Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have all the usual ingredients of a MMO are getting tiresome.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you exactly, but two people playing together is an mmo?
Until it releases or at least gets into open beta, neither of us knows for sure. But I keep seeng all these "proof it's an mmo" posts which never have anything more than two people playing together.
Show me hundreds of people on screen at once running around doing their own things. Hell, show me 50. Show me full groups doing content. Show me something substantial, don't show me two people playing together and suddenly calling it an mmo.
Hundreds of people on screen at once? I can't think of a single MMO that's ever been released that has that.
Full group content has been shown.
Hi there, caveman.
Not going to name a game that has 200+ people on screen at once?
DAoC, among others that I haven't played first-hand. When you have graphics from the early '00s, you can have huge battles with few technical problems.
OP: Good write-up, but like others have already said, this isn't going to change anything. The best it will do is convince some silent fence-sitters. Those who call it a single-player game with a monthly fee now will continue to do so, no matter the evidence BioWare presents to the contrary. No matter how "MMO-ish" it becomes, some people only care that it's not "sandboxy enough." I'd like to say that the desperate vets who were hoping for SWG2 have been silenced, but I think a few still remain. It's hard to tell because other sandbox vets who didn't play SWG criticize TOR as well. BioWare could back up their claims of sandbox elements and some people still wouldn't be satisfied.
Can't make everyone happy, so you just create your product your way and let consumers come to you, not the other way around. If it's successful, you were right; if not, maybe you'll learn and you or someone else will try something new the next time. BioWare could care less about most of the whiners here. The devs said they're trying to make TOR a themepark-sandbox hybrid, and I've heard some opinions supporting that claim (such as first-hand accounts of a large, open world, ripe for exploration).
We need more details on things like community features/social tools and crafting, but we're starting to get some basic grouping information, and the fact that grouping will be encouraged is positive. BioWare knows that people take the path of least resistance, which in this case is soloing, so they ensure that the choice is available; you can solo, sure, but no one said you will be able to experience all the content if you do. Vets advocate player freedom, yet some also promote forced grouping. Hypocritical? A bit.
Anyways, this is throwing a bucket of water on a burning high-rise at best. I still think BioWare knows what it's doing, both in developing the game and releasing information carefully to preserve hype.
I don't see a problem even if it was solo-centric. It still follows all the rules to be an MMO, I could care less about group play in this game. Deep down inside I wanted a single player MMO.
Originally posted by cyphers
Enforcing people to group is not a popular design choice anymore, but the next best thing is encouraging people to group and make it fun and attractive: devs of both GW2 and SW TOR have claimed of implementing features that stimulates it, both in their own ways.
I guess we'll see in demos and betas and such in the upcoming months how the designers intend to accomplish it.
Well, I'm kind of with you here. I don't mind grouping but I rather it be fun and attractive than forced. When it's forced it doesn't create good communities which is one of my personal reasons for playing an MMO. Grouping should be an option for friends to get together instead of pairing players up to use each other as tools to get what they want.
In the end, if the grouping is good, and it's easy to get in groups, I'll stick with the game. If it turns out to be a solo quest grind, probably won't hold my interest that long.
But I disagree about "forced grouping" and the kind of community it creates. I always thought the best communities were in the so-called "forced grouping" games like DAoC and EQ, but it is of course a matter of preference.
When the game is "forced grouping", then if you act like an ass clown, no one will group with you, and you lag behind. It was an incentive for people to play well with others.
In games like WoW, who cares? you can quit a group at any time, and not really experience any negatives. It might mean you level in 3 weeks instead of 2 and a half, so what?
I don't see a problem even if it was solo-centric. It still follows all the rules to be an MMO, I could care less about group play in this game. Deep down inside I wanted a single player MMO.
Why? Seems like a waste of money but maybe your post was supposed to be sarcastic.
It is my opinion that every MMO uses the same formula. Like copies of copies the original design lost it's purpose. Groups should be encouraged but not forced. Games should be set up for you to make friends, create bonds - groups should be something that you could do with these friends... designing games with a dependency on groups tends to make players use others to achieve personal goals (in my opinion).
In part, I don't really have a problem with grouping. I think it works well in previous games but something about this game just doesn't feel group-centric. BioWare makes excellent single players games. I don't think they should step out of their expertise too much, not because they couldn't do it but because of their fan's expectations. Star Wars does have a 'small group' feel but it's made up of friends, not pugs. Design for a product with customers in mind instead of designing for your customers with a product in mind. We are not making household appliances but entertainment, people want to be immersed into games whereas they want to use appliances.
It could be a waste of money no matter how it was designed, group or solo. I think if they put top notch content out there and make a fun and enjoyable game people will buy it no matter if it's group-centric or not. You can't keep pleasing your customers by making them numbers and statistics, it is a tool to help you improve upon a game but you should not make a game using those numbers. People want to see something different and you can't create a poll to determine what would be successful or not in the long run. Instead of coping the industry standard, developers need to start carving their way into the genre - either way it's a risk.
In the end, if the grouping is good, and it's easy to get in groups, I'll stick with the game. If it turns out to be a solo quest grind, probably won't hold my interest that long.
