You are right but I dont consider Themepark MMORPGs to be true MMORPGs.
IMO themeparks have much more RPG in them than sandbox games.
A sandbox (the way most people define it) is a virtual world much more than a role playing game, it has no "built in" story to follow, characters or roles to play.
I dont know how you gauge the RPG part so I wont comment on that but sandbox have more Massively Multiplayer ORPG than themeparks.
Themeparks focus the content for 1-8 people and for end game raids 20-30, Instances, phasing, quests etc, all have the mind of those group sizes in mind. And I dont consider those group sizes as massively and hence why I dont consider themeparks MMOs as true MMORPGs.
Sandbox focus on creating a persistant world where houndreds, if not thousands, will interact with each other either directly or indirectly.
Anyway, it seems we are getting off topic. My point was simply that I dont play MMORPGs primarily to interact with NPCs, but rather with real people. So in that sense voice overs are less important than other features which allows me to interact better and with more people.
I have played UO, recently Darkfall and MO and also EVE for few months. I hardly got a chance to interact with hundereds of players in these sand box titles unless it was PVP. Otherwise, i spend most of my time alone with few players always eager to gank me at any given chance. it was just like playing any MMO, crafting, going out for hunting with guildies of mine without any interacting with hundreds of players at same time. I spent majority of time gathering sources and crafting with ocassional PVP thrown here and there.
On the other hand i have interacted more with players in themepark MMOS like Rift, SWTOR and EQ2 on regular basis for lot of other things than just PVP.
Well sandbox games are usually quite unrestrictive on what you do so ofcourse you can avoid interacting with people. However their focus is on the persistant online world so for example in Eve you have corporations and/or alliances working together to build and maintain persistant structures which can be destroyed by other corporations and you have a massive market system where there are tons of people depending on the chain of goods being processed in this market system.
Ofcourse you can spend your time soloing in these games if you like but the focus of sandbox games are not single player or small group content but rather the persistant world as a whole.
As for current sandbox games being focused on PvP is again because they are focusing on player interactions rather than NPC interactions, which is the case in themeparks. Ofcourse you could have a cooperative sandbox MMORPG (and I am sure there are) so it is all about how the game is designed.
But my point is that Themepark are designed around repeteable, instanced, content for 1-8 people and not the persistant world and hence why I dont see them as true MMORPGs. You could say that Themeparks are the evolution of lobby based games such as Diablo and not really MMORPGs. They really dont have much, or any, interactions with the persistant world and the houndreds/thousands of players in it. I can log in a game like SW:TOR and the world will be pretty much like any other day. I can log in a game like Eve and found our alliance headquarters destroyed/taken over and the political geography completely changed.
As for current sandbox games being focused on PvP is again because they are focusing on player interactions rather than NPC interactions, which is the case in themeparks. Ofcourse you could have a cooperative sandbox MMORPG (and I am sure there are) so it is all about how the game is designed.
But my point is that Themepark are designed around repeteable, instanced, content for 1-8 people and not the persistant world and hence why I dont see them as true MMORPGs. You could say that Themeparks are the evolution of lobby based games such as Diablo and not really MMORPGs. They really dont have much, or any, interactions with the persistant world and the houndreds/thousands of players in it. I can log in a game like SW:TOR and the world will be pretty much like any other day. I can log in a game like Eve and found our alliance headquarters destroyed/taken over and the political geography completely changed.
This is untrue in several ways.
Themepark MMORPG's focus on player interaction and cooperation as well, only in different ways. The word you're looking for for sandbox MMO's is 'community interaction' which is more a strong point in well done sandbox MMO's.
Before WoW and themepark MMO's became the mainstream popular subgenre, the discussions were about 'game focused' design and 'world focused' design for MMORPG's as different design 'schools' or approaches towards designing an MMORPG. Themepark MMO's are an exponent of the 'game focused' design approach, where an MMORPG is first and foremostly treated as a game, where designers deliver a streamlined gaming experience, where as sandbox MMO's can be considered an exponent of the 'world focused' design approach, where the focus is more towards creating a virtual world and players often have to find their own way in that world.
