7) You can have 100 players on your screen with independent graphics, independent movements and attacks, moving around in real-time rather than turn-based, and without killing your frame rate or overloading your Internet connection.
Any one of those is a long, long way away from implying the next. And color me skeptical that they can do #7.
That maybe but that is by no means a monumental task... considering games like APB or even AoC or WAR already did it, so I doubt that FFXIV can't at least achieve some of that.
If such a medicore game like APB can do it (WITH fully customizable models mind you), I don't see how SWTOR can be doing soooo badly with just 10 people and no fully customizable cars WITH fully customizable tattoos/logos/colours/clothing or explosions or smoke effects.
the version of Heroes engine use by SWTOR must've been really terrible.
One hundred players on your screen at once, moving around in real time with independent 3D graphics? Really? I'm skeptical, as that really is hard to do. It's not just that drawing 100 is hard; if you actually have 100 on your screen at once with anything other than an isometric overhead view, then you probably have an awful lot more than 100 who are close enough that the server needs to tell you where they are. You can spin the camera around awfully fast, and if you don't even start loading assets until the camera moves, it will take a while for players who are just behind you to appear.
Maybe they can do 20 players on a screen at once. Maybe they can have 100 in an area, with usually 5-10 actually on your screen at once and occasionally spiking up to 20. But 100 players on your screen at once animated independently and with independent 3D graphics, with the location of all players updated promptly in real time and without killing your frame rate? I want a YouTube video of that, and I want to count. Because I'm skeptical.
One hundred players on your screen at once, moving around in real time with independent 3D graphics? Really? I'm skeptical, as that really is hard to do. It's not just that drawing 100 is hard; if you actually have 100 on your screen at once with anything other than an isometric overhead view, then you probably have an awful lot more than 100 who are close enough that the server needs to tell you where they are. You can spin the camera around awfully fast, and if you don't even start loading assets until the camera moves, it will take a while for players who are just behind you to appear.
Maybe they can do 20 players on a screen at once. Maybe they can have 100 in an area, with usually 5-10 actually on your screen at once and occasionally spiking up to 20. But 100 players on your screen at once animated independently and with independent 3D graphics, with the location of all players updated promptly in real time and without killing your frame rate? I want a YouTube video of that, and I want to count. Because I'm skeptical.
Why don't you just Google those "evidence" yourself? It is not as if those videos are private domain, lol.
Bioware probably should've developed their own engine. Might have been better off (or better yet, even make money from selling the engine to others).
Making an engine for your own game and making an engine to license to others are two different animals. If you make an engine for your own game, then you say, I don't need this capability for my particular game, so I don't need to implement it in the engine at all. Adding more than that is just bloat that makes it harder to follow what your engine does and may harm performance. But if your game engine only has the capabilities that your particular game needs and nothing more, then no one is going to want to license it, as other engines will have a lot more of the capabilities that they need.
I did say "better yet", meaning the engine sales part is optional.
I know you like to defend that fact that Bioware had it hard with Hero engine, but that doesn't change the fact that they did made a wrong decision. Even, as the OP's article says, they freely admitted that.
One hundred players on your screen at once, moving around in real time with independent 3D graphics? Really? I'm skeptical, as that really is hard to do. It's not just that drawing 100 is hard; if you actually have 100 on your screen at once with anything other than an isometric overhead view, then you probably have an awful lot more than 100 who are close enough that the server needs to tell you where they are. You can spin the camera around awfully fast, and if you don't even start loading assets until the camera moves, it will take a while for players who are just behind you to appear.
Maybe they can do 20 players on a screen at once. Maybe they can have 100 in an area, with usually 5-10 actually on your screen at once and occasionally spiking up to 20. But 100 players on your screen at once animated independently and with independent 3D graphics, with the location of all players updated promptly in real time and without killing your frame rate? I want a YouTube video of that, and I want to count. Because I'm skeptical.
Why don't you just Google those "evidence" yourself? It is not as if those videos are private domain, lol.
Because a Google search turns up videos with about 5 players on the screen at once. If 100 is common and works fine, then give me a link.
Bioware probably should've developed their own engine. Might have been better off (or better yet, even make money from selling the engine to others).
