this has nothing to do with sandbox. This also has nothing to do with story. Just because I am playing a mon-cal it would not somehow magically change the story around. If someones game immersion is somehow effected by playing an oddball race then choose to play a human or something....oh but that choice isnt there to begin with - bioware is making that choice for us.
More races would not take anyting from the game; it could only add to it.
Bioware is indeed making that choice for you: they've limited the number of races that you'll be able to play. There will be a number of races that you couldn't play in SWG but can play in SW:TOR, and there will be a number of races that you can't play and that you could in SWG. They've also made the choice to limit the races to humanoid in order to better suit the story aspect they intend to implement ingame. That's the trade off, less races to choose from for a deepened storytelling aspect.
I can imagine that people who don't care much for story in a MMO, that they find that a bad trade off. Then again, that's the direction Bioware has chosen for their game.
Originally posted by agaga
Your point would be valid if they were making a movie.
They're not. They're making a game.
They're making a game with a deepened story component.
Storytelling follows the same basic structures whether it's in a book, movie, series or game.
i play mmo's because I am more interested in my own story than anything they could force-feed me. Tons of solo games exist if storyline is someone's biggest concern. i always liked MMO's because i was allowed to have that freedom to make my own game out of it.
bioware has claimed that they are trying to change how we view MMO's but really i think they have little clue what they are doing in the field. maybe they should stick with console games that have more cut-scenes than playtime.
the MMO genre does indeed need to grow and expand, but i feel single-path storyline is the wrong direction. we need improvements in gameplay, animations, UI, and a ton of other things before something like single player story mode.
God forbid this genre have diffrent forms of MMOs. I don't play an MMO to roleplay, I'd rather read a story then write one. Hence, me being interested in TOR. Quit with the masochism already. If you don't like the direction find somewhere else to go, better yet, find a game YOU think is the right direction for the genre.
the MMO genre does indeed need to grow and expand, but i feel single-path storyline is the wrong direction. we need improvements in gameplay, animations, UI, and a ton of other things before something like single player story mode.
TOR is improving gameplay, imho, and animation (fights SHOW blocking). I don't think anything is all that wrong with a lot of UI's out there (such as WoW's). What do you spend most of your time doing in an MMO? Questing. Right now that gets boring really quickly. TOR is aiming to change this and it is something that many people feel is really needed.
TOR isn't just improving questing for solo stuff, but also for group settings, btw, making group questing (which is anything that is not part of the particular quest line for a character, so all public quests) very dynamic and interactive. This makes them more social affairs, which is really cool.
I took a while to reply to this thread since I'm not following SWKOR that much as I figure from what I knew of the game and see the random announcements that it appeals to me less and less, but I still held a little bit of secret hope but this is the last straw.
Who the HELL is BIOWARE to decide that I can't relate to a giant Lizard. Oh thats right, they are the company that I have bought all their games. I was disappointed in DA, but still bought the xpack, and I can't even drag myself to play ME2 laying unopened on my shelf. I knew EA was going to kill Bioware, but damn its I thought it would at least be heldout for a while.
I can relate to a giant lizard more than I can a twi'lek that is for sure. I'd rather play a human, Zabrak? I don't want horns on my head unless my head is covered in scales. This is probably the last straw, if I can't play what I deem a "monster race" I won't play it. Its SW for god's sake and has monster races. It would be like me playing EQ or WOW and not being able to play a Troll or Sarnak. Lore wise it makes zero sense. Of course I understand the story point, but why does the story always have to be about a "human" saving the day. Sure I understand the hype of the human spirit and ability to overcome all odds all the time, but seriously give me my race of choice. You made yours now I positively made mine: No Trandoshan or other Lizard type, NO sub from me regardless if its the best thing since sliced bread.
The most significant "giant lizard" in Star Wars are Trandoshans. Like Wookiees they have a concept of the life debt deeply ingrained in their culture (though it works a bit differently). Also like Wookiees, if they had Trandoshans as a playable race, I don't think people would actually experience this aspect of their culture much, since the vast majority of Trandoshan players wouldn't respect it at all.