Additional effects of both MMO design philosophies is that for longterm retention the 'game focused' design (themepark) is dependent on repeatable dev created content for entertainment, where as 'world focused' design (sandbox) is dependent on players creating content for eachother.
Both approaches have their weak and strong points, in my opinion a synergy between both approaches is best.
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."
As for current sandbox games being focused on PvP is again because they are focusing on player interactions rather than NPC interactions, which is the case in themeparks. Ofcourse you could have a cooperative sandbox MMORPG (and I am sure there are) so it is all about how the game is designed.
But my point is that Themepark are designed around repeteable, instanced, content for 1-8 people and not the persistant world and hence why I dont see them as true MMORPGs. You could say that Themeparks are the evolution of lobby based games such as Diablo and not really MMORPGs. They really dont have much, or any, interactions with the persistant world and the houndreds/thousands of players in it. I can log in a game like SW:TOR and the world will be pretty much like any other day. I can log in a game like Eve and found our alliance headquarters destroyed/taken over and the political geography completely changed.
This is untrue in several ways.
Themepark MMORPG's focus on player interaction and cooperation as well, only in different ways. The word you're looking for for sandbox MMO's is 'community interaction' which is more a strong point in well done sandbox MMO's.
Before WoW and themepark MMO's became the mainstream popular subgenre, the discussions were about 'game focused' design and 'world focused' design for MMORPG's as different design 'schools' or approaches towards designing an MMORPG. Themepark MMO's are an exponent of the 'game focused' design approach, where an MMORPG is first and foremostly treated as a game, where designers deliver a streamlined gaming experience, where as sandbox MMO's can be considered an exponent of the 'world focused' design approach, where the focus is more towards creating a virtual world and players often have to find their own way in that world.
Additional effects of both MMO design philosophies is that for longterm retention the 'game focused' design (themepark) is dependent on repeatable dev created content for entertainment, where as 'world focused' design (sandbox) is dependent on players creating content for eachother.
Both approaches have their weak and strong points, in my opinion a synergy between both approaches is best.
I dont disagree with your division of world focused and game focused but the fact remains that themepark MMORPGs content is more focused on 1-8 person groups and at late-game 20-40 for raiding and there are often heavy restrictions put in place to restrict PvP which further reduces interactions between large groups of people. This is what for me makes themepark MMORPGs not feel massively at all.
You can word it in such a way to say that themeparks are game focused where as sandbox are world focused but you are essentially saying the same thing because world implies interactions with the people in the world where as game focused does not have this implication and in practice we can see that themeparks simply are not made for large groups of people interacting with each other.
You are right but I dont consider Themepark MMORPGs to be true MMORPGs.
IMO themeparks have much more RPG in them than sandbox games.
A sandbox (the way most people define it) is a virtual world much more than a role playing game, it has no "built in" story to follow, characters or roles to play.
I dont know how you gauge the RPG part so I wont comment on that but sandbox have more Massively Multiplayer ORPG than themeparks.
Themeparks focus the content for 1-8 people and for end game raids 20-30, Instances, phasing, quests etc, all have the mind of those group sizes in mind. And I dont consider those group sizes as massively and hence why I dont consider themeparks MMOs as true MMORPGs.
Sandbox focus on creating a persistant world where houndreds, if not thousands, will interact with each other either directly or indirectly.
Anyway, it seems we are getting off topic. My point was simply that I dont play MMORPGs primarily to interact with NPCs, but rather with real people. So in that sense voice overs are less important than other features which allows me to interact better and with more people.
I have played UO, recently Darkfall and MO and also EVE for few months. I hardly got a chance to interact with hundereds of players in these sand box titles unless it was PVP. Otherwise, i spend most of my time alone with few players always eager to gank me at any given chance. it was just like playing any MMO, crafting, going out for hunting with guildies of mine without any interacting with hundreds of players at same time. I spent majority of time gathering sources and crafting with ocassional PVP thrown here and there.
