People will blow through ToR's content in less than 30days... then what?
Use their time-machines for more usefull things?
There's 200 hours per class story. That means 1600 hours total. A month only contains 720 hours.
And that's not counting any of the other content like flashpoints, crafting and PvP.
I dissagree, your math means i play all 8 classes, and I personally have little interest in the Glowy bat classes. I think there are plenty of players to fill those classes. Besides that Jedi and Sith have mirrors of them so players may choose to only test drive one or the other.
So players that do one class have 200 hours, and a month has 720? Means we can finish the content, and have a full time job, and still have some time to test the side content mini-games.. and be done with out paying the subscription.
Or play one class, and re-play a second alt through, and still get through.
As to your earlier comment of have we played a Bioware game before: yes I have, and I go back from time to time to see the other character options, but it's free to dabble the 'story again' with out a monthly fee.
Anyone who played Mass Effect did not automaticly play Soldier, then re-play as a Biotic, Test a 3rd play through as a Tech. Only to return a 4th time as a Sentinel, etc...
I hope Bioware is not banking on the financial concept that players will continue to pay money every month, because we have yet to experience the dialog choices for our 5th character class.
I may be flat out wrong, however I get the impression from reading these forums that tons of people will roll alts not because they are in love with the other classes but rather they want to experience the stories behind the other classes. The sith and jedi might seem like mirrored copies of each other however there stories may not.
People will blow through ToR's content in less than 30days... then what?
Use their time-machines for more usefull things?
There's 200 hours per class story. That means 1600 hours total. A month only contains 720 hours.
And that's not counting any of the other content like flashpoints, crafting and PvP.
I dissagree, your math means i play all 8 classes, and I personally have little interest in the Glowy bat classes. I think there are plenty of players to fill those classes. Besides that Jedi and Sith have mirrors of them so players may choose to only test drive one or the other.
So players that do one class have 200 hours, and a month has 720? Means we can finish the content, and have a full time job, and still have some time to test the side content mini-games.. and be done with out paying the subscription.
Or play one class, and re-play a second alt through, and still get through.
As to your earlier comment of have we played a Bioware game before: yes I have, and I go back from time to time to see the other character options, but it's free to dabble the 'story again' with out a monthly fee.
Anyone who played Mass Effect did not automaticly play Soldier, then re-play as a Biotic, Test a 3rd play through as a Tech. Only to return a 4th time as a Sentinel, etc...
I hope Bioware is not banking on the financial concept that players will continue to pay money every month, because we have yet to experience the dialog choices for our 5th character class.
They're still content. If you choose not to play through that content then that's your choice. It's not a choice the game is making for you.
But yeah, you could play 1 class story and do some mini-games, some flashpoints and osme PvP. You'd pay 50 bucks for it and you'd get that value. You get a good Bioware RPG for the standard price. If that's your choice then feel free.
The difference to other Bioware games though is that in SWToR each class has an unique story. The Bounty Hunter story is nothing like the Sith Warrior story. They're different tales. They've got some touching points and there's a greater mystery going on that touches all the class stories but each story has it's own focus and it's own content.
In Mass Effect you face the same threat no matter your class, you're always going up against a certain Reaper.
Look at it this way: Jedi Knight = KotOR 3. Jedi Consular = KotOR 4 ( new game, but still same series so there's connections ). Smuggler = KotOR 5. Trooper = KotOR 6. Sith Warrior = KotOR 7. Sith Inquisitor = KotOR 8. Imperial Agent = KotOR 9. Bounty Hunter = KotOR 10.
So yeah, I'd pay 50 bucks + 15 bucks/month to play all those games. Sign me up! And I'm getting BG PvP, World PvP, crafting, trading, flashpoints, multiplayer conversations etc. all for free.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
No worries though, they'll be countless hours of videos and cut scenes to play through.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
People will blow through ToR's content in less than 30days... then what?
Use their time-machines for more usefull things?