A great deal of the "monster races" have some very unusual customs like this (where it is almost unheard of for a member not to follow these deeply ingrained cultural values). If it makes the world richer and more believable to not have such races available to play, then I personally think it is worth it for the immersion value. It means when, as a player, I run across a Trandoshan or Wookiee, I can have an increased understanding of what they are like, rather than go "oh, that's a human there, so it is probably someone that doesn't really respect the race at all". The latter greatly diminishes how that race can be effectively utilized. For instance, if a "freak" Wookiee that uses his claws to attack people and doesn't care about life debt shows up, then that can come across as powerfully abnormal, rather than "oh, it's just like almost any human player who compose the vast majority of Wookiees I run into"
So yeah, sacrifices ARE made to ensure races can invoke powerful imagery and themes. Not every MMO is like that (most are not), but that doesn't mean it is bad for an MMO to do this. I certainly think there's a market for this. Similarly, by not letting Miraluka be Sith, they are respecting the fact that the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of that race would never become Sith (rather than having thousands running around). Similar reasoning applies to races like the Chiss not being a Republic race and so forth.
Beyond that, there's also a part that reflect limited resources since the more monstrous races that still have widely varied behavior would still need different romances. Races like those are the most likely to appear in expansions, where extra work to add new companions and romances to the game can be done. I think we can all understand why they wouldn't want to deliver a race that was really only half-implemented.
I took a while to reply to this thread since I'm not following SWKOR that much as I figure from what I knew of the game and see the random announcements that it appeals to me less and less, but I still held a little bit of secret hope but this is the last straw.
Who the HELL is BIOWARE to decide that I can't relate to a giant Lizard. Oh thats right, they are the company that I have bought all their games. I was disappointed in DA, but still bought the xpack, and I can't even drag myself to play ME2 laying unopened on my shelf. I knew EA was going to kill Bioware, but damn its I thought it would at least be heldout for a while.
I can relate to a giant lizard more than I can a twi'lek that is for sure. I'd rather play a human, Zabrak? I don't want horns on my head unless my head is covered in scales. This is probably the last straw, if I can't play what I deem a "monster race" I won't play it. Its SW for god's sake and has monster races. It would be like me playing EQ or WOW and not being able to play a Troll or Sarnak. Lore wise it makes zero sense. Of course I understand the story point, but why does the story always have to be about a "human" saving the day. Sure I understand the hype of the human spirit and ability to overcome all odds all the time, but seriously give me my race of choice. You made yours now I positively made mine: No Trandoshan or other Lizard type, NO sub from me regardless if its the best thing since sliced bread.
The most significant "giant lizard" in Star Wars are Trandoshans. Like Wookiees they have a concept of the life debt deeply ingrained in their culture (though it works a bit differently). Also like Wookiees, if they had Trandoshans as a playable race, I don't think people would actually experience this aspect of their culture much, since the vast majority of Trandoshan players wouldn't respect it at all.
A great deal of the "monster races" have some very unusual customs like this (where it is almost unheard of for a member not to follow these deeply ingrained cultural values). If it makes the world richer and more believable to not have such races available to play, then I personally think it is worth it for the immersion value. It means when, as a player, I run across a Trandoshan or Wookiee, I can have an increased understanding of what they are like, rather than go "oh, that's a human there, so it is probably someone that doesn't really respect the race at all". The latter greatly diminishes how that race can be effectively utilized. For instance, if a "freak" Wookiee that uses his claws to attack people and doesn't care about life debt shows up, then that can come across as powerfully abnormal, rather than "oh, it's just like almost any human player who compose the vast majority of Wookiees I run into"
So yeah, sacrifices ARE made to ensure races can invoke powerful imagery and themes. Not every MMO is like that (most are not), but that doesn't mean it is bad for an MMO to do this. I certainly think there's a market for this. Similarly, by not letting Miraluka be Sith, they are respecting the fact that the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of that race would never become Sith (rather than having thousands running around). Similar reasoning applies to races like the Chiss not being a Republic race and so forth.