On the other hand i have interacted more with players in themepark MMOS like Rift, SWTOR and EQ2 on regular basis for lot of other things than just PVP.
Well sandbox games are usually quite unrestrictive on what you do so ofcourse you can avoid interacting with people. However their focus is on the persistant online world so for example in Eve you have corporations and/or alliances working together to build and maintain persistant structures which can be destroyed by other corporations and you have a massive market system where there are tons of people depending on the chain of goods being processed in this market system.
Ofcourse you can spend your time soloing in these games if you like but the focus of sandbox games are not single player or small group content but rather the persistant world as a whole.
As for current sandbox games being focused on PvP is again because they are focusing on player interactions rather than NPC interactions, which is the case in themeparks. Ofcourse you could have a cooperative sandbox MMORPG (and I am sure there are) so it is all about how the game is designed.
But my point is that Themepark are designed around repeteable, instanced, content for 1-8 people and not the persistant world and hence why I dont see them as true MMORPGs. You could say that Themeparks are the evolution of lobby based games such as Diablo and not really MMORPGs. They really dont have much, or any, interactions with the persistant world and the houndreds/thousands of players in it. I can log in a game like SW:TOR and the world will be pretty much like any other day. I can log in a game like Eve and found our alliance headquarters destroyed/taken over and the political geography completely changed.
if persistant world was a guarantee for more player interaction then sorry i never experinced in that manner. it is not about avoiding other players but the purpose or reasons to interact with others are very less. Like i said major interaction happened only during PVP other then that i was mostly hanging with my own guildies like i do in themepark.
We were talking mainly about level of player interaction in themepark and sandbox in last post and presistent world has nothing to do with it. I have been playing MMOS for a long time and the highest amount of player interaction was offered to me by EQ and then WAR during its PVP. I have yet to participate in such huge player interaction in any sand box MMO like i did in WAR.
As far as repeition is concerned are you telling me EVE, MO and Darkfall doesn't get repetitive? do you think in sandbox i run aroind in groups of 20 or 40 people all the time? you are really over blowing this entire 'player interaction' thing.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6. US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian. Subs will be so low there is no need for more Snoocky-How many servers? The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
It will quickly become mundane and repetitive. Just like the latest "thing" in Rift with the "dynamic" content.
Just like with RIft it's something new and refreshing. That feeling too will fade away after a month or two.
You're probably right! But, then I will start a new class, and be totally engrossed in a whole new story. With different sounding VO and cut scenes! So why you're here hating, I will be enjoying the best thing to come to MMO's in quite sometime!
I went up to a quest NPC and they just stood there with their mouth and face unmoving, they said a generic greeting and that was it.
I never expected the talking quest NPC thing to affect my experience that much but after playing SWTOR and Skyrim you really see how much weight the voiceover interaction gives the proceedings.
[Mod Edit]
They've set a new mark for presentation and I don't think there's any going back.
I did the same thing. I wanted to play a game just to fill the gap until release so I went to Rift and well besides the pretty graphics I was bored out of my mind. The quests were weak and I did not feel part of the story. Than the combat felt generic as well. I played about a week and than havnt logged back in.
I have to admit that I spacebared through a lot of them. This is only because I want to save it until I'm playing after it goes live. I normally use beta to help with the stress testing and to figure out how to play, try a few classes to see what I like and don't like and get used to the UI layout as I'm an old dog and find it difficult to learn new tricks.
Having said this I did enjoy the VO's I watched and I'm looking forward to watching them all throughout.
And as for Rift, I resubbed for the free weekend a while back and found the game boring now, as I have 3 lvl50s there's just nothing more I want to do. The instances are generic, PvP is hitting 1,2,3 and rolling a alt is pointless as it's the same story yet again. At least in TOR I can a completely different storyline per class.
You proved this by going up and clicking an NPC in another game?
Then you come on a public forum and post your "findings" ?
Are you begging to be humiliated?
The voice-over gets tiring and boring eventualy.
SpaceBar is your best friend.
