Originally posted by mmoguy43 If EA "cleaned house" they would have been layed off but these guys are leaving on their own terms.
Not really these guys have contracts , atleast the top guys and NDA's . So the contracts are bought out a parachute is offered and they slip away quitely never to discuss the matter. What you're saying applies to the everyday type of grunt that works for a living . Exectutives are another realm.
Originally posted by Whiskey_Sam If they'd fired that arrogant asshole a long time ago, the game might have had a chance.
That makes little sense, it's like saying that if 38 Studio's fired R. A. Salvatore they might not have failed as a company. One of the few good things about SWTOR was the story so clearly Daniel Erickson did his job. However they shouldn't have allowed him to talk as he clearly doesn't understand MMO's as well as he understands writing a story.
Exactly, Talk, but making comments comes from what you think, they made the game with far to many story scenes for one thing, we buy an MMO to play and have fun, not sit there and watch umpteen hours of cut scenes, you could fly through the story driven quests and literally finish the story quite quickly, then what ? there was nothing else to keep you playing, every MMO has its "sell by date" imho, but SWTOR was a matter of hours, the game in reality was ruined before it was released.
it was a game where you were smacking the spacebar to end the cut scenes, as for quests, they were a total minority, only a small few were not boring. it was not EA that ruined the game, but the people that made it having no idea.
"it was a game where you were smacking the spacebar to end cutscenes..."
No, YOU were smacking the spacebar to end cut scenes. I know a lot of players who found the cut scenes to be amongst the strong points of the game, myself included.
And to anyone who complains about there being too many cutscenes... why buy the game then? It was very well known that this game was built around story, cutscenes and full VO... so if you don't like cutscenes in your mmos, why buy one that is known (well before release) to be chock full of them?
"as for quests, they were a total minority, only a small few were not boring."
Again, you represent this as a blanket fact experienced by all those who played TOR. And in fact, there were tons of quests in this game. So many that for many players it was virtually impossible to do all the content on a given world without out-leveling it and ending up fighting mobs 3-6 levels too low and thus too easy. But that was the fault of the leveling/XP rate BW put in place, not the quests. Hell. I often only did about 50% of the content on a given world, solely to avoid being 4-7 levels above the next planet's content by the time I got there.
"it was not EA that ruined the game, but the people that made it having no idea."
Another blanket statement. IMHO, both BW and EA played a part in hamstringing this game. What percentage of the blame each holds, I'd guess it to be 70/30 BW/EA. But to lay all the blame on one or the other solely is, imho, unrealistic.
...
Obviously, the masses who are spacebarring through a so-called story driven game BECAUSE the story component sux is very different. Critical thinking is key, learn it before you make a non-sensical statement.
As stated before, and in my TOR Forums "Definitive Issues" thread, Issue #1 - The 4th Pillar - Story - Is Crumbling.
As stated there, the stories in TOR are among the weakest. There is no depth. There are no ensemble cast members. Story in TOR for 99% of content consists of a single character going from one Stranger NPC to another to get a task. If it were a story - it's not - it would read among the worst of the Conan the Barbarian novels. Nowhere to be seen are the ensemble casts to give it life, progression and charm that we know from Star Wars. None of Luke's Hans or Leias or Chewies, nor even the Ackbars, the Wedges, the Antilles.
Zip, nada for characters. Just going from one stranger to another stranger.
TOR A STORY DRIVEN GAME??? My goodness, what a rediculous claim. It is voice driven, I'll give you that, but as far as story goes. Word for Word. LOTRO for example had 20x the story per quest (albiet written rather than spoken) than the limited dialogue of a TOR stranger NPC assigning a task in TOR.
Like every element that Erickson touched, along with his work on NGE, was an epic exercise in MMO failure, where he sacrificed MMO traditions of player-driven content, player choices, player preferences and options for all of the above in favor of his own sacred cows in design arrogance.