Making an engine for your own game and making an engine to license to others are two different animals. If you make an engine for your own game, then you say, I don't need this capability for my particular game, so I don't need to implement it in the engine at all. Adding more than that is just bloat that makes it harder to follow what your engine does and may harm performance. But if your game engine only has the capabilities that your particular game needs and nothing more, then no one is going to want to license it, as other engines will have a lot more of the capabilities that they need.
I did say "better yet", meaning the engine sales part is optional.
I know you like to defend that fact that Bioware had it hard with Hero engine, but that doesn't change the fact that they did made a wrong decision. Even, as the OP's article says, they freely admitted that.
I wouldn't read that so much as EA saying "we goofed up" as "it's not our fault; it's the fault of the Hero Engine". If the problem is that SWTOR has a bad game engine, then at a bare minimum, EA bears the bulk of the blame, and it's only a question of why. Even if Hero Engine were astonishingly terrible, when you have full access to change it in any way you want, it's possible to modify it into a very good game engine--albeit one that doesn't much resemble what you started with.
It could be as simple as that they weren't able to retain any employee who is good at creating and/or modifying a graphics engine for the duration of the game's development. If so, then that will create a ton of problems for you no matter what engine you try to use, whether you make your own or license and modify another. That can easily happen if your crack engine developer leaves the project at some point, or if someone you thought would be good at it simply wasn't. Or it can happen if management simply doesn't allow a very good employee to take the time that is necessary to do things right.
And this is what I NEVER will understand, WHY ON EARTH SWTOR did NOT learn anything from SWG, and failed to add ANY sort of sandbox elements to keep people busy?! I don't get it. These sandbox elements were so popular in games like SWG or Ultima Online. People LOVED them. Can you imagine how cool SWTOR would have been with the present level of story PLUS sandbox elements? It would have been a killer game! And THAT is what MMOs need to do, they need to embrace the sandbox elements again! Give people stuff to do, player cities to build, full crafting economies to supply and weird non combat stuff like entertainers, musicians asf. to keep players busy beyond the quests and stories!
We few said so ALL ALONG. So we can only hope, TESO will be the last "classic" MMO as the pure themeparks are, because the future is sandbox-themeparks hybrids, and nothing else.
SWTOR learned a lot from SWG. Hence they went with the "themepark" style gameplay of WoW. Sandbox is still fringe at best, to make it more popular now would require a Heculean amount of coding to get those elements to form a more cohesive game that a majority of gamers would enjoy. Which is why you see so very few AAA sandbox titles, and the few you do see incorporate lots of linear elements for mass market appeal.
And you have to be a bit of a revisionist to look at SWG and see anything other than a flop. Sales? SWG is a pipsqueak compared to SWTOR and it was never a serious competitor to its contemporaries, also like SWTOR. Popularity? Again, SWG is tiny and was an also-ran back in the day like SWTOR is now. Innovation? Well I'd say it's got SWTOR beat here, but not by much, the main difference being SWTOR copied WoW, while SWG copied UO.
I realize it's hard to tell when you're wearing those rose-colored glasses sometimes but come on. I expect that when the next Star Wars MMO releases people will cry out, "How could you not learn anything from how awesome SWTOR was?!"
You didn't even read what I wrote, like so many sandbox haters.
This isn't about recreating SWG or stepping back to pure sandboxes. This is about adding sandbox additionally to themeparks quests, because themeparks MMOs are *evidently* at their end!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Bioware probably should've developed their own engine. Might have been better off (or better yet, even make money from selling the engine to others).
Making an engine for your own game and making an engine to license to others are two different animals. If you make an engine for your own game, then you say, I don't need this capability for my particular game, so I don't need to implement it in the engine at all. Adding more than that is just bloat that makes it harder to follow what your engine does and may harm performance. But if your game engine only has the capabilities that your particular game needs and nothing more, then no one is going to want to license it, as other engines will have a lot more of the capabilities that they need.
I did say "better yet", meaning the engine sales part is optional.
I know you like to defend that fact that Bioware had it hard with Hero engine, but that doesn't change the fact that they did made a wrong decision. Even, as the OP's article says, they freely admitted that.