Actually it doesn t for people that don t have ADD or constantly on a sugar rush.
I'll make a point!
Reading quest dialogue isn't boring or dull for people who actually have an imagination and are proficient readers.
Profient readers haha, that's the funniest thing i've read all day. Quest dialogue is dull if the writing in unimaginative and dull. This christmas will be an imagination christmas, ralph' "i got a pogo stick", tod' "i got a hula hoop".
'I've played WoW for 7 years, heck I'm STILL playing it. You know how much I know about my main character? ZERO! I've played SWTOR for 8 hours. The main char? That's me. That is F-ing me!'
Shhhh, whatever you do, don't use the "I" word (it rhymes with "Schminovation") with this game, or the sandboxers will descend upon you like a pack of wild spider monkeys.
I would pay money to see a pack of wild spider monkeys descend on something, anything.
Originally posted by Vhaln Rift didn't have TOR's budget. There's no way they could have afforded so much VO content, and I think what little VO content they do have is done by the dev team, rather than hired actors. If every MMO needed to have VOs like TOR, there would be a hell of a lot less of them to choose from. Fortunately, this isn't the case. They're too few and far between as it is.
I really can't go with this argument as a defense for Rift. LOTRO did not cost $200 million or whatever EA spent, yet listen (if you've played it) to their voice acting and how it's done. It's very professional (I agree with Trion probably using employees from the Customer Service pool to VO) and adds to the story and makes the PvE much better.
Rift came after and certainly saw what LOTRO did but still came up flat imo in this aspect. To me, it's unforgivable because they should have realized how few mmos were giving complete stories, but yet Trion puts out disjointed lore and bargain-basement actors. Rift is supposed to be an adventure game, but it plays more like a loot run because of the bad VO and endless raiding.
Every mmos doesn't need to be VO like ToR to be good, LOTRO proved that.
Originally posted by jpnz One of my friends said it brilliantly. 'I've played WoW for 7 years, heck I'm STILL playing it. You know how much I know about my main character? ZERO! I've played SWTOR for 8 hours. The main char? That's me. That is F-ing me!'
EA needs to steal this as a testimonial. Not only is it true (if people aren't playing Ritalin A.D.D. clickybar) but it's the one thing ALL mmos companies try to get players to evolve to.
Companies want players to BE their characters, not just play them because anyone invested in the story and seeing their character actually in it will stick around longer moreso than someone just "leveling" a toon.
This was exactly what made FFXI grab players and keep them through eight hour grinding sessions on only two different types of mobs. People early on in the leveling process got attached to the character through the cutscenes and VO when it was there, and wanting to know how the rest of the S T O R Y went was what kept them interesting.
Knowing that THEY were actually part of the game's story and not some cardboard cutout just like the NPCs they walked up to was what kept them.
EA needs to steal this as a testimonial. Not only is it true (if people aren't playing Ritalin A.D.D. clickybar) but it's the one thing ALL mmos companies try to get players to evolve to.
Ritalin A.D.D. MMORPG, I can totally picture such an MMO, even some of its game mechanics. Like you have to keep always moving, if you stop your health diminishes until you die You can get a temporary Ritalin buff that allows you to pause for a few minutes, but it has a 1 hour cooldown. Also, jumping on mailboxes will give you XP, with every 15 minutes you keep doing it you get a small additional bonus XP.
Ah man, this'd definitely be a dream MMO for some MMO gamers
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."
One thing I think people are overlooking is the quality of the voice acting. There are many games out there with voice over work, I will use Skyrim since I have been playing it recently and in tandem with SWTOR. The quality of the voice acting in swtor is amazing, everything fits the dialog isn't disjointed and evokes emotions responses. However, most of the voice acting in skyrim seems poorly done. The npcs don't really feel alive and the dialog often doesn't really fit where it is.
It is one thing to have hundreds of hours of voice acting but if it was hundreds of hours of bad voice acting everyone would be all over it as the worst thing to happen to the genre ever. Quality makes a difference and Bioware may not have reinvented the wheel with swtor but they sure has hell made one bad ass looking wheel.
