All that money, for SWTOR?

baphamet · May 2013

Originally posted by The1ceQueen
OP, hopefully it was a lesson for other companies, how not to make a lifeless, boring, overly voice acted, terribly cloned mmo. It's a niche game, not everyone wants to sit through the boring dialogue for every single thing they do in a game. When you get home from work, school, whatever, most people want to play an mmorpg for the adventure, not sit through dialogue.

its not really niche compared to what the vast majority of gamers here claim they want.

KOTOR was made with the exact same philosophy so i kind of see their logic in making their mmo that same way.

SWTOR actually caters to the masses more like wow rather than being niche, even though it doesn't hold subs like wow does (what mmo does?)

ElRenmazuo · May 2013

They spent majority of the money on expensive voice actors

Greymoor · May 2013

Originally posted by tkreep
They spent majority of the money on expensive voice actors

$150,000,000 though?

ShakyMo · May 2013

When you consider

EQ was made for 4% of that
Daoc for 1.66% of that
Eve for 2.33% of that
wow for 13.33% of that
And even EAs own war for 8% of that

It's a laughable figure.

Instigator-Jones · May 2013

I'm struck how this thread could be subtly changed; insert iPhone for SWOTOR and Android for a cheaper alternative. Now think user experience instead of gameplay, and you'll have yet another quite familiar discussion. Point being; this thread really has a similar flame-bait kind of fluidity.

dead2soon · May 2013

Originally posted by Doogiehowser
Originally posted by Greymoor
Originally posted by Doogiehowser
Not every MMO needs to advance MMO genre. I have enjoyed Rift and SWTOR more than any so called innovative MMOS like GW2. I put more emphasis on whether i am having fun in game or not.

But yet Rift for example, did more to push forward innovation in Themepark MMO's than SWTOR with roughly 1/4 of the development costs.

So you're right, not every MMO needs to advance the genre in some way, aslong as it's a fun game. But when you make an MMO with costs that blow every other title out of the water, you'd expect something new and revolutionary. Not to the same standard or even a lesser standard (minus the well known IP) than the competing games.

I'm certain any other developer would've worked wonders with such a massive budget. Look to Archeage for an example.

Same sort of budget we're seeing for standard MMO's but they're making the most innovative MMO to hit the market in a very long time. Insane interaction with your surroundings, insane graphics, much larger scale combat, housing, massive story telling, raids, player built cities, complex economy.... more.

You can't help but think about SWTOR and see an empty shell?

Like what exactly? i know you gonna say 'rifts'..is that it? that is what you call pushing innovation?

Rift is indeed very wow like however the soul system is very innovative and I wish more games could copy that. Its complexity is a balancing nightmare though and player whining caused them to scale it back a bit. The character flexibility that Rift offers is pretty much unmatched. Being able to reconfigure entire raids from encounter to encounter is not something found in other games.

BadOrb · May 2013

Originally posted by tkreep
They spent majority of the money on expensive voice actors

That is so last month , maybe read up on your old argument ? Like maybe here :-

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/view/forums/thread/381294/GDC-James-Ohlen-Voiceovers-didnt-drive-the-cost-up-it-was-getting-the-engine-to-work-right-that-drove-costs-through-the-roof.html

If you can't be bothered then no the voice acting didin't cost that much , which if you think about it , it was obviously the case , Bioware use voice actors in many games and for many years and they never pushed the cost of those games through the roof.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

Zaltark · May 2013

Why does it matter how much they spent? Its a failure. We all know this already. Sure some people like it, but it flopped pretty hard on its face then cried in a corner till it went ftp.

Is it an expensive mmo? Yes.
did it change anything on the MMO scene? Not really.

ElRenmazuo · May 2013

Originally posted by BadOrb
Originally posted by tkreep
They spent majority of the money on expensive voice actors

That is so last month , maybe read up on your old argument ? Like maybe here :-

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/view/forums/thread/381294/GDC-James-Ohlen-Voiceovers-didnt-drive-the-cost-up-it-was-getting-the-engine-to-work-right-that-drove-costs-through-the-roof.html

If you can't be bothered then no the voice acting didin't cost that much , which if you think about it , it was obviously the case , Bioware use voice actors in many games and for many years and they never pushed the cost of those games through the roof.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

the single player games they made dont have nearly as much voice acting in them as the mmo does. im not saying that was the only thing that was expensive but i bet it was one of the top in their budget along with the engine problems they had. And even the engine to work argument shows that they made a bad choice in picking a engine that wasnt completely developed.

BigHatLogan · May 2013

I originally thought SWTOR was a horrible horrible thing for the MMORPG genre since it was a super expensive WoW clone with an IP guaranteed to get numbers. Its failure has actually been great for the genre because since then developers don't directly set out to clone WoW (as much).

BadOrb · May 2013

Originally posted by tkreep
Originally posted by BadOrb
Originally posted by tkreep
They spent majority of the money on expensive voice actors

That is so last month , maybe read up on your old argument ? Like maybe here :-

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/view/forums/thread/381294/GDC-James-Ohlen-Voiceovers-didnt-drive-the-cost-up-it-was-getting-the-engine-to-work-right-that-drove-costs-through-the-roof.html

If you can't be bothered then no the voice acting didin't cost that much , which if you think about it , it was obviously the case , Bioware use voice actors in many games and for many years and they never pushed the cost of those games through the roof.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

the single player games they made dont have nearly as much voice acting in them as the mmo does. im not saying that was the only thing that was expensive but i bet it was one of the top in their budget along with the engine problems they had. And even the engine to work argument shows that they made a bad choice in picking a engine that wasnt completely developed.

Well he said the greater cost was actually the Q and A for all the multiple choices and paths within the game , the testing was very expansive and time consuming . I guess that's why Makeb ditched the player class stories for all round faction stories. Actually that ties in with what you said , there where more lines of speech to add in SWTOR than their other voice acted games , that's probably true , but not by much really.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

Amana · May 2013

This attempt at discussion is presented in a baiting manner. Essentially, you're not asking for a discussion, you're asking people to prove you wrong. Framing it like that is why it comes off as bait.

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