I wouldn't read that so much as EA saying "we goofed up" as "it's not our fault; it's the fault of the Hero Engine". If the problem is that SWTOR has a bad game engine, then at a bare minimum, EA bears the bulk of the blame, and it's only a question of why. Even if Hero Engine were astonishingly terrible, when you have full access to change it in any way you want, it's possible to modify it into a very good game engine--albeit one that doesn't much resemble what you started with.
It could be as simple as that they weren't able to retain any employee who is good at creating and/or modifying a graphics engine for the duration of the game's development. If so, then that will create a ton of problems for you no matter what engine you try to use, whether you make your own or license and modify another. That can easily happen if your crack engine developer leaves the project at some point, or if someone you thought would be good at it simply wasn't. Or it can happen if management simply doesn't allow a very good employee to take the time that is necessary to do things right.
You finally hit the multi-million "WTF?" question.
Why did Bioware chose a prototype engine that was untested?
Why did Bioware spend 5+ yeasrs of early development tinkering with it (with according to them 300 people working on the engine), immplying other aspects of the game's development were suffering.
Why did EA allow itself to fund such an apparent misdirection, and then demand the product launch before it was close to ready?
Speculation: When Bioware landed the LA license (prior to the EA acquisition) they were finacially strethed. They now had SWTOR, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect in deelopment simultaneously. That's a lot of operating capital for a smaller sized studio. They tried to think "outside" the box, and circumvent a large initial investment in licesnsing a proven engine or building one from the ground up; a gamble that backfired.
Why did Bioware continue throwing good money after bad? It happens a lot. It's not easy to say you were wrong, and throw out years worth of work even if it is the right thing to do.
Why did EA allow Bioware to veer off course? EA tried to change their stripes. They had a reputation of man hadling their studios which lead to mediocre results, especially in the MMO field. They tried to leave Bioware to make their own descions, to a point.
Why did EA step in and release the game before it was ready? They got fed up with Bioware. After 5 years of development (and millions of dollares) they said enough is enough, you have 6 years, not 7. (For that matter they also reduced the development times of DA2 and ME3). EA was also aware/wary of WoW's MoP (and D3) and Areannet's GW2 release dates.
Even now, EA has done its usual, and reduced DA3's development time to release nearly a year ahead of the original schedeule so as not to compete with The Witcher 3.
Sidenote to Quiz: I don't understand why you are belabouring the point that building and modifying engines is hard. I think most people know that. That said, if a space agency keeps blowing up its rockets, they can't just say, "Well rocket science is hard." That's why there are well paid rocket scientists.
When you factor in EA's purchase of Bioware and SWTOR's development and marketing, you enter the billion dollar realm of investment. You don't get to say "Game engines are tricky things." Especially when antecdotally, your main competitor and "touchstone" game, WoW, was built on an in-house modified WC3 engine by less people for less money in less time with better results. (Blizzard was also a first time MMO maker.)
And this is what I NEVER will understand, WHY ON EARTH SWTOR did NOT learn anything from SWG, and failed to add ANY sort of sandbox elements to keep people busy?! I don't get it. These sandbox elements were so popular in games like SWG or Ultima Online. People LOVED them. Can you imagine how cool SWTOR would have been with the present level of story PLUS sandbox elements? It would have been a killer game! And THAT is what MMOs need to do, they need to embrace the sandbox elements again! Give people stuff to do, player cities to build, full crafting economies to supply and weird non combat stuff like entertainers, musicians asf. to keep players busy beyond the quests and stories!
We few said so ALL ALONG. So we can only hope, TESO will be the last "classic" MMO as the pure themeparks are, because the future is sandbox-themeparks hybrids, and nothing else.
SWTOR learned a lot from SWG. Hence they went with the "themepark" style gameplay of WoW. Sandbox is still fringe at best, to make it more popular now would require a Heculean amount of coding to get those elements to form a more cohesive game that a majority of gamers would enjoy. Which is why you see so very few AAA sandbox titles, and the few you do see incorporate lots of linear elements for mass market appeal.
And you have to be a bit of a revisionist to look at SWG and see anything other than a flop. Sales? SWG is a pipsqueak compared to SWTOR and it was never a serious competitor to its contemporaries, also like SWTOR. Popularity? Again, SWG is tiny and was an also-ran back in the day like SWTOR is now. Innovation? Well I'd say it's got SWTOR beat here, but not by much, the main difference being SWTOR copied WoW, while SWG copied UO.
