SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
here's the thing, in my opinion. SWTOR wasn't a bad game because of a story progresssion, it was a bad game because they focused everything into that ONE aspect and didn't bother to really do anything else with the rest. Basically the story was great, but the game itself was garbage.
Story doesn't ruin a game, in fact voice acting and a class story can greatly enhance it in my opinion. However, like anything else in life and in this industry, if you put too much of one thing into something, everything else gets lost. It's like cooking, just because you like curry powder doesn't mean you can ignore the rest of the ingredients.
SWTOR messed up by clinging to the one thing they did well and hoping to glide along and get by with substandard everything else. All they did was prove that story can work, but you need a good game to back it up.
Originally posted by purewitz SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.
Blizzard never made an MMORPG before WoW. Origin never made one before UO. 989 Studios or Verant, or whatever you want to call them never made one before EQ.
Not really an excuse...
In fact, it seems that most MMORPGs made by people with experience...tend to not live up to their original project:
The problem isn't story, it's gameplay. I don't like personal story because for me it is usually immersion-breaking, BUT I can forgive it if the gameplay is stellar. SWTOR's gameplay was not stellar.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Originally posted by purewitz SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.
Mythic's first MMORPG was fantastic. So was Verant's. So was Origin's. So was Turbine's.
I found the story questlines to be decent but nothing special. The questing in SWTOR is just plain boring and unimaginative. So is pretty much the rest of the gameplay. The PvP is worthless. The space component rapidly degenerates into a repetitive. The crafting is about the only really interesting thing in the game...and that is not saying much.
The voice acting is a nice touch, but is ruined by the corny Playschool style art and animations that look like they were designed for 10 year olds.
The class story worked fine. Maybe it wasn't perfect but nothing is.
However it was simply not enough to be the centerpoint of an MMO. Especially when you only get one mini-episode per level. In the end SWTOR was still just a quest based tank and spank game like any other, but they spent ass tons of time and resources on a feature that could not be the foudnation of the game.
Compared to the design choice of GW2 where they chose to spend a majority of their time on DEs and even delayed the game development by large amounts to create a framework with which to create the rest of the game, you could say it didn't work as a foudnational feature in the way that DE's do.
But if you are saying never put something like the personal story of SWTOR in an MMO I think that is silly. Its a fine addition you just can't base your entire game around it as an MMO. GW2 still has something that is very much like SWTOR personal story and if they based their entire game around it instead of DE's they would be far less successful than they are now. I wouldn't tell Anet to take out the personal story (even if some of them are rather flat)
If anything, it proved linear class story and voice acting *can* work in an MMO. Because, you know, most people stuck around till they completed their class stories.
The leaving, that came when those players hit the brick wall that is "the standard MMO endgame". That is: Raiding, heroic dungeons, PVP battlegrounds, large persistent PVP zone...
So, if anything in SWTOR didn't work, it was the standard MMO stuff. The story and voice acting worked as well as could be expected.
Next time, Bioware: When faced with the same two choices, go with your own stuff, not the WOW raiding/PVP instancing stuff.
It proved voice acting CAN work in an MMO if it's done right. That means restricted to class stories, integrating action rather than dull talky scenes and allowing the player real choices. In the case of SWTOR it was NOT done right.
Originally posted by purewitz SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.
Are you trying to say that people should buy worse products because those products are made by less experienced people who can't be expected to make better? Communism might work that way, but capitalism doesn't.
Inexperience might be an execuse for a small indie developer, not for one of the largest game developers when they launch the most expensive MMO ever created.
I don't think that SWTOR proved anything against linear class story and voice acting. Both linear story and voice acting are present in Wizard 101 and the game does well enough. I think the problem isn't so much with any single design decision made while doing SWTOR, it's Bioware's inability to make a fun game as a whole.
Originally posted by purewitz SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.
Blizzard never made an MMORPG before WoW. Origin never made one before UO. 989 Studios or Verant, or whatever you want to call them never made one before EQ.
Not really an excuse...
In fact, it seems that most MMORPGs made by people with experience...tend to not live up to their original project:
Asheron's Call 2, EQ2, WAR, etc.
Ok I agree its no excuse. I forgot about those other companies. Also what's wrong with EQ2? I'm not big on fantasy mmos, but I think its better than WoW.
You know in the end, I would have been happy if Sony and Lucas Arts would have just added a voiced personal story system to Star Wars Galaxies. I really only moved on to TOR because SWG was being shutdown. NGE (New Game Enhancement) SWG was my favorite MMO. I played SWG through thick and thin from 2004 to the end. I played the pre-cu era, the cu (combat upgrade0, and nge. For me SWG was and still is the best mmo ever to me.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
Originally posted by purewitz SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.
