SWTOR Innovations

Ahnog · August 2012

While SWTOR didn’t make a giant leap forward for MMOs it does treat us to four innovations that make the game more enjoyable.

Companions

The companion scheme in SWTOR is an innovation. It comes from BioWares’ RPG single player games, and it provides the player with incredible support. First, there are the different roles the companions play; you can have a healer, a damage dealer or a tank with you at all times. Second, the companions not being used can be sent on missions to support your crafting, or to look for presents that improve your relationship with your companions; or, in the case of slicing, to simply make you some cash. These companions do not mitigate the need for grouping with other players to do heroics, instances, and operations. You can fall in love with your companion and even marry them. Way to go BioWare!

Story Archs

While BioWare is not the first MMO to have story lines, they have taken these stories to new heights. Your story develops your character in ways that previously only roleplaying could. These stories make you want to level up alts just to see what their story is. It’s these stories that create the Star Wars feel in the game. Luke had his story, now you have yours.

Non-Player Character Conversations

In stead of presenting us with text boxes to tell our story BioWare brings us the art of conversation with the virtual world. Some people don’t like this and skip right over it, but the immersion that can be had from following the conversations is undeniable. The fact that you can choose how your character responds gives you control over your character’s development and makes your story more interesting.

Crafting

BioWare breaks new ground in the crafting area by removing the need to spend countless hours farming for materials. Your companions can do this for you, for a price, of course, while you continue your game play. I find the crafting to be useful, something I can’t say about a lot of games. I have leveled to 400 armstech, armortech, and biotech. The arms and armor gave me better equipment then what dropped, and often better equipment than the quests rewards. Of course you can’t make end game quality armor, but you can make a suit of armor that provides a good beginning place for the end game. Kudos on the crafting BioWare.

Evolution is a slow process. Some want to see giant leaps in each new MMO that comes out, but it doesn’t work that way. Tiny steps in each new MMO are what we should expect. SWTOR takes some innovative steps that will be copied in future MMOs.

TruthXHurts · August 2012

Seriously...? None of these things are innovative. They are all stolen from other games. Please just stop the mindless praise of a terrible game.

causs · August 2012

I don't really agree on the four 'innovations'.

Companions: Amazing. For single player games. It does not add ANYTHING to the MMO aspect of the game. In my opinion, it looks so damn silly to see another 100 players running around with the same companion.
Story Archs: Always good.
Non-Player Character Conversations: Again, it's amazing. For single player games. And something else, you're not really choosing. Everything is already chosen for you. Every conversation you have 3 answers; Good, neutral, bad. And those choices don't really do anything except for some fluff points.
Crafting: I found it boring. But this is personally.

Alright.. excluding the music, I don't find the game to give a 'Star Wars' feeling. The graphics are.. well.. a personal flavor. But I can't imagine Sith or Jedi running around, doing stupid chores (I mean quests). Or see them running around playing Hutt Ball. And are people not looking for MMO's anymore? Because what you see as 'innovations' I see as features drifting further away from an once amazing genre.

Scorchien · August 2012

lets not be harsh they did bring us that innovative mechanic known as ............................

Trade Kill Valor Framing

TruthXHurts · August 2012

The only thing innovative is the different ways they keep coming up with to trick investors into thinking this game isn't a complete flop.

StoneRoses · August 2012

Originally posted by TruthXHurts
Seriously...? None of these things are innovative. They are all stolen from other games. Please just stop the mindless praise of a terrible game.

Facepalm!

MikeB · August 2012

I've removed the "viral marketer" posts. Slinging that sort of stuff around on the open forums isn't cool. If you really feel something nefarious is going on and have proof to back it up get in touch with me privately at mikeb AT mmorpg DOT com.

jeremyjodes · August 2012

[mod edit -- check a few posts up.

]

Azureal · August 2012

This is the best thread in the history of threads.

I vote for this thread as president.

Also, TOR blows.

Goats.

Innovations? Youve got to be kidding me. Its fair enough if you like the game, great whatever, and I could almost hazard a guess that its your first MMO, but really these nothing innovating about anything Bioware did. All I hope is that they havent dealt the genre a serious blow by introducing all this shit you refer to as "innovations".