I realize it's hard to tell when you're wearing those rose-colored glasses sometimes but come on. I expect that when the next Star Wars MMO releases people will cry out, "How could you not learn anything from how awesome SWTOR was?!"
While I agree that there is a lot of rose colored glasses around here regarding SWG,(particuliary the NGE fanatics) I do think it's a bad idea to write that game completely off and ignore what parts it got right in it's original design. I'd love to play another MMO with a real player economy like Vanilla SWG had along with a skill system similiar but maybe just a bit condensed.
You didn't even read what I wrote, like so many sandbox haters.
This isn't about recreating SWG or stepping back to pure sandboxes. This is about adding sandbox additionally to themeparks quests, because themeparks MMOs are *evidently* at their end!
No, I read it, I even reread it just to be sure.
You think "themepark" MMOs are dying (*Clearly not true) and will kill the genre in general (Also *clearly not true) unless developers start putting more sandbox elements in them. And you think SWTOR would somehow have been saved if they'd done that (I highly doubt it, the idea that they could have implemented good sandbox elements when they had such a hard time with themepark ones is pretty ridiculous).
What I'm saying is that the reason developers don't do that is because of how difficult sandbox elements are to implement well, and even the games which do them well rarely get mass market appeal. So what is the incentive for them to try mixing both elements?
This isn't a situation where one side likes chocolate and the other likes peanut butter, two great tastes that taste great together by the way. This is more of a situation where one side likes chocolate and the other likes spinach souffle. Even if you could somehow convince someone they go together well they aren't likely to want to go to all the trouble of making a souffle when they already have chocolate, or risk ruining the souffle they worked so hard to prepare with a bunch of chocolate.
Especially when the main example you're giving is SWG. Use an at least somewhat successful sandbox game, the various Sim games, Dungeon Keeper, Fable, Populous, Minecraft, UO (Yes, I know you mentioned it but you focused on SWG), Eve, or even Second Life (Also known as that thing that requires a question mark at the end of any attempt to classify its genre, MMO?, social game?, freaky "adult" sim?).
*WoW is still by the far the largest MMO with nearly all current and near future MMOs attempting to copy it in part or whole, and it still has exceedingly few things one could call sandbox elements. Unless you want to call minigames a sandbox element, but then I'd actually agree with you.
While I agree that there is a lot of rose colored glasses around here regarding SWG,(particuliary the NGE fanatics) I do think it's a bad idea to write that game completely off and ignore what parts it got right in it's original design. I'd love to play another MMO with a real player economy like Vanilla SWG had along with a skill system similiar but maybe just a bit condensed.
Oh don't get me wrong, there were things I really liked about SWG, heck there are things I really like about SWTOR. I don't believe either game should be completely written off. But they also shouldn't be used as broad examples for future games, there are far too many connotations of failure tied with both of them. Better to cherry pick out the desired features as examples, like you did at the end there.
Originally posted by ignore_me
lol youre making a joke right?
I'm guessing you mean the bit I wrote at the end, in which case sadly, no I'm not. If people can now seemingly point to SWG as the glowing diamond at the pinnacle of an ivory spire of sandbox MMOs, then why can't they point to SWTOR as the peak of themepark MMOness in about 4-5 years?
If you mean because I deny that SWG was in fact the savior of all MMO kind, and it died for SWTOR's sins, then.....uh....sure, let's say I was joking.
While I agree that there is a lot of rose colored glasses around here regarding SWG,(particuliary the NGE fanatics) I do think it's a bad idea to write that game completely off and ignore what parts it got right in it's original design. I'd love to play another MMO with a real player economy like Vanilla SWG had along with a skill system similiar but maybe just a bit condensed.
Oh don't get me wrong, there were things I really liked about SWG, heck there are things I really like about SWTOR. I don't believe either game should be completely written off. But they also shouldn't be used as broad examples for future games, there are far too many connotations of failure tied with both of them. Better to cherry pick out the desired features as examples, like you did at the end there.
Originally posted by ignore_me
lol youre making a joke right?