Beyond that, there's also a part that reflect limited resources since the more monstrous races that still have widely varied behavior would still need different romances. Races like those are the most likely to appear in expansions, where extra work to add new companions and romances to the game can be done. I think we can all understand why they wouldn't want to deliver a race that was really only half-implemented.
I never said or think there is no market for KOR. I think it'll be the best game since WOW to be honest, and I think it will blow box sales of previous game so far out of the water during initial release thats it'll amazing EA to no end.
What I'm saying is this, I enjoyed KOTOR series for that fact the storyline was good, but when it comes to an MMO, regardless of a story line or not, if it is set in an IP that allows a lot of variety, if my personal options aren't there I won't play. If its the focus on storyline, I'll go about it a different way then:
Why not make a monster race storyline then? Deem it as you are an outcast from your race as you stated. It really can't be to difficult to add five to twenty quest detailing them before they get on board the main story quest.
As for you final comment about delivering something half-implemented, I find that a joke and absurd personally. If that is the case, then Jedi better be able to do do EVERYTHING I see in the movie or read in a book, otherwise they themselves, the main focus are half implemented, I highly doubt we are going to have even 10% of the true functionallity of a Jedi if KOTOR is any example.
Why not make a monster race storyline then? Deem it as you are an outcast from your race as you stated. It really can't be to difficult to add five to twenty quest detailing them before they get on board the main story quest.
As for you final comment about delivering something half-implemented, I find that a joke and absurd personally. If that is the case, then Jedi better be able to do do EVERYTHING I see in the movie or read in a book, otherwise they themselves, the main focus are half implemented, I highly doubt we are going to have even 10% of the true functionallity of a Jedi if KOTOR is any example.
First, if every player Trandoshan is an outcast from his race, then the vast majority of Trandoshans people run into will be another outcast. That heavily damages immersion.
Jedi will be as well-implemented as one can expect in combat, same with the other classes. There's a big difference between that and having one race that has limited social option compared to the other races.
Why not make a monster race storyline then? Deem it as you are an outcast from your race as you stated. It really can't be to difficult to add five to twenty quest detailing them before they get on board the main story quest.
As for you final comment about delivering something half-implemented, I find that a joke and absurd personally. If that is the case, then Jedi better be able to do do EVERYTHING I see in the movie or read in a book, otherwise they themselves, the main focus are half implemented, I highly doubt we are going to have even 10% of the true functionallity of a Jedi if KOTOR is any example.
First, if every player Trandoshan is an outcast from his race, then the vast majority of Trandoshans people run into will be another outcast. That heavily damages immersion.
Jedi will be as well-implemented as one can expect in combat, same with the other classes. There's a big difference between that and having one race that has limited social option compared to the other races.
So then make no story for "monster races" Let me just do generic grind quest. Whether that is available in an expansion or launch doesn't matter to me, but it allows more players to be immersed in the SW universe.
How about limit monster races to a % of total population then. Lets say they allow 20% of a server total among a couple races(Wookies, Trandoshans and two others) So that would say at any time no more than 5% of the population could be such a race(make it less, maybe 10% total and 2.5%. So whenever that cap is actually reached you can no longer make said race, but when the population rises so can the other races as well. I can certainly say that not many players played Trandoshans in SWG compared to the big three: Twi'lek, Zabrak, and Humans which dominated the racial selection.
There are a ton of different options available with that insane budget they have that they could infact implement something radical that allowed more diversity.
I'll admit my main account for SWG I was a human crafter. My second account was a Trandoshan and my Jedi(s) were as well.
In all honesty, I'd rather they add an HK-47 type droid playable character. I would love to play a Droid. And see no reason for them not to.
Why not make a monster race storyline then? Deem it as you are an outcast from your race as you stated. It really can't be to difficult to add five to twenty quest detailing them before they get on board the main story quest.