There's 200 hours per class story. That means 1600 hours total. A month only contains 720 hours.
And that's not counting any of the other content like flashpoints, crafting and PvP.
I dissagree, your math means i play all 8 classes, and I personally have little interest in the Glowy bat classes. I think there are plenty of players to fill those classes. Besides that Jedi and Sith have mirrors of them so players may choose to only test drive one or the other.
So players that do one class have 200 hours, and a month has 720? Means we can finish the content, and have a full time job, and still have some time to test the side content mini-games.. and be done with out paying the subscription.
Or play one class, and re-play a second alt through, and still get through.
As to your earlier comment of have we played a Bioware game before: yes I have, and I go back from time to time to see the other character options, but it's free to dabble the 'story again' with out a monthly fee.
Anyone who played Mass Effect did not automaticly play Soldier, then re-play as a Biotic, Test a 3rd play through as a Tech. Only to return a 4th time as a Sentinel, etc...
I hope Bioware is not banking on the financial concept that players will continue to pay money every month, because we have yet to experience the dialog choices for our 5th character class.
They're still content. If you choose not to play through that content then that's your choice. It's not a choice the game is making for you.
But yeah, you could play 1 class story and do some mini-games, some flashpoints and osme PvP. You'd pay 50 bucks for it and you'd get that value. You get a good Bioware RPG for the standard price. If that's your choice then feel free.
The difference to other Bioware games though is that in SWToR each class has an unique story. The Bounty Hunter story is nothing like the Sith Warrior story. They're different tales. They've got some touching points and there's a greater mystery going on that touches all the class stories but each story has it's own focus and it's own content.
In Mass Effect you face the same threat no matter your class, you're always going up against a certain Reaper.
Look at it this way: Jedi Knight = KotOR 3. Jedi Consular = KotOR 4 ( new game, but still same series so there's connections ). Smuggler = KotOR 5. Trooper = KotOR 6. Sith Warrior = KotOR 7. Sith Inquisitor = KotOR 8. Imperial Agent = KotOR 9. Bounty Hunter = KotOR 10.
So yeah, I'd pay 50 bucks + 15 bucks/month to play all those games. Sign me up! And I'm getting BG PvP, World PvP, crafting, trading, flashpoints, multiplayer conversations etc. all for free.
You're still forgetting world content, that is quest content that isn't specific to class. World content makes up the majority of the quest content. Add that to what you've already mentioned and we're talking a whole lot of content.
You're still forgetting world content, that is quest content that isn't specific to class. World content makes up the majority of the quest content. Add that to what you've already mentioned and we're talking a whole lot of content.
Yay! More content I'm not paying for!
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
I wonder how much of those 200 hours is video or voices you stand there listening to. How much is actual gameplay? Does 200 hours account for intelligent players, or devs that chew it up as slow as they can so they can extend the number of hours?
I wonder how much of those 200 hours is video or voices you stand there listening to. How much is actual gameplay? Does 200 hours account for intelligent players, or devs that chew it up as slow as they can so they can extend the number of hours?
In short: What source are we basing 200 hours on?
The devs expected this to be the average based on the players in the beta.
So a player who skips every scene and just rushes straight through will be below it while a player who has trouble finding things and reguraly stops to admire the landscape or chat with other people etc. will take a lot longer.
So it accounts for the average SWToR beta tester. Do note that this purely the class story, It does not include any side-quests, any flashpoints, any PvP, any crafting, any space combat etc. Just the class storyline.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
I wonder how much of those 200 hours is video or voices you stand there listening to. How much is actual gameplay? Does 200 hours account for intelligent players, or devs that chew it up as slow as they can so they can extend the number of hours?
In short: What source are we basing 200 hours on?
Dev statements, and they based it upon metrics. Game data they gathered from all the beta testers and such; iirc they stated in an interview that everything is taken into account that is needed to do the quests, walking to quest area, killing, dialogues, etc.