But I disagree about "forced grouping" and the kind of community it creates. I always thought the best communities were in the so-called "forced grouping" games like DAoC and EQ, but it is of course a matter of preference.
When the game is "forced grouping", then if you act like an ass clown, no one will group with you, and you lag behind. It was an incentive for people to play well with others.
In games like WoW, who cares? you can quit a group at any time, and not really experience any negatives. It might mean you level in 3 weeks instead of 2 and a half, so what?
I feel part of the problem is our glory days in the old MMOs. I have them too, I enjoyed the way things were but not where they are going. We are holding on to too many traditions hoping that it will recreate what we loved. After seeing many games try and fail to recreate what I wanted, I've tried to reconsider what it was that I loved so much. I actually made friends with players and then enjoyed doing things with those friends. Those memories, victories and losses with those players gave me my enjoyment.
You can't force people to be friends. When you force grouping now-a-days you get less people looking to make friends and more players looking for someone to fulfill a need. This doesn't build communities but corrupts them like a wolf in wool. Sounds pretty half empty but in all honesty the focus has left from communities and moved towards statistics and carrots. There is nothing wrong with trying to be profitable but what happened to the true blue gamers?
Unfortunately there is enough people that ass clowns can always find groups. There are so many people now that ass clowns group with ass clowns. Hell, it's almost popular to be an ass clown in today's communities.
I respect your opinion and I am thankful that you gave me a well thought out response but I just can't agree that forced grouping will give us back what we enjoyed.
Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have all the usual ingredients of a MMO are getting tiresome.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you exactly, but two people playing together is an mmo?
Until it releases or at least gets into open beta, neither of us knows for sure. But I keep seeng all these "proof it's an mmo" posts which never have anything more than two people playing together.
Show me hundreds of people on screen at once running around doing their own things. Hell, show me 50. Show me full groups doing content. Show me something substantial, don't show me two people playing together and suddenly calling it an mmo.
Hundreds of people on screen at once? I can't think of a single MMO that's ever been released that has that.
Full group content has been shown.
Hi there, caveman.
Not going to name a game that has 200+ people on screen at once?
Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage, Lineage 2, EVE, even friggin' Darkfail has managed that much. Next question?
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have all the usual ingredients of a MMO are getting tiresome.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you exactly, but two people playing together is an mmo?
Until it releases or at least gets into open beta, neither of us knows for sure. But I keep seeng all these "proof it's an mmo" posts which never have anything more than two people playing together.
Show me hundreds of people on screen at once running around doing their own things. Hell, show me 50. Show me full groups doing content. Show me something substantial, don't show me two people playing together and suddenly calling it an mmo.
Hundreds of people on screen at once? I can't think of a single MMO that's ever been released that has that.
Full group content has been shown.
Hi there, caveman.
Not going to name a game that has 200+ people on screen at once?
Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage, Lineage 2, EVE, even friggin' Darkfail has managed that much. Next question?
RF Online and sometimes it's 300+ depending how busing it is that day.
Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have all the usual ingredients of a MMO are getting tiresome.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you exactly, but two people playing together is an mmo?
Until it releases or at least gets into open beta, neither of us knows for sure. But I keep seeng all these "proof it's an mmo" posts which never have anything more than two people playing together.
Show me hundreds of people on screen at once running around doing their own things. Hell, show me 50. Show me full groups doing content. Show me something substantial, don't show me two people playing together and suddenly calling it an mmo.
Hundreds of people on screen at once? I can't think of a single MMO that's ever been released that has that.
Full group content has been shown.
Hi there, caveman.
Not going to name a game that has 200+ people on screen at once?
Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage, Lineage 2, EVE, even friggin' Darkfail has managed that much. Next question?
RF Online and sometimes it's 300+ depending how busing it is that day.
When I do internet searches on such things, I find either the servers get severely lagged by this, videos with 100 people or so at best on screen at once (usually a lot less even in "big battles", or in Eve everyone is little colored dots for pretty much the whole fight. But, I guess those things count.
Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have all the usual ingredients of a MMO are getting tiresome.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you exactly, but two people playing together is an mmo?
Until it releases or at least gets into open beta, neither of us knows for sure. But I keep seeng all these "proof it's an mmo" posts which never have anything more than two people playing together.
Show me hundreds of people on screen at once running around doing their own things. Hell, show me 50. Show me full groups doing content. Show me something substantial, don't show me two people playing together and suddenly calling it an mmo.
Hundreds of people on screen at once? I can't think of a single MMO that's ever been released that has that.
Full group content has been shown.
Hi there, caveman.
Not going to name a game that has 200+ people on screen at once?
Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage, Lineage 2, EVE, even friggin' Darkfail has managed that much. Next question?
RF Online and sometimes it's 300+ depending how busing it is that day.
When I do internet searches on such things, I find either the servers get severely lagged by this, videos with 100 people or so at best on screen at once (usually a lot less even in "big battles", or in Eve everyone is little colored dots for pretty much the whole fight. But, I guess those things count.
In any case, it's a silly way to define an MMO.
Heh, I never said it didn't get laggy... when I saw what looked like 300 + I think the game lagged down to like 3 frames per second lol.
Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have all the usual ingredients of a MMO are getting tiresome.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you exactly, but two people playing together is an mmo?