Originally posted by MMO.Maverick Originally posted by popinjay
EA needs to steal this as a testimonial. Not only is it true (if people aren't playing Ritalin A.D.D. clickybar) but it's the one thing ALL mmos companies try to get players to evolve to.
Ritalin A.D.D. MMORPG, I can totally picture such an MMO, even some of its game mechanics. Like you have to keep always moving, if you stop your health diminishes until you die You can get a temporary Ritalin buff that allows you to pause for a few minutes, but it has a 1 hour cooldown. Also, jumping on mailboxes will give you XP, with every 15 minutes you keep doing it you get a small additional bonus XP. Ah man, this'd definitely be a dream MMO for some MMO gamers
Lol, if you stop jumping, you delevel.
The game would be like a bunch of sharks in the ocean, always moving around and never sitting.
You can debate the argument of it being innovative or not. I think it isnt, unless the guys head comes out through my lcd screen and talks me in the face, but if it is well done and helps to reinforce your experience in the game, allowing you to know your avatars background, making it worth to follow storyline with interest, then its a very positive aspect of the game, and as such it has to be praised.
EA needs to steal this as a testimonial. Not only is it true (if people aren't playing Ritalin A.D.D. clickybar) but it's the one thing ALL mmos companies try to get players to evolve to.
Ritalin A.D.D. MMORPG, I can totally picture such an MMO, even some of its game mechanics. Like you have to keep always moving, if you stop your health diminishes until you die You can get a temporary Ritalin buff that allows you to pause for a few minutes, but it has a 1 hour cooldown. Also, jumping on mailboxes will give you XP, with every 15 minutes you keep doing it you get a small additional bonus XP.
Ah man, this'd definitely be a dream MMO for some MMO gamers
Rift didn't have TOR's budget. There's no way they could have afforded so much VO content, and I think what little VO content they do have is done by the dev team, rather than hired actors. If every MMO needed to have VOs like TOR, there would be a hell of a lot less of them to choose from. Fortunately, this isn't the case. They're too few and far between as it is.
I really can't go with this argument as a defense for Rift. LOTRO did not cost $200 million or whatever EA spent, yet listen (if you've played it) to their voice acting and how it's done. It's very professional (I agree with Trion probably using employees from the Customer Service pool to VO) and adds to the story and makes the PvE much better.
Rift came after and certainly saw what LOTRO did but still came up flat imo in this aspect. To me, it's unforgivable because they should have realized how few mmos were giving complete stories, but yet Trion puts out disjointed lore and bargain-basement actors. Rift is supposed to be an adventure game, but it plays more like a loot run because of the bad VO and endless raiding.
Every mmos doesn't need to be VO like ToR to be good, LOTRO proved that.
I wasn't saying it was Rift's only problem.. All I meant to say was that they couldn't have VOs like TOR, with their budget. I don't know what kind of budget LOTRO had, but I don't think they could, either. What VOs LOTRO did have were much better quality though. Rift's are some of the worst I've ever heard.. but that was kinda besides the point.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Rift didn't have TOR's budget. There's no way they could have afforded so much VO content, and I think what little VO content they do have is done by the dev team, rather than hired actors. If every MMO needed to have VOs like TOR, there would be a hell of a lot less of them to choose from. Fortunately, this isn't the case. They're too few and far between as it is.
I really can't go with this argument as a defense for Rift. LOTRO did not cost $200 million or whatever EA spent, yet listen (if you've played it) to their voice acting and how it's done. It's very professional (I agree with Trion probably using employees from the Customer Service pool to VO) and adds to the story and makes the PvE much better.
Rift came after and certainly saw what LOTRO did but still came up flat imo in this aspect. To me, it's unforgivable because they should have realized how few mmos were giving complete stories, but yet Trion puts out disjointed lore and bargain-basement actors. Rift is supposed to be an adventure game, but it plays more like a loot run because of the bad VO and endless raiding.
Every mmos doesn't need to be VO like ToR to be good, LOTRO proved that.
