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Basic things that shouldn't be left out!! Simple!
Miklosan
Member Posts: 176
We all know that STORY was the big sellingpoint in this game. But some basic features that wasn't implemented goes beyond my comprehension. Let's start with:
Chatbubbles. Some people hate them. It's just annoying to them all over the screen in a dense populated area and besides, reading the chat box down in the bottomleft corner (or whereever it's located) works just fine.
Now, some people love them, some roleplayers for example. I like them alot eventhough I don't roleplay so much, I just think it's
a nice little feature. Brings immersion to me in way when I meet people in the world and we exchange a few words. BioWare decide for whatever reason not to implement it.
The real solution should have been a little box in the settingmenu where you could check or uncheck depending if you want to see them on your screen or not. Simple!!
Swimming. Be forced to swim just to be able to complete a quest for example can be very frustrating for some people. Though, there are some that loves it for whatever reason. Anyway, a few kilometers from where I live there's a nice little lake where I can go for swim if I want to. I don't but I CAN IF I WANT TO!! It's just because I live in a real world. This thing called Swtor however is not a real world, it's a game. But it ruins immersion if you start thinking: "oh, the developers of this game don't want me to cross that lake so they made my character die if I try to" when playing a mmo. One is supposed to think; "ooh, wonder what lies behind that mountain on the other side of that lake.... Maybe I should have a look...." Because it supposed to feel like you're in a world when playing!
Take World of Warcraft for example. (just an example folks, could be any other game) When goin from level 80 to 85 there is an option to start leveling in a zone called Vashj'ir, an underwater zone whit alot of swimming for you. You you don't have to go there, you can just a well go via a zone called Mount Hyjal with solid ground under your feet. Actually, the entire game is filled with lakes and seas. It makes it feel like a real world! Even if you decide to stay the heck out of the water however, you are free to do so.
Day/night cycles and weather. The game engine Heroengine already had enviroment schemes. (http://www.heroengine.com/heroengine/heroblade/) Why the heck remove it?? Sure, there's no point in very very dark nights perhaps, people would just start to adjusting their screenmonitors and whatnot. But make it simple, some stars on a darker sky along with a moon during nights works just fine. Again, it brings IMMERSION to the WORLD!
Different server rulesets. Now, they actually have open pvp servers for those who prefer to have it that way. The also have pve servers for those who prefer that. (aswell as rp servers etc...) But what took them so long?? There were countless of threads, some of them with 35-40 pages of namecallings and worse. Either they should have picked one and only one server ruleset and leave it like that or give us different ones just like they eventually did. But they should have come out much earlier with a statement telling us how it was goin to be. And the fans could spend their energy on better things, nice ideas for the suggestion box for example, instead of fighting eachother day after day...
Space. Okej, if a small company with a very limited budget got the legal rights to make a Star Wars mmo I would be happy if there was goin to be any space combat/traveling at all. But now we're talking BioWare/EA with a budget of....? I don't know, I've heard 200 million dollar, 300?? I don't know but there have been alot of money for sure invested in this project.
A simple railshooter similar to a supernintendo game back in the 90's?? I remember saying to people that; "hey, it's about character progression and ground combat anyway. This space minigame will do just fine. Perfect little thing to do while waiting for the next raid or so..." I did not only lie to other people on the internet, I lied to myself aswell. A triple AAA mmo backed up by a major company with an extremely big budget with a game released late 2011 should have much more than that. Simple is that.
Sit. Sure, I think most of you are sitting infront of your computers while reading this. You got the game installed? Log on and type /sit. Now, perhaps they've changed it so there's a nice animation nowadays but six months ago was a different story. To make your character sit in a nice way or not is not gamebreaking, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that a tiny little thing as a /sit so poorly performed is just........... There is a word often mentioned when talking about mmos and that word is POLISH!
Camera Freedom. I've heard that you can turn around the camera just like you are supposed to be able to do. Bravo! But this should be implemented at launch BioWare, at launch!! When I started to play this game last winter the camera was the boss over me. I wasn't the boss over the camera. Luckely they've changed it, atleast from what I've heard.
Live today!!! Last but not least and this goes to the fans themselves, me included. One thing that was not left out but were talked about over and over and that is the comparisment with another game back in 2004... One thing that fans need to learn and that goes for all upcoming mmos, is that we must criticise parts of the game that we find bad. Not close our eyes to the truth just because we love an upcoming game. We are just lying to the company aswell as ourselves.
Miklosan.
Comments
A well thought out post.
Chatbubbles do help to help identify what is being said with what a person actually looks like (their avatar). I love them personally. It is far more immersive than just reading a text window, where you might not even know the physical location or the identify of the person who is typing.
Day / Night cycles were brilliant in EQ1. You actually could note the position of the sun or moon to judge the time of day, and the sun/moon would even slowly move across the sky, if you stood and watched 'em. Night was really scary because of light issues, and while light sources or lanterns could be used, they were very realistic (graphically for the time), because they only lit up objects / creatures near the player.
Swimming .. yeah very disappointing that people in the SW universe don't know how to swim .. swimming in Hutta is essentially the player sinking to the bottom of an ocean and drowning (exhaustion). Very lame.