Until it releases or at least gets into open beta, neither of us knows for sure. But I keep seeng all these "proof it's an mmo" posts which never have anything more than two people playing together.
Show me hundreds of people on screen at once running around doing their own things. Hell, show me 50. Show me full groups doing content. Show me something substantial, don't show me two people playing together and suddenly calling it an mmo.
Hundreds of people on screen at once? I can't think of a single MMO that's ever been released that has that.
Full group content has been shown.
Hi there, caveman.
Not going to name a game that has 200+ people on screen at once?
Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage, Lineage 2, EVE, even friggin' Darkfail has managed that much. Next question?
RF Online and sometimes it's 300+ depending how busing it is that day.
When I do internet searches on such things, I find either the servers get severely lagged by this, videos with 100 people or so at best on screen at once (usually a lot less even in "big battles", or in Eve everyone is little colored dots for pretty much the whole fight. But, I guess those things count.
In any case, it's a silly way to define an MMO.
Heh, I never said it didn't get laggy... when I saw what looked like 300 + I think the game lagged down to like 3 frames per second lol.
Having been a long time RF player I can tell you that the machine you're on and changing a few small settings makes a HUGE difference here. I used to play on my laptop and once we got to like 50+ people onscreen i was pretty useless, but upgrading to a somewhat better desktop (not a gaming rig by any standards, just a general use PC with a faster proc. a little more ram, and a slightly bette rgfx card) made a huge difference. One thing to keep in mind too is that many people playing RF have no idea about turning off little things like the "Particle" option which disables some of the background & environmental crap (like the falling snow-ish effect in Crag Mine) can practically double ho wmany people you can handle on-screen, as well as turning the lighting effects down a notch or 2.
Anyway, on an even half decent system, with your settings adjusted you can easily handle a full scale several hundred player battle with no lag issues. Hell my bro does it on a system with 1GB of RAM. And this isn't just having hundreds of players on screen in a town or PvE zone, this is having every one of those hundreds of players all fighting eachother at once, along with their MAUs (vehicles they ride in) and various summoned pets following them around.
Funny thing is, thats on a several year old F2P game, not a brand new P2P game boasting some of the "best" people developing it as well as the massive budget behind it.
I feel part of the problem is our glory days in the old MMOs. I have them too, I enjoyed the way things were but not where they are going. We are holding on to too many traditions hoping that it will recreate what we loved. After seeing many games try and fail to recreate what I wanted, I've tried to reconsider what it was that I loved so much. I actually made friends with players and then enjoyed doing things with those friends. Those memories, victories and losses with those players gave me my enjoyment.
You can't force people to be friends. When you force grouping now-a-days you get less people looking to make friends and more players looking for someone to fulfill a need. This doesn't build communities but corrupts them like a wolf in wool. Sounds pretty half empty but in all honesty the focus has left from communities and moved towards statistics and carrots. There is nothing wrong with trying to be profitable but what happened to the true blue gamers?
Unfortunately there is enough people that ass clowns can always find groups. There are so many people now that ass clowns group with ass clowns. Hell, it's almost popular to be an ass clown in today's communities.
I respect your opinion and I am thankful that you gave me a well thought out response but I just can't agree that forced grouping will give us back what we enjoyed.
The enforced grouping, it was an instrument but only one of the instruments to bring a community together. There are other ways to bring people together, make them do stuff together in a constructive way, and I expect some of the new upcoming MMO's to show us several of these ways.
I think the times were different back then and also the communities were somewhat different, too. Like with UO and Everquest, we were all exploring the new gaming genre, awed by the fact of a virtual world, and very openminded towards grouping. Of course many will look at the features of that time and think 'if a MMO had that then maybe it would give the same feeling I had when I played that 1st MMO'.
The same applies to people for who WoW is their 1st MMO, they also look at other MMO's and compare them with how they experienced WoW when it was vanilla.
Your 1st MMO that you enjoy is in many ways like your 1st true love; it makes such a deep impression that you'll always initially compare other partners with that 1st one. And of course you'll notice differences. That your next partner isn't the same as your first doesn't mean though that the love can't be just as intense, it'll just be different.
The same applies to MMO's: wanting other MMO's to be the same as your 1st MMO in the hope that it'll give you the initial bliss and sense of wonder back when you first made your entrance in the world of MMO's, that's ultimately a dead end road.
The genre evolves, I agree though how a game is set up can help or hinder a lot what traits will emerge and become prevalent in a community.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
If that didn't blow the OP's cover of being a die hard fan of an unpublished game...
The term "fanboy" in my view only applies to those fanatically defending a game before it even is ... played.
In the meantime, we - as players - MUST stay very critical over any hyped up feature of any new unpublished game.
It is the only right way in which consumers can be protected against the duds we had to endure in the last 5 years.
Certainly when EA is concerned.
Uhm well it is not Bioware hypeing their game as they have stated and very professionally so that they only release info when the feature is complete and in for release.
So who exactly is it setting these false expectation , Not Bioware......
I have no reason to be critical of Bioware so speak for yourself as you do not represent the regular player.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have
Thanks for the post, some good feedback there.
I think you're missing the point of people's concerns however. I doubt anyone is stupid enough to think that SWTOR is not really an MMO or is a single-player game. What people - including myself - are concerned about is that we haven't seen or heard anything about the majority of the gameplay that makes up the life in a MMORPG.