As said before, on the most simplest of design tenets, I couldn't even have the flexibility to give my Twilek Jedi from Nar Shaddaa a different surname than my Human Smuggler from Coruscant. Epic failure in option, preferences, and choices logical to any real MMO. A slave to Erickson's arrogance and sacred cows, along with other notable sacred cows like faction guild/trade bifurcation that split communities and player choices, and later unraveled with Legacy that was still hamstrung with player avatars spread on diff servers by faction, and unable to take advantage of Legacy features or forthcoming HK quest lines.
I said time and again that Erickson's days were numbered, and things like strict faction bifurcation would be rescinded (enter Legacy and interfaction trade), though we're still stuck with guilds being restricted from the "option" of uniting its members avatars across factions.
If the game were truly story driven, which its not, we wouldn't be compelled to space bar through the endless drivel of talking to stranger after stranger to be given a task. We know this from the 4 other alts we leveled where we attempted to have the so-called story hold our interest, and instead were bored to death.
Get a clue. It's not EA, it's the bone-headed arrogant people who foisted their sacred cows on us and are now appropriately leaving the building - as expected. And please kick them on their way out for all the harm they've done.
I followed SWToR for over 4 years (when it was just a roumor on the web) I read every interview and watched every youtube video. DE and James Olson wanted the game to be very different. For what ever reason (EA direction maybe) the dev team followed DE direction and ideas. James Olson would say he would like to see X and DE would say no thats not gona happen. In the end it would end up like DE said it would. DE ideas were backwards and in the box thinking. Any MMO that I see in the pipe line that DE is involved with I will question before I spend any of my money on it. I have long unsubbed from SWToR but now that he is gone I will be watching the game to see what direction it takes.
Exactly so.
"Daniel Erickson"
... slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch ...
This is the guy driving the downfall of not one, but two MMO's based on a gargantuan Star Wars franchise.
Particularly in reply to Unshra, read my "Definitive Issues" thread on SWTOR's site (easy search), where it lists all the problems with TOR and what to do about them, basically dismantling the sacred cows and poor design by MMO standards ...
... chief among them, Unshra, is Section 1, first up on the list, that the Story is a failure. Short version - it's flat, 2-dimensional, completely lacks an ensemble cast that gave Star Wars depth and charm (no equivalent of Hans, Chewies, Ackbars, Leias, nadda) and simply has us going from stranger to stranger for a task for most of the game. As said, LOTRO, while in print rather than voice, had at least 20x the story content with each quest. Story a pillar of SWTOR? Not hardly, not at all.
"Daniel Erickson"
... slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch ...
The man who brought you "NGE", the man who brought you NGE-like SWTOR; aka MMO Light, or MMO lobotomized, or MMO Unick.
THIS GUY IS A WORLD CLASS BUFFOON. He's cocky, arrogant, and completely oblivious to what sustains a MMORPG.
I remember his lame little remark to a fan (during development convention) about freedom and space exploration. Daniel's reply, "Did Han ever tell Chewie, 'Hey, let's just go fly off and dick around in space." This remark was just stupid. If he wants to play that game, when did Luke ever tell Obi-Wan, "Hey, let's go kill Vader for his pants..." or "Let's go to the Space Station and dick around on the Auction House... because there isn't anything else to do in this dead-ass game."
If this guy is on the project, I simply won't support it.
Agreed, dude had no idea how to create an MMORPG.
Was it his fault? Probably not, but you never know.
I agree... that entire team simply got Star Wars MMORPG pretty wrong. Sad to say it, but SWG was actually a better design philosohpy than SWTOR... it was actually more in-tune with what Star Wars fans actually wanted. SWTOR should have just been an incredible single player RPG with 8 different ways to play the game.
Why do I write, create, fantasize, dream and daydream about other worlds? Because I hate what humanity does with this one.
Originally posted by Whiskey_Sam If they'd fired that arrogant asshole a long time ago, the game might have had a chance.