I wasn't saying it was Rift's only problem.. All I meant to say was that they couldn't have VOs like TOR, with their budget. I don't know what kind of budget LOTRO had, but I don't think they could, either. What VOs LOTRO did have were much better quality though. Rift's are some of the worst I've ever heard.. but that was kinda besides the point.
The main expense comes from the fee charged by voice actors. And not every MMO can afford A list vocie actors but that doesn't mean there not other good voice actors. Rift have voice overs but they are so bad and cheesy that i rather play with sound off.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6. US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian. Subs will be so low there is no need for more Snoocky-How many servers? The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
I only have one concern about SWTORs heavy use of high quality VO is how it will impact the release schedule for new content. Will it cause content to be released at a slower rate, or will Bioware allow the quality of the VOs to decrease due to the need to push out more content?
It is definately one of the strongest features SWTOR offers, I just think it could also end up being a double edged sword.
People still are playing UO on all kinds of servers. Get the gamemechanics right and people will forget about graphics, voiceover or lifelike boobs.
I must admit SWTOR has a catchy vibe over it, but I was more impressed with Rift at release then I will be with SWTOR. Still I believe SWTOR has really caught my interest and I am a Star Trek fan. As I can not even name 3 titles of a Star Wars movie.
Just like after playing Dragon Age and Mass Effect going back to older, unvoiced, RPGs was hard... Same with SW:TOR, after playing the beta, i just can't get into any MMO that throws walls of text in a stupid popup at me.
for me it was the opposite..i have zero problem reading 'walls of text in a stupid popup' but then i enjoy reading paperback books over audiobooks any day. - given a choice of reading Tolkiens Hobbit in paperback or My life as a Gangsta - by Vanilla Ice on audio i know what i would choose. (don't think he wrote a book like that but you never know).
VO is pretty awsome (maybe not the replay value after a few alts - for my 3rd level 40 dude i used subtitles and zero volume because it was getting annoying) but then it felt like 75% of the funds went into paying the voice actors 10% into marketing and 15% into the rest of the game development
Comments
Well sandbox games are usually quite unrestrictive on what you do so ofcourse you can avoid interacting with people. However their focus is on the persistant online world so for example in Eve you have corporations and/or alliances working together to build and maintain persistant structures which can be destroyed by other corporations and you have a massive market system where there are tons of people depending on the chain of goods being processed in this market system.
Ofcourse you can spend your time soloing in these games if you like but the focus of sandbox games are not single player or small group content but rather the persistant world as a whole.
As for current sandbox games being focused on PvP is again because they are focusing on player interactions rather than NPC interactions, which is the case in themeparks. Ofcourse you could have a cooperative sandbox MMORPG (and I am sure there are) so it is all about how the game is designed.
But my point is that Themepark are designed around repeteable, instanced, content for 1-8 people and not the persistant world and hence why I dont see them as true MMORPGs. You could say that Themeparks are the evolution of lobby based games such as Diablo and not really MMORPGs. They really dont have much, or any, interactions with the persistant world and the houndreds/thousands of players in it. I can log in a game like SW:TOR and the world will be pretty much like any other day. I can log in a game like Eve and found our alliance headquarters destroyed/taken over and the political geography completely changed.
My gaming blog
This is untrue in several ways.
Themepark MMORPG's focus on player interaction and cooperation as well, only in different ways. The word you're looking for for sandbox MMO's is 'community interaction' which is more a strong point in well done sandbox MMO's.
Before WoW and themepark MMO's became the mainstream popular subgenre, the discussions were about 'game focused' design and 'world focused' design for MMORPG's as different design 'schools' or approaches towards designing an MMORPG. Themepark MMO's are an exponent of the 'game focused' design approach, where an MMORPG is first and foremostly treated as a game, where designers deliver a streamlined gaming experience, where as sandbox MMO's can be considered an exponent of the 'world focused' design approach, where the focus is more towards creating a virtual world and players often have to find their own way in that world.