In any MMORPG played for a long period of time (more than 1-2 months), the content is something like 5%-10% storyline and 90%-95% "mmo gameplay". The 90%+ is taken up with stuff to do AFTER you've finished the questline / storyline. This is comprised of different things in different games but includes stuff like exploration, dungeons / instances, hunting, building cities, etc. Basically living with your character in the world after you've done the pre-written stories.
This is not to say that pre-written stories are all done solo, but they have a set design for the number of players and really can only be experience once. This is experience in an MMO is extremely similar to the experience you get in single-player or multi-player game that's not an MMO. This is why some people refer to the rest of the experience (the 90%) as "the mmo gameplay", because the stuff that happens after is really what makes an MMO.
So unfortunately, what you've posted does nothing to alleviate my misgivings about this game. I'm still 100% sure i'm buying it and playing through the pre-written storyline. I still haven't seen anything that makes me think there is a reason to stick around after the 2-3 weeks it'll take to finish that. Oh and i have no doubt at all that it's an MMO and has plenty of group-friendly gameplay. I just haven't seen what's there to do in the world after the storyline.
Lawl at that. What other games do you see that have the feature of creating player built cities besides that one game which we will refer to as the Abomination.
Seriously though I believe Bioware knows the strengths and immersion of player created content. I say this because most people think Bioware never created a multiplayer game and that's FALSE. Neverwinter Nights was a single player game that featured multiplayer in which players could create their own realms, cities, stories, quests, much like a virtual Dungeon Master in a virtual Dungeons and Dragons. This could all be done with the Aurora toolset Bioware released to create and share content between people and construct huge unique realms for a community. Because of this fact I remain hopeful that some day Bioware will bring the idea of player created worlds. Of course that's just massive speculation, but I see no reason why Bioware won't push the envelope if they can establish a solid base game with a healthy subscription number.
I guess I must've imagined all those posts and claims the last month of all those people who were so sure SW TOR would be a singleplayer game, not a MMO...
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Thanks for the link OP. Maybe certain "writers" for MMORPG.COM could actually learn a bit from the details about how to be objective and report about what you DO see rather than jumping to conclusions about the whole game.
In my opinion, the most important parts of that article were:
..............................................
"-We began to split up a little bit and explore the world. It was much larger than I thought it would be, and the rumour on the street is that this is one of the smallest of the planets. It took a little under an hour to roam from one end of Hutta to the next, but that was on pretty much a straight line with only a couple little side ventures. To cover every inch of the map, would take a pretty good chunk of time, and that's if you stayed outside and didn't go into any of the massive interior sections. It looks like the highest mobs just running around there were around level 7 or 8, so I would imagine you would be ready for other parts of the galaxy a little after reaching that level."
..............................................
"-It appears all classes will have a revive ability, which lets you revive a fallen party member while out of combat."
..............................................
"-Going in and out of instanced areas was again very seamless. Obviously no loading screens help with that but, I ALWAYS felt like I was in the MMO world and never like I was in my own personal instance (even though at times I was). This game gave me a feeling of “on the other side of that wall there could be something going on with other players”. This is good news for anyone who was hoping for that big living world feeling, which a lot of MMO’s have strayed from lately."
..............................................
"I went on looking around in the first hanger and thought “I wonder if I could climb that mountain and come out the other side”.. basically to get to the hanger we had to go through a building that tunneled through the mountain, so I wanted to be able to go over the mountain back to the other side. Sure enough I was able to.. but you wont be able to in the full game. It became clear that that will be a closed off area that we wont be able to get up to, because we could see the edge of the ocean and some of the trees were floating a bit. So by release expect that to be closed off. Either way we were able to do it, so there is no visual trickery going on to pretend that there is a big mountain. Samm ended up killing himself or something but I was too busy going back down the mountain to the ground. I noticed some falling damage but my character rolled in a cool way when I landed."
Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have
....................
In any MMORPG played for a long period of time (more than 1-2 months), the content is something like 5%-10% storyline and 90%-95% "mmo gameplay". The 90%+ is taken up with stuff to do AFTER you've finished the questline / storyline. This is comprised of different things in different games but includes stuff like exploration, dungeons / instances, hunting, building cities, etc. Basically living with your character in the world after you've done the pre-written stories.
......................
So unfortunately, what you've posted does nothing to alleviate my misgivings about this game. I'm still 100% sure i'm buying it and playing through the pre-written storyline. I still haven't seen anything that makes me think there is a reason to stick around after the 2-3 weeks it'll take to finish that. Oh and i have no doubt at all that it's an MMO and has plenty of group-friendly gameplay. I just haven't seen what's there to do in the world after the storyline.
Lawl at that. What other games do you see that have the feature of creating player built cities besides that one game which we will refer to as the Abomination.
What's strange is that people keep pointing fingers at elements which we haven't actually had any details about yet, and then try to use THAT as proof of SWTOR's failings.
I mean, where exactly does it state that Bioware will foresake the very elements that keep players happy once they hit "end game" or elements which are NOT solely centred around the quest dialogue?
The point is that we haven't been given the FULL details yet, but that still doesn't seem to stop people from jumping to conclusions.