That makes little sense, it's like saying that if 38 Studio's fired R. A. Salvatore they might not have failed as a company. One of the few good things about SWTOR was the story so clearly Daniel Erickson did his job. However they shouldn't have allowed him to talk as he clearly doesn't understand MMO's as well as he understands writing a story.
Exactly, Talk, but making comments comes from what you think, they made the game with far to many story scenes for one thing, we buy an MMO to play and have fun, not sit there and watch umpteen hours of cut scenes, you could fly through the story driven quests and literally finish the story quite quickly, then what ? there was nothing else to keep you playing, every MMO has its "sell by date" imho, but SWTOR was a matter of hours, the game in reality was ruined before it was released.
it was a game where you were smacking the spacebar to end the cut scenes, as for quests, they were a total minority, only a small few were not boring. it was not EA that ruined the game, but the people that made it having no idea.
"it was a game where you were smacking the spacebar to end cutscenes..."
No, YOU were smacking the spacebar to end cut scenes. I know a lot of players who found the cut scenes to be amongst the strong points of the game, myself included.
And to anyone who complains about there being too many cutscenes... why buy the game then? It was very well known that this game was built around story, cutscenes and full VO... so if you don't like cutscenes in your mmos, why buy one that is known (well before release) to be chock full of them?
"as for quests, they were a total minority, only a small few were not boring."
Again, you represent this as a blanket fact experienced by all those who played TOR. And in fact, there were tons of quests in this game. So many that for many players it was virtually impossible to do all the content on a given world without out-leveling it and ending up fighting mobs 3-6 levels too low and thus too easy. But that was the fault of the leveling/XP rate BW put in place, not the quests. Hell. I often only did about 50% of the content on a given world, solely to avoid being 4-7 levels above the next planet's content by the time I got there.
"it was not EA that ruined the game, but the people that made it having no idea."
Another blanket statement. IMHO, both BW and EA played a part in hamstringing this game. What percentage of the blame each holds, I'd guess it to be 70/30 BW/EA. But to lay all the blame on one or the other solely is, imho, unrealistic.
Yeah, spacebarring through a story-driven game, and then saying it sucks. . .very, very bright apples indeed
A story-driven mmorpg... cant think in a more stupid way of throwing 300Mil in a garbage can.
Comments
Not really these guys have contracts , atleast the top guys and NDA's . So the contracts are bought out a parachute is offered and they slip away quitely never to discuss the matter. What you're saying applies to the everyday type of grunt that works for a living . Exectutives are another realm.
Exactly so.
"Daniel Erickson"
... slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch ...
This is the guy driving the downfall of not one, but two MMO's based on a gargantuan Star Wars franchise.
Particularly in reply to Unshra, read my "Definitive Issues" thread on SWTOR's site (easy search), where it lists all the problems with TOR and what to do about them, basically dismantling the sacred cows and poor design by MMO standards ...
... chief among them, Unshra, is Section 1, first up on the list, that the Story is a failure. Short version - it's flat, 2-dimensional, completely lacks an ensemble cast that gave Star Wars depth and charm (no equivalent of Hans, Chewies, Ackbars, Leias, nadda) and simply has us going from stranger to stranger for a task for most of the game. As said, LOTRO, while in print rather than voice, had at least 20x the story content with each quest. Story a pillar of SWTOR? Not hardly, not at all.
"Daniel Erickson"
... slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch ...
The man who brought you "NGE", the man who brought you NGE-like SWTOR; aka MMO Light, or MMO lobotomized, or MMO Unick.
I agree... that entire team simply got Star Wars MMORPG pretty wrong. Sad to say it, but SWG was actually a better design philosohpy than SWTOR... it was actually more in-tune with what Star Wars fans actually wanted. SWTOR should have just been an incredible single player RPG with 8 different ways to play the game.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
Sadly
EA Louse was right.
A story-driven mmorpg... cant think in a more stupid way of throwing 300Mil in a garbage can.