As for you final comment about delivering something half-implemented, I find that a joke and absurd personally. If that is the case, then Jedi better be able to do do EVERYTHING I see in the movie or read in a book, otherwise they themselves, the main focus are half implemented, I highly doubt we are going to have even 10% of the true functionallity of a Jedi if KOTOR is any example.
First, if every player Trandoshan is an outcast from his race, then the vast majority of Trandoshans people run into will be another outcast. That heavily damages immersion.
Jedi will be as well-implemented as one can expect in combat, same with the other classes. There's a big difference between that and having one race that has limited social option compared to the other races.
So then make no story for "monster races" Let me just do generic grind quest. Whether that is available in an expansion or launch doesn't matter to me, but it allows more players to be immersed in the SW universe.
How about limit monster races to a % of total population then. Lets say they allow 20% of a server total among a couple races(Wookies, Trandoshans and two others) So that would say at any time no more than 5% of the population could be such a race(make it less, maybe 10% total and 2.5%. So whenever that cap is actually reached you can no longer make said race, but when the population rises so can the other races as well. I can certainly say that not many players played Trandoshans in SWG compared to the big three: Twi'lek, Zabrak, and Humans which dominated the racial selection.
There are a ton of different options available with that insane budget they have that they could infact implement something radical that allowed more diversity.
I'll admit my main account for SWG I was a human crafter. My second account was a Trandoshan and my Jedi(s) were as well.
In all honesty, I'd rather they add an HK-47 type droid playable character. I would love to play a Droid. And see no reason for them not to.
Bioware is aiming on a quality experience. Making "monster races" with a crappy experience would get them hammered by the community a lot more than just not making them playable, and rightly so. Now, maybe we'll see more exotic races in expansions, but I can fully understand why it would be too resource intensive for launch. It's a lot of work for relatively small gain and at launch they need to make sure the whole game is working well.
Limiting it to a percentage of the population wouldn't work. That doesn't fix the RP issues really (20% would still be too common, frankly). Also, population fluctations and changes in what people are playing could negatively affect that anyhow.
Again, none of this would fix the big RP issues with Wookiees, Trandoshans, or many of the other "monstrous races." Bioware is actually respecting the IP here.
I'd say a droid is probably more doable, as Droids tend to be pretty flexible personality-wise (they don't have huge cultural traditions like Wookiees or Trandoshans for instance). That does sound like more of an expansion option though.
Comments
God forbid this genre have diffrent forms of MMOs. I don't play an MMO to roleplay, I'd rather read a story then write one. Hence, me being interested in TOR. Quit with the masochism already. If you don't like the direction find somewhere else to go, better yet, find a game YOU think is the right direction for the genre.
TOR is improving gameplay, imho, and animation (fights SHOW blocking). I don't think anything is all that wrong with a lot of UI's out there (such as WoW's). What do you spend most of your time doing in an MMO? Questing. Right now that gets boring really quickly. TOR is aiming to change this and it is something that many people feel is really needed.
TOR isn't just improving questing for solo stuff, but also for group settings, btw, making group questing (which is anything that is not part of the particular quest line for a character, so all public quests) very dynamic and interactive. This makes them more social affairs, which is really cool.
The most significant "giant lizard" in Star Wars are Trandoshans. Like Wookiees they have a concept of the life debt deeply ingrained in their culture (though it works a bit differently). Also like Wookiees, if they had Trandoshans as a playable race, I don't think people would actually experience this aspect of their culture much, since the vast majority of Trandoshan players wouldn't respect it at all.