Blind faith is not a good idea, but neither is blind pessimism. People need to learn to evaluate the information they HAVE been given, and not the information they HAVEN'T been given yet.
Those posts popping up from people being oh so sure that SW TOR will just be a singleplayer game and not have all the usual ingredients of a MMO are getting tiresome.
If people use that argument to convince themselves that they won't be playing the game, then I have no problem with it at all: better that they decide beforehand that this game is not for their like than constantly whine ingame and thus annoy others who do want to experience SW TOR for all it offers.
Doesn't mean that the 'SW TOR will be nothing more than a singleplayer game' belief is right though: SW ToR devs have stated repeatedly that the solo play is possible and enjoyable but that they wanted to encourage and stimulate group play.
A quote from Massively out of the many about it available:
'Bioware further announced their plans to push the small group experience in almost every possible way.'
grouping will be possible and enjoyable from the start
you can experience your story line adventures very well with more players, it even opens up more options
the dialogues won't be just the static dialogue, but also have the interactive intervene options that Mass Effect 2 has
even if the other planets will be massively larger compared to the starter planets, those starter planets are large already, since it took the player almost up to an hour to cross it from one end to the hour
crafting might include weapons and ammunition crafting (the 'dud' grenates)
moving from public space to instanced personal quest areas and back is seamless and feels organic
the AI of the NPC's is smarter than the regular MMO, making NPC's make use of the environment
Absolutely none of these means the game won't be primarily single player.
Absolutely none of these means the game won't be primarily single player.
With all due respect, did you actually read that article?
Or perhaps you feel the need strip the OP's statements of validity, based purely on what's in his bullet pointed list?
Or perhaps even though the fact exists that "Bioware further announced their plans to push the small group experience in almost every possible way" you still refuse to believe them?
It's amusing that as we get more and more information, there are still people who act like they have their fingers in their ears screaming "I can't hear you, therefore what you say is a lie"
Absolutely none of these means the game won't be primarily single player.
With all due respect, did you actually read that article as well as:
"Bioware further announced their plans to push the small group experience in almost every possible way"
Or feel the need strip the OP's statements of validity, based purely on what's in his bullet pointed list?
Or do you not want to believe the devs, no matter what they say?
The devs themselves said 95% of the game will be single player content. A NPC companion will make the rest soloable for the most part as well. Seems the devs aren't consistant with their own hype machine.
If given the option, people will rush through the game as fast as possible, the easiest way possible, and everything being soloable encourages them to do that alone.
Also, I have yet to see the devs deny that all that lovely storyline will take place within instances, which makes it more akin to a single player game.
Absolutely none of these means the game won't be primarily single player.
With all due respect, did you actually read that article as well as:
"Bioware further announced their plans to push the small group experience in almost every possible way"
Or feel the need strip the OP's statements of validity, based purely on what's in his bullet pointed list?
Or do you not want to believe the devs, no matter what they say?
The devs themselves said 95% of the game will be single player content. A NPC companion will make the rest soloable for the most part as well. Seems the devs aren't consistant with their own hype machine.
If given the option, people will rush through the game as fast as possible, the easiest way possible, and everything being soloable encourages them to do that alone.
Also, I have yet to see the devs deny that all that lovely storyline will take place within instances, which makes it more akin to a single player game.
yes while 95% of the game will be single player, this post it self shows that you can venture with a friend as well.
The devs themselves said 95% of the game will be single player content. A NPC companion will make the rest soloable for the most part as well. Seems the devs aren't consistant with their own hype machine.
If given the option, people will rush through the game as fast as possible, the easiest way possible, and everything being soloable encourages them to do that alone.
Also, I have yet to see the devs deny that all that lovely storyline will take place within instances, which makes it more akin to a single player game.
Ok, firstly would you care to link exactly where "The devs themselves said 95% of the game will be single player content"? Or are you perhaps re-interpreting what they said to suit your own argument?
Where have you gotten this information about how "the NPC companion will make the rest soloable for the most part as well"? Sorry but I think you are again jumping to conclusions based on very little facts.
If "Bioware further announced their plans to push the small group experience in almost every possible way" then don't you think that perhaps, just perhaps they would ensure that there is an actual NEED to group up? What makes you think that companions will be comparable replacements for grouping with others? What makes you think that they would spend time and resources to create group based content, when it will be completely unnecessary in the game due to the use of companions? The simple fact is that no-one in their right mind would do that. It would be pointless and a waste of time and resources.
If you believe that "everything being soloable encourages them to do that alone" then you really have no idea about providing incentives for grouping that DOESN'T actually involve enforced grouping throughout an MMO. I'm just glad you aren't a developer cos we'd only have EQ1 right now if you had your way.
Just because they haven't confirmed or denied something, doesn't mean that its either true or false. You're jumping to conclusions based on NO facts and plenty of supposition.
Which makes me wonder if you are being objective, or just looking for things to moan about.
Absolutely none of these means the game won't be primarily single player.
With all due respect, did you actually read that article as well as:
"Bioware further announced their plans to push the small group experience in almost every possible way"
Or feel the need strip the OP's statements of validity, based purely on what's in his bullet pointed list?
Or do you not want to believe the devs, no matter what they say?
