blind, burn down the house and beat em up to take the rest of their money on the way out. OR go in get said item then come out and through a skill learn more about the npc and get them to tell you why this occured. People are less likely to skip through it. They actually can change the way the story progresses. Naturally your going to get some people who just fly through the dialog to get to end game, these are the same type of people who would fly to the end of the book to see who wins. Nothing wrong with that. but it's not really what the game is trying to do and you basically cheapen the experience by side stepping a feature.
The only inteaction you get in most MMOs (i say most) is that you read the quest text, hit accept (decline just ends not progresses the quest) then do the quest, come back and turn in the quest for said reward and more text. This can result in another quest but it's usually more of the same. Only the epic quests come close to having any real story and then people really like those.
While those normal quests may be interesting to some, it's downright boring to most (which is why they skip it. it's boring)
Now if you throw in the ability to change the story based on what you say (with at least 2 paths) then people are likely to watch the story and make decisions as they don't want to mess up their character.
it's about interactivity, if your just sitting there reading a story, and the story doesn't interest you, your going to skip it. On the other side if your interacting in the same story and get choices, people are less likely to skip it.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
This is correct. Bioware does tell a pretty good story, admittedly, but it doesn;t matter what choices you make - you still end up fighting Jon Irenicus or Morag or Darth Malak.
No, it wont. I didn't even read this thread, and I can reply with a resounding no.
Look, lets just get down to the meat of the issue.
There is a whole army of jobless losers out there that where hoping beyond hope that this awesome game would use the guild wars pricing model, so they could play it.
There is another army out there of underemployed basement dwellers that where hoping beyond hope that the game would use a pay for power cash shop model so they could win while playing it.
These two camps are massively butthurt, and in order to take out their frustrations, they are attempting to ruin the reputation of a game that hasn't even been released yet.
When all is said and done, though numerous, these outspoken critics will be bowled over by a sea of star wars fans looking to get their hands on a star wars mmo that doesn't suck balls (im looking at you SWG). And all of your flailing about throwing fits will add up to a net loss of zero dollars and zero cents.
Sorry.
Sanity is a delusion. The only truth is madness.
I think you misunderstood what he meant, it's not that the lore of Warcraft is bad, it's that the stories being told within WoW are bad, they are bland and boring most of the time. I think they fixed it a little with Wrath and the Arthas story line but you could never compare text based quests with voice over quests.
@zerminus, you're right, you do end up doing the same final battle, but sometimes it's not about the destination, but about the journey and that's what makes Bioware's games epic.
The cutscene stuff is relatively new, they always have some but it isn't until resently they gotten annoying.
Compare NWN with DA:O. Both had cut scenes but in NWN they added to the story while in DA:O they get annoying pretty fast, it is just too many and they are often too long.
I agree that if they have as much and as long cutscenes in TOR as in DA:O they will loose subs on that. Some people like it like that but most I know gets annoyed by them if they are too long.
So it is a possibility if Bioware over uses them. But they have used them very well in the past so lets hope not.
For that game i dont mind long cutscenes. Bioware has proven that is excellent at creating story games thats why i dont judge swtor as an mmorpg with pvp or other common mmorpg stuff. It will be an awesome story game but i am not sure if its pvp would be worth mentioning since they dont have that much expirience in that part.
I disagree with your assessment on DA:O but that's why it's called an opinion
, but they have said that cutscenes will be relatively short in ToR, I forgot where I read that but I think it was an interview or a post in which they said that they realize people will want to get to the action and that's why cutscenes won't be particularly long.
And this would be bad how? It is advancing the story line AND how you advance it that actually makes a . . . you know . . . STORY.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I think it's going to turn out pretty cool. If you make different choices that effects how everything fits together and the sort of powers or abilities you come out with at the end... still to early to say. You fight the same baddy at the end but you could potentially go at it in completely different ways depending on choice? Open beta will clear up most of the random things people say or think about the game. Till then it's all just stoking the fire of hype and keeping it on everyone's minds.
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized"
"The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
Accept that what happens between Luke and Darth takes place 4000 years into the future and is absolutely irrelevant to the story taking place in TOR.
It certainly didn't stop Mass Effect and Dragon's Age from selling millions of copies.