I'm guessing you mean the bit I wrote at the end, in which case sadly, no I'm not. If people can now seemingly point to SWG as the glowing diamond at the pinnacle of an ivory spire of sandbox MMOs, then why can't they point to SWTOR as the peak of themepark MMOness in about 4-5 years?
If you mean because I deny that SWG was in fact the savior of all MMO kind, and it died for SWTOR's sins, then.....uh....sure, let's say I was joking.
SWG has definately become the ex-girlfriend we remember fondly but forgot why we broke up with. I did get on there recently though and even with it's ancient graphics it still brings Star Wars to the table about 10 times better than SWTOR does. It's absolutley unplayable nowadays, but by completely avoiding the design elements that were good in SWG (realistic art style, movie-accurate art style, a more live and explorable world, 3d space sim) SWTOR became like one Star Wars scene that you have to watch over and over versus having full movies at your disposal.
SWTOR is all about rinse and repeat.
-Combat is your only activity.
-You have no individuality as everyone is the main hero (or villain) of the universe with a pet twi'lek just like yours.
-Every Dungoen/Raid is a WoW fight with a giant boss.
-Your character is essentially a transient, as there is no 'base/home' for your toon. This is a simple comfort hearkening back to when man decided to become agrarian and stop chaing the herds. If nothing else you can keep your shit somewhere.
-The cutscenes become tiresome fast, like garlic salt poured heavily on every dish you eat.
-Dailies are your post 50 non-group job. Repeated story quests (I retrieved the nautolan's medicine every day and brought it to his shuttle, how lame).
-Characters are static mirrors of other faction, you will play through same abilities.
-Alts are original end game, repeat starter and level world stories.
-Space missions are repackaged from lower levels, same map, same paths
"The data we were getting through in-game metrics and exit surveys was telling us that people were going through the content much faster than we were expecting."
The incompetence of Bioware's management and game designers really blew me away. It seems like they were so cocksure that they just went into the whole thing with a 'f___ you, we're Bioware, and we'll do it our way and you'll love it, you don't know what you want' attitude.
Did any of them even play other MMOs or take note of how people tend to play them? I mean, rapid consuming of content has been one of those givens since... Jesus, for at least 10 years. I remember it was sort of expected even when DAoC had it's first expansion. The Anarchy Online devs talked about it on several occasion in reference to the challenges of incorporating an ongoing story with an MMO. You just can't keep up.
This is why I knew they were going to fail hard when I saw SWToR's first preview vids and heard them talking about "story". Story is fine, but it can't be your main draw, because no one could possibly churn it out fast enough. It's like trying to lay track ahead of a train that's already moving.
i think this is really the source of bio ware problem and its sad that games made for much less developed their own engine to suit their games in same time frame and yet bio ware could not.
i pointed this out in the first month and said it was a game breaker for bio ware and quickly got my posts deleted both here and on official forum and even got a warning here for trolling which was bizzare.
bottom line the engine which is the heart of the game was a big fail.what sort of mmorpg can it be if more then 40 people on a spot in ilium meant crash or slide show.
the heart is bad and thus the game suffers.warning to all future mmorpg there is a reason most mmo either make their own engine or Heavily mod a tried and tested one
this is the poll i kept up back in jan 2012 about it even then most agreed that the engine was a fail
so,,when the patient dies, because the doctor tried to do surgery with a thermometer,
we arrest the thermometer?
no, the very FIRST rule of any craftsman, is choosing the right tool for the job
specially on a big budget project like this
Well, thats the problem... there arent any other tools available,,,
Sure there are tools, but then those are not really fit for the job either, like opening a tincan with a screwdriver it works, but you will spill some of the beans.
So either you choose the wrong or the broken tool and try to fix it in such a way that it works, or you create your own tool.
Actually the problem wasnt choosing the right tool, but choosing the tool with the most possibilities. Which by then was obviously the Hero engine. Sadly during development it worked out the wrong way because the hero development team failed to bring what they promissed.
So far the only smart ting seems to create your own engine like blizzard and Arenanet did.
And you know whats the most foolish thing, companies never seem to learn, as TES might be doomed equally to TSW as Zenimax is using the HERO engine...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Ah blaming the engine now ? Blame your developers who blew this game from start to finish.