Additional effects of both MMO design philosophies is that for longterm retention the 'game focused' design (themepark) is dependent on repeatable dev created content for entertainment, where as 'world focused' design (sandbox) is dependent on players creating content for eachother.
Both approaches have their weak and strong points, in my opinion a synergy between both approaches is best.
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 dont disagree with your division of world focused and game focused but the fact remains that themepark MMORPGs content is more focused on 1-8 person groups and at late-game 20-40 for raiding and there are often heavy restrictions put in place to restrict PvP which further reduces interactions between large groups of people. This is what for me makes themepark MMORPGs not feel massively at all.
You can word it in such a way to say that themeparks are game focused where as sandbox are world focused but you are essentially saying the same thing because world implies interactions with the people in the world where as game focused does not have this implication and in practice we can see that themeparks simply are not made for large groups of people interacting with each other.
My gaming blog
if persistant world was a guarantee for more player interaction then sorry i never experinced in that manner. it is not about avoiding other players but the purpose or reasons to interact with others are very less. Like i said major interaction happened only during PVP other then that i was mostly hanging with my own guildies like i do in themepark.
We were talking mainly about level of player interaction in themepark and sandbox in last post and presistent world has nothing to do with it. I have been playing MMOS for a long time and the highest amount of player interaction was offered to me by EQ and then WAR during its PVP. I have yet to participate in such huge player interaction in any sand box MMO like i did in WAR.
As far as repeition is concerned are you telling me EVE, MO and Darkfall doesn't get repetitive? do you think in sandbox i run aroind in groups of 20 or 40 people all the time? you are really over blowing this entire 'player interaction' thing.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
You're probably right! But, then I will start a new class, and be totally engrossed in a whole new story. With different sounding VO and cut scenes! So why you're here hating, I will be enjoying the best thing to come to MMO's in quite sometime!
I did the same thing. I wanted to play a game just to fill the gap until release so I went to Rift and well besides the pretty graphics I was bored out of my mind. The quests were weak and I did not feel part of the story. Than the combat felt generic as well. I played about a week and than havnt logged back in.
I have to admit that I spacebared through a lot of them. This is only because I want to save it until I'm playing after it goes live. I normally use beta to help with the stress testing and to figure out how to play, try a few classes to see what I like and don't like and get used to the UI layout as I'm an old dog and find it difficult to learn new tricks.
Having said this I did enjoy the VO's I watched and I'm looking forward to watching them all throughout.
And as for Rift, I resubbed for the free weekend a while back and found the game boring now, as I have 3 lvl50s there's just nothing more I want to do. The instances are generic, PvP is hitting 1,2,3 and rolling a alt is pointless as it's the same story yet again. At least in TOR I can a completely different storyline per class.
Profient readers haha, that's the funniest thing i've read all day. Quest dialogue is dull if the writing in unimaginative and dull. This christmas will be an imagination christmas, ralph' "i got a pogo stick", tod' "i got a hula hoop".
lol awesome
I would pay money to see a pack of wild spider monkeys descend on something, anything.
Oh..uhh...Voice Overs!
I really can't go with this argument as a defense for Rift. LOTRO did not cost $200 million or whatever EA spent, yet listen (if you've played it) to their voice acting and how it's done. It's very professional (I agree with Trion probably using employees from the Customer Service pool to VO) and adds to the story and makes the PvE much better.
Rift came after and certainly saw what LOTRO did but still came up flat imo in this aspect. To me, it's unforgivable because they should have realized how few mmos were giving complete stories, but yet Trion puts out disjointed lore and bargain-basement actors. Rift is supposed to be an adventure game, but it plays more like a loot run because of the bad VO and endless raiding.
Every mmos doesn't need to be VO like ToR to be good, LOTRO proved that.
"TO MICHAEL!"
EA needs to steal this as a testimonial. Not only is it true (if people aren't playing Ritalin A.D.D. clickybar) but it's the one thing ALL mmos companies try to get players to evolve to.
Companies want players to BE their characters, not just play them because anyone invested in the story and seeing their character actually in it will stick around longer moreso than someone just "leveling" a toon.