A million hours of scripted voice acting and terribly animated cutscenes an MMO does not make.

Space Bars: The Only Solution

Alders · August 2012

The crafting/companions are exactly what's wrong with the game. Both take you, the player, out of the world and make everything automated. You could probably add the story/cutscenes to that as well.

rdrakken · August 2012

Originally posted by TruthXHurts
The only thing innovative is the different ways they keep coming up with to trick investors into thinking this game isn't a complete flop.

Exactly.

Nothing listed here is innovative.

Taking something from another game and doing it just slightly differently is not innovation...hey, I just made a light switch that instead of flipping it UP to turn it on and DOWN to turn it off...you flip it DOWN to turn it on and UP to turn it off...its INNOVATIVE!

No.

The clapper...now THAT is innovation!

Clap on....clap off...

Seriously though, companions have been in a bunch of MMOs, in STO you could send duty officers off on missions that yielded crafting components, spoken quests and voiced NPCs....first 20 levels of Age of Conan...

There is nothing innovative about SWTOR other than their trying to make to redefine the MMO genre with this single player hybrid...oh wait, Guild Wars did that...and better too!

MikeB · August 2012

Stay on topic. I'm removing all the off-topic posts from this thread. I already explained the proper process for some of the accusations made here.

Porkhero · August 2012

honestly i love the pvp: fast fun mindless. story line is engaging enough but a bit drawn out. crafting its a farm fest you really do neeed to farm out ot get better patterns which i never did mind(chanse to get a better item is better than most game).

jeremyjodes · August 2012

Originally posted by jeremyjodes
[mod edit -- check a few posts up. ]

Gotcha Chief

RizelStar · August 2012

I think the way they tackled the story in an MMO was in a sense innovative, it was a different approach to story, not always a good one and that's about it.

RemyVorender · August 2012

SWTOR has made me make damn sure I never play another "MMO" with companions ever again. What a stupid idea. MMOs have always had that feature...it's called OTHER PLAYERS.

WarriorNeeds · August 2012

I don't know if I'd call any of the ideas truly innovative, but compared to what people are considering innovative these days, I'd definitely consider some of them up there.

For me, the greatest aspect of this game is the storytelling. Bar none, this MMO was able to get me to care about my characters and companions in a way that an MMO hasn't done before or since. Unfortunately, story really only impacts you the first time around.

Second, I thought the different worlds' overall appearance outstanding, The first time I walked into Coruscant, I thought, "wow, now this is what Star Wars should feel like."

I do think there are a lot of great things this game brought to the market. Usually, time is the best appreciator of these things. Lots of people here have a lot of ill-feelings toward this game and the company behind it right now; I think after more time has passed people will be more grateful for what it achieved.

As an example, SWG brought a lot of elements to the table as well. Yet during the majority of its launch, people bickered and complained about its various bugs and shortcomings. Wasn't until the game finally closed down people realized and openly appreciated what it brought to the table.

So what I'm trying to say is the more time goes by since launch, the more clear it will be as to what innovations it really brought to the genre.

The biggest impact I noticed early on was trying to engage in boring text-based quests after I had been spoiled by the rich voice overs this game had.

mmoguy43 · August 2012

Yeah, those are all great innovations and turned out to be very fun...

IF your goal is to make solo play the best part of an MMO.

Which really doesn't make sense.

Shouldn't MMOs try to innovate in group play?

Konfess · August 2012

Let me say I consider myself to be a Star Wars fan, but I am disappointed with TOR for the very innovations you listed.

Companions
Worst MMO experience I felt due to companions. Players do not need other players and see no need to group or interact. In WoW I would be questing and come upon a group or player and pug with them. In TOR the pace was so fast, that other players rarely responded to general chat or tells. I would waste time in quest hubs begging for other class buffs. In other games buffing other classes was just something you did as you went to the next quest location. I got the general feeling that in TOR that ignoring the other players was the name of the game. Companions were introduced in Diablo 2 to make solo leveling possible. SWG had harvesters and factories to automate crafting. Fallen Earth has a queued afk crafting system. Either of these systems seems more personal than the detached feeling that comes from using companions to craft.