Star wars IP was a World killer, and look what you have done with this IP... I wow lookalike 10x worse...
They had the opertunity to create a universe that would have blown every fantasy mmo out of the water....
Space exploration world exploration Ground asssulths Space combat Massive raids Good structered pvp
none of these goals where met.... just a simple wow copy and it dint even come close.....just hype and 2 months later 50% of the playerbase left as they coulnt even cast a simple spell...
This was a fuckup of epical proportions....and its the Developers who are at faulth.
Comments
Planetside 2 can do that I think.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Why don't you just Google those "evidence" yourself? It is not as if those videos are private domain, lol.
I did say "better yet", meaning the engine sales part is optional.
I know you like to defend that fact that Bioware had it hard with Hero engine, but that doesn't change the fact that they did made a wrong decision. Even, as the OP's article says, they freely admitted that.
Because a Google search turns up videos with about 5 players on the screen at once. If 100 is common and works fine, then give me a link.
I wouldn't read that so much as EA saying "we goofed up" as "it's not our fault; it's the fault of the Hero Engine". If the problem is that SWTOR has a bad game engine, then at a bare minimum, EA bears the bulk of the blame, and it's only a question of why. Even if Hero Engine were astonishingly terrible, when you have full access to change it in any way you want, it's possible to modify it into a very good game engine--albeit one that doesn't much resemble what you started with.
It could be as simple as that they weren't able to retain any employee who is good at creating and/or modifying a graphics engine for the duration of the game's development. If so, then that will create a ton of problems for you no matter what engine you try to use, whether you make your own or license and modify another. That can easily happen if your crack engine developer leaves the project at some point, or if someone you thought would be good at it simply wasn't. Or it can happen if management simply doesn't allow a very good employee to take the time that is necessary to do things right.
so,,when the patient dies, because the doctor tried to do surgery with a thermometer,
we arrest the thermometer?
no, the very FIRST rule of any craftsman, is choosing the right tool for the job
specially on a big budget project like this
You didn't even read what I wrote, like so many sandbox haters.
This isn't about recreating SWG or stepping back to pure sandboxes. This is about adding sandbox additionally to themeparks quests, because themeparks MMOs are *evidently* at their end!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
You finally hit the multi-million "WTF?" question.
Why did Bioware chose a prototype engine that was untested?
Why did Bioware spend 5+ yeasrs of early development tinkering with it (with according to them 300 people working on the engine), immplying other aspects of the game's development were suffering.
Why did EA allow itself to fund such an apparent misdirection, and then demand the product launch before it was close to ready?
Speculation: When Bioware landed the LA license (prior to the EA acquisition) they were finacially strethed. They now had SWTOR, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect in deelopment simultaneously. That's a lot of operating capital for a smaller sized studio. They tried to think "outside" the box, and circumvent a large initial investment in licesnsing a proven engine or building one from the ground up; a gamble that backfired.
Why did Bioware continue throwing good money after bad? It happens a lot. It's not easy to say you were wrong, and throw out years worth of work even if it is the right thing to do.
Why did EA allow Bioware to veer off course? EA tried to change their stripes. They had a reputation of man hadling their studios which lead to mediocre results, especially in the MMO field. They tried to leave Bioware to make their own descions, to a point.
Why did EA step in and release the game before it was ready? They got fed up with Bioware. After 5 years of development (and millions of dollares) they said enough is enough, you have 6 years, not 7. (For that matter they also reduced the development times of DA2 and ME3). EA was also aware/wary of WoW's MoP (and D3) and Areannet's GW2 release dates.
Even now, EA has done its usual, and reduced DA3's development time to release nearly a year ahead of the original schedeule so as not to compete with The Witcher 3.
Sidenote to Quiz: I don't understand why you are belabouring the point that building and modifying engines is hard. I think most people know that. That said, if a space agency keeps blowing up its rockets, they can't just say, "Well rocket science is hard." That's why there are well paid rocket scientists.
When you factor in EA's purchase of Bioware and SWTOR's development and marketing, you enter the billion dollar realm of investment. You don't get to say "Game engines are tricky things." Especially when antecdotally, your main competitor and "touchstone" game, WoW, was built on an in-house modified WC3 engine by less people for less money in less time with better results. (Blizzard was also a first time MMO maker.)