The devs themselves said 95% of the game will be single player content. A NPC companion will make the rest soloable for the most part as well. Seems the devs aren't consistant with their own hype machine.
If given the option, people will rush through the game as fast as possible, the easiest way possible, and everything being soloable encourages them to do that alone.
Also, I have yet to see the devs deny that all that lovely storyline will take place within instances, which makes it more akin to a single player game.
yes while 95% of the game will be single player, this post it self shows that you can venture with a friend as well.
You can, but people won't. There's no incentive to group with other people, and having so many instances means you won't be running into random people.
So, its going to be more akin to Diablo, where you join a common server with some real life friends and run through a coop dungeon. That doesn't spell MMORPG to me.
You can, but people won't. There's no incentive to group with other people, and having so many instances means you won't be running into random people.
So, its going to be more akin to Diablo, where you join a common server with some real life friends and run through a coop dungeon. That doesn't spell MMORPG to me.
Bullshit. But keep trying though.
Spoken in general, I always love posts from people abandoning all common sense in their posts trying so hard to prove a point. Those are the kind of posts I like to quote most after a while when it's proven how hilarious their stance was
Just like any other MMO, SW TOR will have the usual MMO aspects with them. Since we're referring to devs' statements, they've mentioned again and again that SW TOR is NOT a singleplayer game experience, that it will have all the aspects that a MMO has, and that they'll build in mechanisms to encourage and stimulate group play. What they also said is that of course you can play SW TOR solo up to the end levels, but that you'll be missing out on content that is directed towards groups. Just like in any other MMO.
As the report showed, teamplay is possible and fun right from the start.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
DAoC, among others that I haven't played first-hand. When you have graphics from the early '00s, you can have huge battles with few technical problems.
OP: Good write-up, but like others have already said, this isn't going to change anything. The best it will do is convince some silent fence-sitters. Those who call it a single-player game with a monthly fee now will continue to do so, no matter the evidence BioWare presents to the contrary. No matter how "MMO-ish" it becomes, some people only care that it's not "sandboxy enough." I'd like to say that the desperate vets who were hoping for SWG2 have been silenced, but I think a few still remain. It's hard to tell because other sandbox vets who didn't play SWG criticize TOR as well. BioWare could back up their claims of sandbox elements and some people still wouldn't be satisfied.
Can't make everyone happy, so you just create your product your way and let consumers come to you, not the other way around. If it's successful, you were right; if not, maybe you'll learn and you or someone else will try something new the next time. BioWare could care less about most of the whiners here. The devs said they're trying to make TOR a themepark-sandbox hybrid, and I've heard some opinions supporting that claim (such as first-hand accounts of a large, open world, ripe for exploration).
We need more details on things like community features/social tools and crafting, but we're starting to get some basic grouping information, and the fact that grouping will be encouraged is positive. BioWare knows that people take the path of least resistance, which in this case is soloing, so they ensure that the choice is available; you can solo, sure, but no one said you will be able to experience all the content if you do. Vets advocate player freedom, yet some also promote forced grouping. Hypocritical? A bit.
Anyways, this is throwing a bucket of water on a burning high-rise at best. I still think BioWare knows what it's doing, both in developing the game and releasing information carefully to preserve hype.
In the end, if the grouping is good, and it's easy to get in groups, I'll stick with the game. If it turns out to be a solo quest grind, probably won't hold my interest that long.
But I disagree about "forced grouping" and the kind of community it creates. I always thought the best communities were in the so-called "forced grouping" games like DAoC and EQ, but it is of course a matter of preference.
When the game is "forced grouping", then if you act like an ass clown, no one will group with you, and you lag behind. It was an incentive for people to play well with others.
In games like WoW, who cares? you can quit a group at any time, and not really experience any negatives. It might mean you level in 3 weeks instead of 2 and a half, so what?
It is my opinion that every MMO uses the same formula. Like copies of copies the original design lost it's purpose. Groups should be encouraged but not forced. Games should be set up for you to make friends, create bonds - groups should be something that you could do with these friends... designing games with a dependency on groups tends to make players use others to achieve personal goals (in my opinion).
In part, I don't really have a problem with grouping. I think it works well in previous games but something about this game just doesn't feel group-centric. BioWare makes excellent single players games. I don't think they should step out of their expertise too much, not because they couldn't do it but because of their fan's expectations. Star Wars does have a 'small group' feel but it's made up of friends, not pugs. Design for a product with customers in mind instead of designing for your customers with a product in mind. We are not making household appliances but entertainment, people want to be immersed into games whereas they want to use appliances.
It could be a waste of money no matter how it was designed, group or solo. I think if they put top notch content out there and make a fun and enjoyable game people will buy it no matter if it's group-centric or not. You can't keep pleasing your customers by making them numbers and statistics, it is a tool to help you improve upon a game but you should not make a game using those numbers. People want to see something different and you can't create a poll to determine what would be successful or not in the long run. Instead of coping the industry standard, developers need to start carving their way into the genre - either way it's a risk.