Blizzard never made an MMORPG before WoW. Origin never made one before UO. 989 Studios or Verant, or whatever you want to call them never made one before EQ.
Not really an excuse...
In fact, it seems that most MMORPGs made by people with experience...tend to not live up to their original project:
Asheron's Call 2, EQ2, WAR, etc.
Ok I agree its no excuse. I forgot about those other companies. Also what's wrong with EQ2? I'm not big on fantasy mmos, but I think its better than WoW.
You know in the end, I would have been happy if Sony and Lucas Arts would have just added a voiced personal story system to Star Wars Galaxies. I really only moved on to TOR because SWG was being shutdown. NGE (New Game Enhancement) SWG was my favorite MMO. I played SWG through thick and thin from 2004 to the end. I played the pre-cu era, the cu (combat upgrade0, and nge. For me SWG was and still is the best mmo ever to me.
IMO if they had layered some of SWTOR on top of the base mechanics or SWG. Ie. replace SWG the combat engine for SWTOR's and maybe replace the NGE classes with SWTOR's classes, put in the personal story and some quests, But leave SWG crafting, keeping itemization more like SWG so that crafting was kept correct, Keep SWG jump to light year. That would be a pretty sweet game.
Unfortunately SOE had the code for SWG. And even worse the code for SWG was notrious as spaghetti code that was awful to maintain and using would take more time than recoding it from scratch. That seems crazy to most non-developers but its true. Reusing SWG for anything other than design ideas probably wouldn't have worked out well.
I spent years - Literally waiting for this game to hit, I got in to BETA and was instantly disappointed. LIterally closed...one line worlds...no exploration, completely linear quest line. It was a huge let down, and I am a bona fide SW fanboi, and have been since I saw the first movie...in a theatre the week it was released.
My point being you would have to work pretty hard to make me NOT play something with the SW title on it. And this game did it. I just have to ask, what were they (the producers) thinking? No one on the team was like, dude this is a horrible idea, we really need to use a different approach?
Don't get me wrong, I adopted early on that it was not going to be SWG 2, I got it, I accepted it (mores the pity it turnes out) and was hoping for a great game...or at least not utter rubbish. I got utter rubbish.
The only silver lining to this? the whole genre should have taken note and realized how NOT to make an MMO excel. These guys took fail to a whole new realm in my opinion.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
I'm quite satisfied with either outcome.. either SWTOR, a game I enjoy every now and then, survives.. or it dies, and perhaps we shall finally see KotOR 3... or at least more epic single player games from Bioware.
Gotta say, for a first time, Bioware's doing pretty well, and I wouldn't mind forgiving them their mistakes and am intersted in seeing if they can improve.
Linear class story worked, cause it was the only thing that kept players in. As soon as it ended for someone, that person was leaving. So if other stuff was crap, but people didn't leave straight away, because they were into story, it was good.
For me personally voice acting was the reason I couldn't like this game. Not because of NPCs, but because of my character voice, which I totally didn't like, and was completely not fitting the character I was trying to role play. I think that giving voice to your character, without any choice is a bad idea.
Also the clone wars cartoon graphics were a let down for me too.
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When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
here's the thing, in my opinion. SWTOR wasn't a bad game because of a story progresssion, it was a bad game because they focused everything into that ONE aspect and didn't bother to really do anything else with the rest. Basically the story was great, but the game itself was garbage.
Story doesn't ruin a game, in fact voice acting and a class story can greatly enhance it in my opinion. However, like anything else in life and in this industry, if you put too much of one thing into something, everything else gets lost. It's like cooking, just because you like curry powder doesn't mean you can ignore the rest of the ingredients.
SWTOR messed up by clinging to the one thing they did well and hoping to glide along and get by with substandard everything else. All they did was prove that story can work, but you need a good game to back it up.
Blizzard never made an MMORPG before WoW. Origin never made one before UO. 989 Studios or Verant, or whatever you want to call them never made one before EQ.
Not really an excuse...
In fact, it seems that most MMORPGs made by people with experience...tend to not live up to their original project:
Asheron's Call 2, EQ2, WAR, etc.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Mythic's first MMORPG was fantastic. So was Verant's. So was Origin's. So was Turbine's.
I found the story questlines to be decent but nothing special. The questing in SWTOR is just plain boring and unimaginative. So is pretty much the rest of the gameplay. The PvP is worthless. The space component rapidly degenerates into a repetitive. The crafting is about the only really interesting thing in the game...and that is not saying much.
The voice acting is a nice touch, but is ruined by the corny Playschool style art and animations that look like they were designed for 10 year olds.