While I agree that there is a lot of rose colored glasses around here regarding SWG,(particuliary the NGE fanatics) I do think it's a bad idea to write that game completely off and ignore what parts it got right in it's original design. I'd love to play another MMO with a real player economy like Vanilla SWG had along with a skill system similiar but maybe just a bit condensed.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
No, I read it, I even reread it just to be sure.
You think "themepark" MMOs are dying (*Clearly not true) and will kill the genre in general (Also *clearly not true) unless developers start putting more sandbox elements in them. And you think SWTOR would somehow have been saved if they'd done that (I highly doubt it, the idea that they could have implemented good sandbox elements when they had such a hard time with themepark ones is pretty ridiculous).
What I'm saying is that the reason developers don't do that is because of how difficult sandbox elements are to implement well, and even the games which do them well rarely get mass market appeal. So what is the incentive for them to try mixing both elements?
This isn't a situation where one side likes chocolate and the other likes peanut butter, two great tastes that taste great together by the way. This is more of a situation where one side likes chocolate and the other likes spinach souffle. Even if you could somehow convince someone they go together well they aren't likely to want to go to all the trouble of making a souffle when they already have chocolate, or risk ruining the souffle they worked so hard to prepare with a bunch of chocolate.
Especially when the main example you're giving is SWG. Use an at least somewhat successful sandbox game, the various Sim games, Dungeon Keeper, Fable, Populous, Minecraft, UO (Yes, I know you mentioned it but you focused on SWG), Eve, or even Second Life (Also known as that thing that requires a question mark at the end of any attempt to classify its genre, MMO?, social game?, freaky "adult" sim?).
*WoW is still by the far the largest MMO with nearly all current and near future MMOs attempting to copy it in part or whole, and it still has exceedingly few things one could call sandbox elements. Unless you want to call minigames a sandbox element, but then I'd actually agree with you.
Oh don't get me wrong, there were things I really liked about SWG, heck there are things I really like about SWTOR. I don't believe either game should be completely written off. But they also shouldn't be used as broad examples for future games, there are far too many connotations of failure tied with both of them. Better to cherry pick out the desired features as examples, like you did at the end there.
I'm guessing you mean the bit I wrote at the end, in which case sadly, no I'm not. If people can now seemingly point to SWG as the glowing diamond at the pinnacle of an ivory spire of sandbox MMOs, then why can't they point to SWTOR as the peak of themepark MMOness in about 4-5 years?
If you mean because I deny that SWG was in fact the savior of all MMO kind, and it died for SWTOR's sins, then.....uh....sure, let's say I was joking.
SWG has definately become the ex-girlfriend we remember fondly but forgot why we broke up with. I did get on there recently though and even with it's ancient graphics it still brings Star Wars to the table about 10 times better than SWTOR does. It's absolutley unplayable nowadays, but by completely avoiding the design elements that were good in SWG (realistic art style, movie-accurate art style, a more live and explorable world, 3d space sim) SWTOR became like one Star Wars scene that you have to watch over and over versus having full movies at your disposal.
SWTOR is all about rinse and repeat.
-Combat is your only activity.
-You have no individuality as everyone is the main hero (or villain) of the universe with a pet twi'lek just like yours.
-Every Dungoen/Raid is a WoW fight with a giant boss.
-Your character is essentially a transient, as there is no 'base/home' for your toon. This is a simple comfort hearkening back to when man decided to become agrarian and stop chaing the herds. If nothing else you can keep your shit somewhere.
-The cutscenes become tiresome fast, like garlic salt poured heavily on every dish you eat.
-Dailies are your post 50 non-group job. Repeated story quests (I retrieved the nautolan's medicine every day and brought it to his shuttle, how lame).
-Characters are static mirrors of other faction, you will play through same abilities.
-Alts are original end game, repeat starter and level world stories.
-Space missions are repackaged from lower levels, same map, same paths
etc.
It's really just negligent game design.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
"The data we were getting through in-game metrics and exit surveys was telling us that people were going through the content much faster than we were expecting."
The incompetence of Bioware's management and game designers really blew me away. It seems like they were so cocksure that they just went into the whole thing with a 'f___ you, we're Bioware, and we'll do it our way and you'll love it, you don't know what you want' attitude.