Story Archs
I call them speed bumps. Again the story is more of a single player RPG device and doesn’t mesh well with an MMO. I am a fan of KoTOR 1 & 2 and have them both on my hard drive still. I was not looking for a KoTOR style story in my MMORPG. The fans of stories watched their stories and left. The fans of MMOs got exhausted waiting for the cut scenes to end and left.

Non-Player Character Conversations
See Story Speed Bumps above.

Crafting
The one class set per level felt very limiting to me. The diversity was hidden behind a overly complex and time consuming reverse engineering system. Most players leveled their main/first character without bothering with reverse engineered items. The level sets were distributed over 10 levels, so you get two pieces every two level. This was meant to induce a positive sense of anticipation. Instead it resulted in the negative feeling that comes from dreams when you realise you aren't wearing any pants. Sets should be tightly grouped over 3 to 5 character levels. When you first put on your final piece you shouldn’t be discarding the first pieces you got 8 levels ago, now looking old and worn.

ktanner3 · August 2012

Originally posted by Ahnog
While SWTOR didn’t make a giant leap forward for MMOs it does treat us to four innovations that make the game more enjoyable.

Companions

The companion scheme in SWTOR is an innovation. It comes from BioWares’ RPG single player games, and it provides the player with incredible support. First, there are the different roles the companions play; you can have a healer, a damage dealer or a tank with you at all times. Second, the companions not being used can be sent on missions to support your crafting, or to look for presents that improve your relationship with your companions; or, in the case of slicing, to simply make you some cash. These companions do not mitigate the need for grouping with other players to do heroics, instances, and operations. You can fall in love with your companion and even marry them. Way to go BioWare!

Agreed. I loved having companions to ineract and fight with. Plus having them around to take care of those mundane tasks like crafting and selling junk was a nice bonus.

Story Archs

While BioWare is not the first MMO to have story lines, they have taken these stories to new heights. Your story develops your character in ways that previously only roleplaying could. These stories make you want to level up alts just to see what their story is. It’s these stories that create the Star Wars feel in the game. Luke had his story, now you have yours.

The story lines were fine, but it would have been better if your choices actually carried some weight. What they should have done was have you start of as force sensitive or non force sensitive and let your class and faction alignement be decided by your choices in game. I ran some alts through the same classes and really the only thing that changes is the npc's reactions to what you said. It carries little weight beyond that.

Non-Player Character Conversations

In stead of presenting us with text boxes to tell our story BioWare brings us the art of conversation with the virtual world. Some people don’t like this and skip right over it, but the immersion that can be had from following the conversations is undeniable. The fact that you can choose how your character responds gives you control over your character’s development and makes your story more interesting.

I'm finding it much harder as well to go back to text quests after what I got in TOR. FOr me it made the whole leveling experience so much more enjoyable. The downside to this is eveyrone will expect additional content to have this and that could be very expensive. I think the conversations should have been limited to class and world quests with side quests being something you read from a terminal.

Crafting

BioWare breaks new ground in the crafting area by removing the need to spend countless hours farming for materials. Your companions can do this for you, for a price, of course, while you continue your game play. I find the crafting to be useful, something I can’t say about a lot of games. I have leveled to 400 armstech, armortech, and biotech. The arms and armor gave me better equipment then what dropped, and often better equipment than the quests rewards. Of course you can’t make end game quality armor, but you can make a suit of armor that provides a good beginning place for the end game. Kudos on the crafting BioWare.

And that part underlined is why in the end crafting is so useleess. As much as I enjoyed doing it, it's all an exercise in futility when the best endgame gear is given thru game mechanics other than crafters.. I will never understand why developers continue to mess this up. I've been in STO and the TOR forums during both game's pre-release and it's always the same: Any discussion of player run economies is always fought against by the hardcore raiders who will wind up leaving the game anyways when they get bored.

Rydeson · August 2012

Originally posted by ktanner3
Originally posted by Ahnog
While SWTOR didn’t make a giant leap forward for MMOs it does treat us to four innovations that make the game more enjoyable. Sorry.. I have to respectfully disagree that SWTOR brought innovation to the MMO market, all they did was redressed what others already did.. And what they did do in redressing I find OK at best.. Sometimes just pure annoying..