The class story worked fine. Maybe it wasn't perfect but nothing is.
However it was simply not enough to be the centerpoint of an MMO. Especially when you only get one mini-episode per level. In the end SWTOR was still just a quest based tank and spank game like any other, but they spent ass tons of time and resources on a feature that could not be the foudnation of the game.
Compared to the design choice of GW2 where they chose to spend a majority of their time on DEs and even delayed the game development by large amounts to create a framework with which to create the rest of the game, you could say it didn't work as a foudnational feature in the way that DE's do.
But if you are saying never put something like the personal story of SWTOR in an MMO I think that is silly. Its a fine addition you just can't base your entire game around it as an MMO. GW2 still has something that is very much like SWTOR personal story and if they based their entire game around it instead of DE's they would be far less successful than they are now. I wouldn't tell Anet to take out the personal story (even if some of them are rather flat)
It proved voice acting CAN work in an MMO if it's done right. That means restricted to class stories, integrating action rather than dull talky scenes and allowing the player real choices. In the case of SWTOR it was NOT done right.
Are you trying to say that people should buy worse products because those products are made by less experienced people who can't be expected to make better? Communism might work that way, but capitalism doesn't.
Inexperience might be an execuse for a small indie developer, not for one of the largest game developers when they launch the most expensive MMO ever created.
I don't think that SWTOR proved anything against linear class story and voice acting. Both linear story and voice acting are present in Wizard 101 and the game does well enough. I think the problem isn't so much with any single design decision made while doing SWTOR, it's Bioware's inability to make a fun game as a whole.
Ok I agree its no excuse. I forgot about those other companies. Also what's wrong with EQ2? I'm not big on fantasy mmos, but I think its better than WoW.
You know in the end, I would have been happy if Sony and Lucas Arts would have just added a voiced personal story system to Star Wars Galaxies. I really only moved on to TOR because SWG was being shutdown. NGE (New Game Enhancement) SWG was my favorite MMO. I played SWG through thick and thin from 2004 to the end. I played the pre-cu era, the cu (combat upgrade0, and nge. For me SWG was and still is the best mmo ever to me.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
IMO if they had layered some of SWTOR on top of the base mechanics or SWG. Ie. replace SWG the combat engine for SWTOR's and maybe replace the NGE classes with SWTOR's classes, put in the personal story and some quests, But leave SWG crafting, keeping itemization more like SWG so that crafting was kept correct, Keep SWG jump to light year. That would be a pretty sweet game.
Unfortunately SOE had the code for SWG. And even worse the code for SWG was notrious as spaghetti code that was awful to maintain and using would take more time than recoding it from scratch. That seems crazy to most non-developers but its true. Reusing SWG for anything other than design ideas probably wouldn't have worked out well.
SWTOR proved that slapping "story" and expensive VoiceOvers over a utter **** mmo will not work.
^THIS. Very very much this!
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Spot on.
I spent years - Literally waiting for this game to hit, I got in to BETA and was instantly disappointed. LIterally closed...one line worlds...no exploration, completely linear quest line. It was a huge let down, and I am a bona fide SW fanboi, and have been since I saw the first movie...in a theatre the week it was released.
My point being you would have to work pretty hard to make me NOT play something with the SW title on it. And this game did it. I just have to ask, what were they (the producers) thinking? No one on the team was like, dude this is a horrible idea, we really need to use a different approach?
Don't get me wrong, I adopted early on that it was not going to be SWG 2, I got it, I accepted it (mores the pity it turnes out) and was hoping for a great game...or at least not utter rubbish. I got utter rubbish.
The only silver lining to this? the whole genre should have taken note and realized how NOT to make an MMO excel. These guys took fail to a whole new realm in my opinion.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
They were thinking about people that do not like the same you do. Believe it or not, even such people exist.
No game is for everyone.
I'm quite satisfied with either outcome.. either SWTOR, a game I enjoy every now and then, survives.. or it dies, and perhaps we shall finally see KotOR 3... or at least more epic single player games from Bioware.
Gotta say, for a first time, Bioware's doing pretty well, and I wouldn't mind forgiving them their mistakes and am intersted in seeing if they can improve.
Linear class story worked, cause it was the only thing that kept players in. As soon as it ended for someone, that person was leaving. So if other stuff was crap, but people didn't leave straight away, because they were into story, it was good.
For me personally voice acting was the reason I couldn't like this game. Not because of NPCs, but because of my character voice, which I totally didn't like, and was completely not fitting the character I was trying to role play. I think that giving voice to your character, without any choice is a bad idea.
Also the clone wars cartoon graphics were a let down for me too.