I feel part of the problem is our glory days in the old MMOs. I have them too, I enjoyed the way things were but not where they are going. We are holding on to too many traditions hoping that it will recreate what we loved. After seeing many games try and fail to recreate what I wanted, I've tried to reconsider what it was that I loved so much. I actually made friends with players and then enjoyed doing things with those friends. Those memories, victories and losses with those players gave me my enjoyment.
You can't force people to be friends. When you force grouping now-a-days you get less people looking to make friends and more players looking for someone to fulfill a need. This doesn't build communities but corrupts them like a wolf in wool. Sounds pretty half empty but in all honesty the focus has left from communities and moved towards statistics and carrots. There is nothing wrong with trying to be profitable but what happened to the true blue gamers?
Unfortunately there is enough people that ass clowns can always find groups. There are so many people now that ass clowns group with ass clowns. Hell, it's almost popular to be an ass clown in today's communities.
I respect your opinion and I am thankful that you gave me a well thought out response but I just can't agree that forced grouping will give us back what we enjoyed.
Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage, Lineage 2, EVE, even friggin' Darkfail has managed that much. Next question?
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
RF Online and sometimes it's 300+ depending how busing it is that day.
When I do internet searches on such things, I find either the servers get severely lagged by this, videos with 100 people or so at best on screen at once (usually a lot less even in "big battles", or in Eve everyone is little colored dots for pretty much the whole fight. But, I guess those things count.
In any case, it's a silly way to define an MMO.
Just a comment on title.
SWTOR an online-only game will support group play? Now THAT is awesome. And it makes it Massively Multiplayer.
Heh, I never said it didn't get laggy... when I saw what looked like 300 + I think the game lagged down to like 3 frames per second lol.
Good article, enjoyed the information. Thanks!
Having been a long time RF player I can tell you that the machine you're on and changing a few small settings makes a HUGE difference here. I used to play on my laptop and once we got to like 50+ people onscreen i was pretty useless, but upgrading to a somewhat better desktop (not a gaming rig by any standards, just a general use PC with a faster proc. a little more ram, and a slightly bette rgfx card) made a huge difference. One thing to keep in mind too is that many people playing RF have no idea about turning off little things like the "Particle" option which disables some of the background & environmental crap (like the falling snow-ish effect in Crag Mine) can practically double ho wmany people you can handle on-screen, as well as turning the lighting effects down a notch or 2.
Anyway, on an even half decent system, with your settings adjusted you can easily handle a full scale several hundred player battle with no lag issues. Hell my bro does it on a system with 1GB of RAM. And this isn't just having hundreds of players on screen in a town or PvE zone, this is having every one of those hundreds of players all fighting eachother at once, along with their MAUs (vehicles they ride in) and various summoned pets following them around.
Funny thing is, thats on a several year old F2P game, not a brand new P2P game boasting some of the "best" people developing it as well as the massive budget behind it.
The enforced grouping, it was an instrument but only one of the instruments to bring a community together. There are other ways to bring people together, make them do stuff together in a constructive way, and I expect some of the new upcoming MMO's to show us several of these ways.
I think the times were different back then and also the communities were somewhat different, too. Like with UO and Everquest, we were all exploring the new gaming genre, awed by the fact of a virtual world, and very openminded towards grouping. Of course many will look at the features of that time and think 'if a MMO had that then maybe it would give the same feeling I had when I played that 1st MMO'.
The same applies to people for who WoW is their 1st MMO, they also look at other MMO's and compare them with how they experienced WoW when it was vanilla.
Your 1st MMO that you enjoy is in many ways like your 1st true love; it makes such a deep impression that you'll always initially compare other partners with that 1st one. And of course you'll notice differences. That your next partner isn't the same as your first doesn't mean though that the love can't be just as intense, it'll just be different.
The same applies to MMO's: wanting other MMO's to be the same as your 1st MMO in the hope that it'll give you the initial bliss and sense of wonder back when you first made your entrance in the world of MMO's, that's ultimately a dead end road.
The genre evolves, I agree though how a game is set up can help or hinder a lot what traits will emerge and become prevalent in a community.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Uhm well it is not Bioware hypeing their game as they have stated and very professionally so that they only release info when the feature is complete and in for release.
So who exactly is it setting these false expectation , Not Bioware......
I have no reason to be critical of Bioware so speak for yourself as you do not represent the regular player.
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Lawl at that. What other games do you see that have the feature of creating player built cities besides that one game which we will refer to as the Abomination.
Seriously though I believe Bioware knows the strengths and immersion of player created content. I say this because most people think Bioware never created a multiplayer game and that's FALSE. Neverwinter Nights was a single player game that featured multiplayer in which players could create their own realms, cities, stories, quests, much like a virtual Dungeon Master in a virtual Dungeons and Dragons. This could all be done with the Aurora toolset Bioware released to create and share content between people and construct huge unique realms for a community. Because of this fact I remain hopeful that some day Bioware will bring the idea of player created worlds. Of course that's just massive speculation, but I see no reason why Bioware won't push the envelope if they can establish a solid base game with a healthy subscription number.
We already know it will support group play. Old news....
I guess I must've imagined all those posts and claims the last month of all those people who were so sure SW TOR would be a singleplayer game, not a MMO...
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Thanks for the link OP. Maybe certain "writers" for MMORPG.COM could actually learn a bit from the details about how to be objective and report about what you DO see rather than jumping to conclusions about the whole game.