Companions

The companion scheme in SWTOR is an innovation. It comes from BioWares’ RPG single player games, and it provides the player with incredible support. First, there are the different roles the companions play; you can have a healer, a damage dealer or a tank with you at all times. Second, the companions not being used can be sent on missions to support your crafting, or to look for presents that improve your relationship with your companions; or, in the case of slicing, to simply make you some cash. These companions do not mitigate the need for grouping with other players to do heroics, instances, and operations. You can fall in love with your companion and even marry them. Way to go BioWare!

Agreed. I loved having companions to ineract and fight with. Plus having them around to take care of those mundane tasks like crafting and selling junk was a nice bonus. You say tomato, I say tomato, you say companion I say PET.. Having various pets to aid in your solo adventure was ok, but nothing new.. All it was, is redressing old mechanics.. As for the romance thing with companions.. really? Building faction with your pet was a nice little tweak, but with real results.. Remember that WoW Hunter pets can actually LEAVE you if you mistreat them too long

Story Archs

While BioWare is not the first MMO to have story lines, they have taken these stories to new heights. Your story develops your character in ways that previously only roleplaying could. These stories make you want to level up alts just to see what their story is. It’s these stories that create the Star Wars feel in the game. Luke had his story, now you have yours.

The story lines were fine, but it would have been better if your choices actually carried some weight. What they should have done was have you start of as force sensitive or non force sensitive and let your class and faction alignement be decided by your choices in game. I ran some alts through the same classes and really the only thing that changes is the npc's reactions to what you said. It carries little weight beyond that.

I personally hate the story lines after playing them ONCE.. Some of us like building our OWN storyline, not reliving one already written by a dev in a cubicle.. Now if the voice over stuf was for something like "epic" quest similar to EQ, then that would of been ok.. but not what they did.. My inquisitor sith had the exact same story as everyone else.. BORING..

Non-Player Character Conversations

In stead of presenting us with text boxes to tell our story BioWare brings us the art of conversation with the virtual world. Some people don’t like this and skip right over it, but the immersion that can be had from following the conversations is undeniable. The fact that you can choose how your character responds gives you control over your character’s development and makes your story more interesting.

I'm finding it much harder as well to go back to text quests after what I got in TOR. FOr me it made the whole leveling experience so much more enjoyable. The downside to this is eveyrone will expect additional content to have this and that could be very expensive. I think the conversations should have been limited to class and world quests with side quests being something you read from a terminal.

And many of us got thumb cramps from all the coversation skipping.. lol

Crafting

BioWare breaks new ground in the crafting area by removing the need to spend countless hours farming for materials. Your companions can do this for you, for a price, of course, while you continue your game play. I find the crafting to be useful, something I can’t say about a lot of games. I have leveled to 400 armstech, armortech, and biotech. The arms and armor gave me better equipment then what dropped, and often better equipment than the quests rewards. Of course you can’t make end game quality armor, but you can make a suit of armor that provides a good beginning place for the end game. Kudos on the crafting BioWare.

And that part underlined is why in the end crafting is so useleess. As much as I enjoyed doing it, it's all an exercise in futility when the best endgame gear is given thru game mechanics other than crafters.. I will never understand why developers continue to mess this up. I've been in STO and the TOR forums during both game's pre-release and it's always the same: Any discussion of player run economies is always fought against by the hardcore raiders who will wind up leaving the game anyways when they get bored.

Crafting was only feasable WHILE leveling, once you hit 50 it became worthless.. So why bother considering how fast you can level to 50.. As for sending pets out to gather resourses? It was much faster and cheaper to just farm the mats yourself.. In my opinion, any game that is unable to allow end game crafting is a waste of time..

But to each their own.. Some people like burgers, some prefer hot dogs.. It doesn't make either good or bad.. However, I would reconsider calling a game good when it can't keep most of those that buy the game around.. How about a nice "C" grade for average..

Alot · August 2012

SW:TOR provided innovative new ways to calculate subscriber numbers. : )

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