Your other points are all very good .. for instance, sitting is a major staple in RP games. Even games with far better character model customization have perfected sitting. SWTOR had a handful of character models and sizes, and they still couldn't get it together.
On a separate note, I suspect that a lot of these features you mentioned are not present because the game engine simply could not handle it. The game barely handles having 16 players on the screen at one time, in low-res boring armor. If, for instance, they added chat bubbles, I think it would grind this game to an Illum slideshow.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
I can't argue anything in this list. I would have preferred to see them as well, but I think that people really are sometimes never happy. People whined about the lack of customizable UI as a reason they left (which I think should have been there at launch)...then it was well implemented..and you didn't hear many of those same people saying now they were coming back. All they did was move on to the next perceived missing feature, be it chat bubbles, swimmming, whatever. Implement a dungeon finder, and then they switch gears and say it should be cross server when others where saying it shouldnt be for community reasons. Its impossible to please everyone.
Regardless, Like I said, I agree, wish these were all in game. I never cared though about the space as it was well known prior to Launch it was just a mini game..which I basically avoided. I was more disappointed that other side games in KOTOR were not implemented in such a big Launch.
For the record, I'm not playing right now, I'm too busy back playing Skyrim. Just love that game :-) lol
There Is Always Hope!
That list is good, but it should be much longer.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
and more alien species. that doesnt look like colored humans.
fekk its star wars. its not like they dont have any insperation.
Nice write up. You make some good points here. I wish a lot of these items were in game when it started.
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
LFG and LFR functions that you can choose yourself to be one-shard or all-shards.
The ability to either do all class stories or to change your class so you can do them.
Realm wide PVP - enemies can go to starter planets and capital cities of the opposite faction though these may be guarded by super-hard NPCs.
Real multiple-thread stories.
Skill based-crafting
Ability to customise your ship.
'Alice'-type AI-conversations with your companies.
120730
ftp alerts
no access to send chat through general chat (therefore nearly impossible to get into groups looking for additional members that use lfg in gen chat) though one can use local SAY to communicate to those nearby (with a three say in a row limitation),
cannot send out a private whisper (though one can respond if a subscriber initially sends you a whisper),
no access to bank (thus unable to transfer items between chars on same server and the extent of bag space to carry loot is very limited, like 30 items, and it seems most of the loot is just vendor trash),
can not use send mail to transfer items one's class can not use to another person that can equip the item, thus you can only sell it to vendor as junk or carry it until you decide to subscribe and then get access to all game mechanics.
once you hit lvl 15 suspect doing any other quest and hope the exp applies to char lvl up is a waste, doubt even if one subscribes one can recover and apply that past unapplied exp.
little to no ingame customer support (unable to do bug reports).
I can’t remember which MMORPG it was (may have been Asian) but every time a chat bubble popped up you would hear this bubble popping sound. So, if there were a bunch of people chatting around you it suddenly sounded like you were trapped inside a bottle of bubbly being violently shaken about. It was annoying and made half the players think they were drunk.
Really, it just depends on how it’s implemented and if they can do it with Hero Engine and not get yet more lag. I’d rather someone figured out how to include a speech engine in game so that you hear characters talking in their own voices what you type or speak into the microphone.
And yeah, I think every MMORPG should have swimming, running, jumping, sitting, lying down, and falling damage. If nothing else it lets me consider the game environment as something maybe useful for other than just scenery while riding the train rails to the next boss. Sam for day / night cycles if they can make them have actual effects on play (like perception. carry a torch at night.)
While all of this reads good on paper, it only points out most teams seem to be trying to make action grind games rather than virtual worlds you can be immersed and participate in. I am not sure we are the target market anymore. I mean look at what people buy to get an idea of what they will make.
The only thing in the OP I agree with is that it would have been good to have different rule sets for the different servers.
Ahnog
Hokey religions are no replacement for a good blaster at your side.
Nothing the OP mentions would appeal to me in a big way. Swimming, I completely disagree with. Yeah.. let's move around slow as fuck! Sound good?
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The Day/night and weather cycle really adds to the game's environment, it was nice in SWG and such, but I'm thinking HeroEngine isn't designed to handle that type of stuff (HeroEngine is classified as a F2P engine). As for swimming, we need deeper water than ponds.
Chat Bubbles - Can take them or leave them. Seems like making them optional would be the way to go.
Swimming - So, you think it adds to realism to include it. If so, then you should not be able to swim while wearing your power armor or carrying 6 weapons. If you're going to pull the realism card, go all the way. WOW was very unrealistic in this regard.
Day/Night Cycles and Weather - Very much agree with this. DAOC had both, and it got darn dark at night, regardless what you did to your monitor and if it was both dark and raining, visibility could be darn near zero. It actually made a difference to wear all black armor back in the day.
Different Server Rulesets - They were present at launch, not sure what your complaint is. They don't owe you the information 6 months in advance.
Space - Probably their biggest screw up, and still the one major way I think the game could recover and turn things around is by adding an interesting and engaging space model.
Sitting - Don't really care about this one so much, my character doesn't have time for leisure.