Did any of them even play other MMOs or take note of how people tend to play them? I mean, rapid consuming of content has been one of those givens since... Jesus, for at least 10 years. I remember it was sort of expected even when DAoC had it's first expansion. The Anarchy Online devs talked about it on several occasion in reference to the challenges of incorporating an ongoing story with an MMO. You just can't keep up.
This is why I knew they were going to fail hard when I saw SWToR's first preview vids and heard them talking about "story". Story is fine, but it can't be your main draw, because no one could possibly churn it out fast enough. It's like trying to lay track ahead of a train that's already moving.
i dont think they overestimated their content
i think they underestimated the power players
and yes,,a 5 min cutscene wont keep a player for long
a big, and exciting world would have better chances
hacking my way through a mob infested corridor gets old really fast
And still the engine does not work properly.
i think this is really the source of bio ware problem and its sad that games made for much less developed their own engine to suit their games in same time frame and yet bio ware could not.
i pointed this out in the first month and said it was a game breaker for bio ware and quickly got my posts deleted both here and on official forum and even got a warning here for trolling which was bizzare.
bottom line the engine which is the heart of the game was a big fail.what sort of mmorpg can it be if more then 40 people on a spot in ilium meant crash or slide show.
the heart is bad and thus the game suffers.warning to all future mmorpg there is a reason most mmo either make their own engine or Heavily mod a tried and tested one
this is the poll i kept up back in jan 2012 about it even then most agreed that the engine was a fail
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/view/forums/thread/338987/page/1
yea, they took a shortcut with the engine
the ONE part, that the whole game is build on, and they wanted to save some $$
if it had worked out, they would have made a fortune
but it didnt,,most of the dev team got fired
even the big suit himself lost his job
and a lot of fans are still waiting for a star wars mmo
next time,,use TWO of the big studios
clearly, one studio cant make a game, that is EPIC enough, to have the name
Hahaha, great analogy.
So wait , they are saying they got the engine to work ?
What patch did they do this ?
coders cost money,,and GOOD coders prolly cost a lot of money
EA could pay them,,but they dont want to invest more in this game
swtor will survive, as it is now, or not
it has taken 3 years for STO to make their game stable, and they didnt waste the first year, by denying
their problems
STO barely survived that one, and their budget was more balanced , than swtor
that would be the optimal choice
and the kind of advice, i would expect from a professional
however,,if the king is a moron, his kingdom will suffer
Ha I love this analogy. Spot on.
Playing: FFXIV, DnL, and World of Warships
Waiting on: Ashes of Creation
Well, thats the problem... there arent any other tools available,,,
Sure there are tools, but then those are not really fit for the job either, like opening a tincan with a screwdriver it works, but you will spill some of the beans.
So either you choose the wrong or the broken tool and try to fix it in such a way that it works, or you create your own tool.
Actually the problem wasnt choosing the right tool, but choosing the tool with the most possibilities. Which by then was obviously the Hero engine. Sadly during development it worked out the wrong way because the hero development team failed to bring what they promissed.
So far the only smart ting seems to create your own engine like blizzard and Arenanet did.
And you know whats the most foolish thing, companies never seem to learn, as TES might be doomed equally to TSW as Zenimax is using the HERO engine...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
yes, they should have created their own engine
i think its the only game of this scale, where the dev team didnt do that
AFAIK, even EVEs engine is house made
this decision was taken by incompetent people, or it was taken, because swtor was meant to be a short term
moneygrab,,maybe a combination of those two
now we have this awesome sports car,,but its powered by a modified lawnmower engine
it looks cool, but its slow as...
Ah blaming the engine now ?
Blame your developers who blew this game from start to finish.
Star wars IP was a World killer, and look what you have done with this IP...
I wow lookalike 10x worse...
They had the opertunity to create a universe that would have blown every fantasy mmo out of the water....
Space exploration
world exploration
Ground asssulths
Space combat
Massive raids
Good structered pvp
none of these goals where met....
just a simple wow copy and it dint even come close.....just hype and 2 months later 50% of the playerbase left as they coulnt even cast a simple spell...
This was a fuckup of epical proportions....and its the Developers who are at faulth.