A great deal of the "monster races" have some very unusual customs like this (where it is almost unheard of for a member not to follow these deeply ingrained cultural values). If it makes the world richer and more believable to not have such races available to play, then I personally think it is worth it for the immersion value. It means when, as a player, I run across a Trandoshan or Wookiee, I can have an increased understanding of what they are like, rather than go "oh, that's a human there, so it is probably someone that doesn't really respect the race at all". The latter greatly diminishes how that race can be effectively utilized. For instance, if a "freak" Wookiee that uses his claws to attack people and doesn't care about life debt shows up, then that can come across as powerfully abnormal, rather than "oh, it's just like almost any human player who compose the vast majority of Wookiees I run into"
So yeah, sacrifices ARE made to ensure races can invoke powerful imagery and themes. Not every MMO is like that (most are not), but that doesn't mean it is bad for an MMO to do this. I certainly think there's a market for this. Similarly, by not letting Miraluka be Sith, they are respecting the fact that the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of that race would never become Sith (rather than having thousands running around). Similar reasoning applies to races like the Chiss not being a Republic race and so forth.
Beyond that, there's also a part that reflect limited resources since the more monstrous races that still have widely varied behavior would still need different romances. Races like those are the most likely to appear in expansions, where extra work to add new companions and romances to the game can be done. I think we can all understand why they wouldn't want to deliver a race that was really only half-implemented.
I never said or think there is no market for KOR. I think it'll be the best game since WOW to be honest, and I think it will blow box sales of previous game so far out of the water during initial release thats it'll amazing EA to no end.
What I'm saying is this, I enjoyed KOTOR series for that fact the storyline was good, but when it comes to an MMO, regardless of a story line or not, if it is set in an IP that allows a lot of variety, if my personal options aren't there I won't play. If its the focus on storyline, I'll go about it a different way then:
Why not make a monster race storyline then? Deem it as you are an outcast from your race as you stated. It really can't be to difficult to add five to twenty quest detailing them before they get on board the main story quest.
As for you final comment about delivering something half-implemented, I find that a joke and absurd personally. If that is the case, then Jedi better be able to do do EVERYTHING I see in the movie or read in a book, otherwise they themselves, the main focus are half implemented, I highly doubt we are going to have even 10% of the true functionallity of a Jedi if KOTOR is any example.
First, if every player Trandoshan is an outcast from his race, then the vast majority of Trandoshans people run into will be another outcast. That heavily damages immersion.
Jedi will be as well-implemented as one can expect in combat, same with the other classes. There's a big difference between that and having one race that has limited social option compared to the other races.
(sob) No Bothan Jedi then...
So then make no story for "monster races" Let me just do generic grind quest. Whether that is available in an expansion or launch doesn't matter to me, but it allows more players to be immersed in the SW universe.
How about limit monster races to a % of total population then. Lets say they allow 20% of a server total among a couple races(Wookies, Trandoshans and two others) So that would say at any time no more than 5% of the population could be such a race(make it less, maybe 10% total and 2.5%. So whenever that cap is actually reached you can no longer make said race, but when the population rises so can the other races as well. I can certainly say that not many players played Trandoshans in SWG compared to the big three: Twi'lek, Zabrak, and Humans which dominated the racial selection.
There are a ton of different options available with that insane budget they have that they could infact implement something radical that allowed more diversity.
I'll admit my main account for SWG I was a human crafter. My second account was a Trandoshan and my Jedi(s) were as well.
In all honesty, I'd rather they add an HK-47 type droid playable character. I would love to play a Droid. And see no reason for them not to.
Bioware is aiming on a quality experience. Making "monster races" with a crappy experience would get them hammered by the community a lot more than just not making them playable, and rightly so. Now, maybe we'll see more exotic races in expansions, but I can fully understand why it would be too resource intensive for launch. It's a lot of work for relatively small gain and at launch they need to make sure the whole game is working well.
Limiting it to a percentage of the population wouldn't work. That doesn't fix the RP issues really (20% would still be too common, frankly). Also, population fluctations and changes in what people are playing could negatively affect that anyhow.
Again, none of this would fix the big RP issues with Wookiees, Trandoshans, or many of the other "monstrous races." Bioware is actually respecting the IP here.
I'd say a droid is probably more doable, as Droids tend to be pretty flexible personality-wise (they don't have huge cultural traditions like Wookiees or Trandoshans for instance). That does sound like more of an expansion option though.