Camera movement - I don't recall there ever being a problem, but maybe so. Sort of a whatever thing for me.
Live today - Perhaps what fans need to do is learn to enjoy the features that are currently delivered and not spend all their time bemoaning what the title lacks.
These games are much more fun that way.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't see how any of those would have effected anything really overall far as wih players in general.
Except for space. Ugh...who in the hell thought their little rail shooter mini game for the space portion would somehow suffice is simply beyond me.
I don't even know how else to refer to it. I almost put space exploration but that doesn't work. Space combat I suppose? Such a sad and paltry effort put forth in that area of the game.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
^^ Target Audience Bioware
Congratulations you are amongst the easily amused. Life should be good for you as you have no expectations and a high threshold for boredom.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Well...That's not going to happen much when a Game like TOR is greatly lacking in so many areas...
I was not all that concerned about most of what the OP posted either...The reasons my Guild left were entirely different, and far too many to mention any longer...But that's the point with TOR...It was not one or two things...Rather it was a BUNCH of things to a bunch of people...And asking Folks to simply ignore and enjoy when there is SO much to ignore...Not gonna happen...
I think most people take you're advice on certain Games...I know my Guild does on LOTRO...But that Game has SO much more to offer overall...It's easy to look past the small things it lacks, or does not get perfect...SWTOR just had too many problems...When over 3/4 of my Guild left after 3 Months it was pretty obvious to me...I actually think it's obvious to almost everyone...Even those who still play the Game...Some just have the ability to tolerate more than others...JMO...
Most important thing is not in your article. I want to see places from oposing faction! Most stupid thing in this game is that i cant enter in to enemy area. In wow you can attack Ogrimar if you are ally but in tor you can do nothing, so many limitation
I mainly played Republic side and came to the conclusion that Sith players are just a myth. I know a guy who saw one once in a Warzone, but other than that ...
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
I would have prefered to have chat bubbles and day/night cycles. Space should have waited for an expansion in order to be done right. Don't really care about the rest.
I definetly agree with what you said at the end. There's things I like and dislike in every game. It's only a question of which ones are the most important and a make or break thing.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
I'm not remotely easily amused. I just have certain features I care about. Things like sitting in chairs and Swimming annoy me.
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So added features actually annoy you? So if they removed features from this already feature-poor game, you would enjoy it even more? Do you think you might be too much of a fanboi even for this game?
I too felt let down by the lack of species. Also the no day/night cycle is kinda of silly. I mean yes korriban is a desert but its gotta get dark some time otherwise everyone would have red skin.....
That was 100% exactly the attitude of tens of thousands of people on the TOR forums during the final year or two of the game's development: quality of life and "flavor" features make games straight up worse. Go figure.
By and large the people still playing TOR want only what Bioware said would be in the game, nothing more (except for the things they've done a 180 on, like dual spec, which I was personally told by TOR fans was a terrible idea in 2011 but now is great).
TOR was the game the "real fans" wanted. It turned out that the number and growth potential of the "real fan"base was not what they thought it was, but that's neither here nor there for the people that actually play it.
All the rest of us that wanted a more fully featured MMO that really made use of the unique opportunities that the Star Wars setting offered ... we weren't the audience Bioware developers were targeting.
Let me put it this way. Every time I accidentally sit down in a chair in Skyrim, I think to myself, "What kind of moron wanted this???!" Seriously. I want an action/story experience in Star Wars that I can play with friends. Nothing more.
Some people have time to play a game for hours and hours every day and get immersed in a new world. I don't, and it doesn't appeal to me.
Would I like more features in SWTOR? Absolutely. Some of what the OP mentioned would make the game more fun. However, some of what the OP mentioned would absolutely detract from what makes the game fun in the first place.
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Subtract the voice over element and the game seems like it was on a very small, cheap budget, not 2 or 300 million. Story is great....for single player rpg. Otherwise, there is greater longevity I think if we are discovering the game and telling our own stories, like in SWG.
They tried to take the mmo elements out of SWTOR, yet wanted to maintain the mmo label to get money, all while maintaining a very condescending attitude. They get bonus failure points because they took our hope and multiplied it with hype, and then dashed it onto the rocks of mediocrity, laziness, and let's be frank....a lack of talent and leadership.
And now, SWG is gone forever. Even with the NGE, SWG was still a better game. If I want voice overs I'll read the dialoge outloud.
This was a huge mistake IMO... not because I liked SWG. I hated it. It was a huge mistake because it brought SWG fans and their mentality into SWTOR. IMO, SWTOR is ten times the Star Wars that SWG ever was. I know some will disagree, but that's neither here nor there. The important point is that SWG and SWTOR should not have been compared to begin with. They are totally different games for totally different crowds.
I'm of the belief that Star Wars is about action and solid story writing. I think the SWG crowd views it more as open-ended and exploration-based. Where they get this idea, I'll never know. They are entitled to their opinion though, and SWG was their MMO for their crowd. LA made a huge mistake in closing them off...
But that is what George Lucas does. If you appreciate Star Wars in a different way than he does, he thinks you are wrong, and he hates you for it.... it's why he retired.
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