In my opinion, the most important parts of that article were:
..............................................
"-We began to split up a little bit and explore the world. It was much larger than I thought it would be, and the rumour on the street is that this is one of the smallest of the planets. It took a little under an hour to roam from one end of Hutta to the next, but that was on pretty much a straight line with only a couple little side ventures. To cover every inch of the map, would take a pretty good chunk of time, and that's if you stayed outside and didn't go into any of the massive interior sections. It looks like the highest mobs just running around there were around level 7 or 8, so I would imagine you would be ready for other parts of the galaxy a little after reaching that level."
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"-It appears all classes will have a revive ability, which lets you revive a fallen party member while out of combat."
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"-Going in and out of instanced areas was again very seamless. Obviously no loading screens help with that but, I ALWAYS felt like I was in the MMO world and never like I was in my own personal instance (even though at times I was). This game gave me a feeling of “on the other side of that wall there could be something going on with other players”. This is good news for anyone who was hoping for that big living world feeling, which a lot of MMO’s have strayed from lately."
..............................................
"I went on looking around in the first hanger and thought “I wonder if I could climb that mountain and come out the other side”.. basically to get to the hanger we had to go through a building that tunneled through the mountain, so I wanted to be able to go over the mountain back to the other side. Sure enough I was able to.. but you wont be able to in the full game. It became clear that that will be a closed off area that we wont be able to get up to, because we could see the edge of the ocean and some of the trees were floating a bit. So by release expect that to be closed off. Either way we were able to do it, so there is no visual trickery going on to pretend that there is a big mountain. Samm ended up killing himself or something but I was too busy going back down the mountain to the ground. I noticed some falling damage but my character rolled in a cool way when I landed."
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
What's strange is that people keep pointing fingers at elements which we haven't actually had any details about yet, and then try to use THAT as proof of SWTOR's failings.
I mean, where exactly does it state that Bioware will foresake the very elements that keep players happy once they hit "end game" or elements which are NOT solely centred around the quest dialogue?
The point is that we haven't been given the FULL details yet, but that still doesn't seem to stop people from jumping to conclusions.
Blind faith is not a good idea, but neither is blind pessimism. People need to learn to evaluate the information they HAVE been given, and not the information they HAVEN'T been given yet.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
With all due respect, did you actually read that article?
Or perhaps you feel the need strip the OP's statements of validity, based purely on what's in his bullet pointed list?
Or perhaps even though the fact exists that "Bioware further announced their plans to push the small group experience in almost every possible way" you still refuse to believe them?
It's amusing that as we get more and more information, there are still people who act like they have their fingers in their ears screaming "I can't hear you, therefore what you say is a lie"
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
The devs themselves said 95% of the game will be single player content. A NPC companion will make the rest soloable for the most part as well. Seems the devs aren't consistant with their own hype machine.
If given the option, people will rush through the game as fast as possible, the easiest way possible, and everything being soloable encourages them to do that alone.
Also, I have yet to see the devs deny that all that lovely storyline will take place within instances, which makes it more akin to a single player game.
yes while 95% of the game will be single player, this post it self shows that you can venture with a friend as well.
Ok, firstly would you care to link exactly where "The devs themselves said 95% of the game will be single player content"? Or are you perhaps re-interpreting what they said to suit your own argument?
Where have you gotten this information about how "the NPC companion will make the rest soloable for the most part as well"? Sorry but I think you are again jumping to conclusions based on very little facts.
If "Bioware further announced their plans to push the small group experience in almost every possible way" then don't you think that perhaps, just perhaps they would ensure that there is an actual NEED to group up? What makes you think that companions will be comparable replacements for grouping with others? What makes you think that they would spend time and resources to create group based content, when it will be completely unnecessary in the game due to the use of companions? The simple fact is that no-one in their right mind would do that. It would be pointless and a waste of time and resources.
If you believe that "everything being soloable encourages them to do that alone" then you really have no idea about providing incentives for grouping that DOESN'T actually involve enforced grouping throughout an MMO. I'm just glad you aren't a developer cos we'd only have EQ1 right now if you had your way.
Just because they haven't confirmed or denied something, doesn't mean that its either true or false. You're jumping to conclusions based on NO facts and plenty of supposition.
Which makes me wonder if you are being objective, or just looking for things to moan about.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
You can, but people won't. There's no incentive to group with other people, and having so many instances means you won't be running into random people.
So, its going to be more akin to Diablo, where you join a common server with some real life friends and run through a coop dungeon. That doesn't spell MMORPG to me.
Bullshit. But keep trying though.
Spoken in general, I always love posts from people abandoning all common sense in their posts trying so hard to prove a point. Those are the kind of posts I like to quote most after a while when it's proven how hilarious their stance was
Just like any other MMO, SW TOR will have the usual MMO aspects with them. Since we're referring to devs' statements, they've mentioned again and again that SW TOR is NOT a singleplayer game experience, that it will have all the aspects that a MMO has, and that they'll build in mechanisms to encourage and stimulate group play. What they also said is that of course you can play SW TOR solo up to the end levels, but that you'll be missing out on content that is directed towards groups. Just like in any other MMO.
As the report showed, teamplay is possible and fun right from the start.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."