This was exactly what made FFXI grab players and keep them through eight hour grinding sessions on only two different types of mobs. People early on in the leveling process got attached to the character through the cutscenes and VO when it was there, and wanting to know how the rest of the S T O R Y went was what kept them interesting.
Knowing that THEY were actually part of the game's story and not some cardboard cutout just like the NPCs they walked up to was what kept them.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Ritalin A.D.D. MMORPG, I can totally picture such an MMO, even some of its game mechanics. Like you have to keep always moving, if you stop your health diminishes until you die
You can get a temporary Ritalin buff that allows you to pause for a few minutes, but it has a 1 hour cooldown. Also, jumping on mailboxes will give you XP, with every 15 minutes you keep doing it you get a small additional bonus XP.
Ah man, this'd definitely be a dream MMO for some MMO gamers
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."
One thing I think people are overlooking is the quality of the voice acting. There are many games out there with voice over work, I will use Skyrim since I have been playing it recently and in tandem with SWTOR. The quality of the voice acting in swtor is amazing, everything fits the dialog isn't disjointed and evokes emotions responses. However, most of the voice acting in skyrim seems poorly done. The npcs don't really feel alive and the dialog often doesn't really fit where it is.
It is one thing to have hundreds of hours of voice acting but if it was hundreds of hours of bad voice acting everyone would be all over it as the worst thing to happen to the genre ever. Quality makes a difference and Bioware may not have reinvented the wheel with swtor but they sure has hell made one bad ass looking wheel.
Ah man, this'd definitely be a dream MMO for some MMO gamers
Lol, if you stop jumping, you delevel.
The game would be like a bunch of sharks in the ocean, always moving around and never sitting.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Stop being ridiculous and sad.
You can debate the argument of it being innovative or not. I think it isnt, unless the guys head comes out through my lcd screen and talks me in the face, but if it is well done and helps to reinforce your experience in the game, allowing you to know your avatars background, making it worth to follow storyline with interest, then its a very positive aspect of the game, and as such it has to be praised.
The Incredible Hulk MMORPG?
I'd buy it
I wasn't saying it was Rift's only problem.. All I meant to say was that they couldn't have VOs like TOR, with their budget. I don't know what kind of budget LOTRO had, but I don't think they could, either. What VOs LOTRO did have were much better quality though. Rift's are some of the worst I've ever heard.. but that was kinda besides the point.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
The main expense comes from the fee charged by voice actors. And not every MMO can afford A list vocie actors but that doesn't mean there not other good voice actors. Rift have voice overs but they are so bad and cheesy that i rather play with sound off.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
SWG had players hitting the cantina SWTOR has players hitting the space bar!
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I only have one concern about SWTORs heavy use of high quality VO is how it will impact the release schedule for new content. Will it cause content to be released at a slower rate, or will Bioware allow the quality of the VOs to decrease due to the need to push out more content?
It is definately one of the strongest features SWTOR offers, I just think it could also end up being a double edged sword.
They had voiceover plans for Rift until the producer was shot with an arrow in the knee.
Speak for yourself.
People still are playing UO on all kinds of servers. Get the gamemechanics right and people will forget about graphics, voiceover or lifelike boobs.
I must admit SWTOR has a catchy vibe over it, but I was more impressed with Rift at release then I will be with SWTOR. Still I believe SWTOR has really caught my interest and I am a Star Trek fan. As I can not even name 3 titles of a Star Wars movie.
for me it was the opposite..i have zero problem reading 'walls of text in a stupid popup' but then i enjoy reading paperback books over audiobooks any day. - given a choice of reading Tolkiens Hobbit in paperback or My life as a Gangsta - by Vanilla Ice on audio i know what i would choose. (don't think he wrote a book like that but you never know).
VO is pretty awsome (maybe not the replay value after a few alts - for my 3rd level 40 dude i used subtitles and zero volume because it was getting annoying) but then it felt like 75% of the funds went into paying the voice actors 10% into marketing and 15% into the rest of the game development