They stated that it took on average like 200 hours to reach level cap, and the 3 story chapters into which the class quests of each class are separated, the first chapter took double the time that it'd take people on average to finish KOTOR when they played it for the first time, and the other 2 chapters are somewhat shorter but not that much shorter, resulting in hundreds of hours of gameplay to reach the end of the third chapter of your class quests.
At least, this is what I can remember of those interviews.
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."
So I was listening to all those interviews from the fan site summit, and there was something the lead writer said that I wanted to clarify.
He was talking about how each class (8) has 3 chapters each. And in his example of the bounty hunter, he said the "great hunt" (chap 1) was 2 times as long as all the story in KOTOR.
Making several assumptions, can we presume that:
8 classes * 3 chapters each * 2x length of KOTOR = 48 times more story then KOTOR?
I think it's reasonably safe to assume that the chapters for each class are fairly close in length to other classes. The only thing I don't know is if Chapter 1 is roughly the same length as Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
Or, I could have taken it out of context and what he meant was that chapter 1 for all the classes was two times as long as Kotor. Which would mean roughly 6 times more story.
What say you?
Hey Folks,
Glad to clarify. Please bear with me, though, as it can be hard when we're talking about story and story length. So let's start with a few rules for how we tend to talk about it at Bioware:
First: the whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you'd have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together. Sneaking through the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers was just as much of Luke's story as talking about going and saving the princess. So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
Second: Your mileage may vary. When we talk about the length of the game at all, we keep it vague for the important reason that people burn through content at different rates. The numbers we're using today are based on best case estimates from hundreds of people playing through Chapter 1. Some people were faster, some people were much, much, much slower as they apparently not just stopped to smell the flowers but had their CCs pick some, studied them, made adrenals out of them and then decided to sit by the roadside and consider what they'd done.
Third: This may change somewhat before ship. Difficulty has been going up in the mid and late leveling game to create real, RPG-style combat challenges. This makes the game longer. Death penalties have been going down. This makes the game shorter. But we have a general idea where we want it to end up and I think it's safe now to make some broad statements.
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
If we are talking about playthroughs of all the classes we're well into four digit hours but even one class is in the plural hundreds. Anything more specific is going to get me into trouble and honestly will just make me look silly when one guild makes it their all encompassing mission to beat the leveling game in a single marathon session then Photoshop their completion time onto a shocked looking picture of my face and spread it all over the interwebs.
So what will be the end game? Raiding? Grinding for gears? What?
Likely mostly the standard fare ( AKA WoW-fare ).
But if you're going to be playing SWToR purely and only for the end-game then I think you'll find it to be mostly standard experience and possibly not really worth it. Where I think SWToR will excell is in it's storylines and alt-friendly setup. But I've yet to see anything hinting at extraordinary end-game. But to be completely honest I've personally always enjoyed the journey more then the destination and since SWToR does appear to be offering an extraordinary journey I've got no problems with the destination being standard fare.
The only thing that could possibly have great end-game options is the world PvP, but that has yet to be reveiled, so we'll have to see.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
"Just to manage expectations (and I think we've posted this a number of times now in the last few years).
There is already a Star Wars MMO that focuses primarily on these features. We're making a different kind of game and we've been pretty open about that from the start.
That does not mean we are hostile to certain sandbox features such as player built housing - it just means that these kind of features are not a particularly high priority to us at this point as we navigate to ship.
There will certainly be out-of-combat player activities and activities that promote social interaction in the game, but you will not be able to take a job as a moisture farmer on Tatooine and simulate the life of such an individual in our game.
In short: Uncle Owen and his life is not the kind of heroic journey we're going for with this game. (The jawa's with their rocket launchers wouldn't make that a very fun activity anyway)."
Georg "Observer" Zoeller
Principal Lead Combat Designer
This was written in response to a thread on TOR's site asking for sandbox features.
SNIP
You are assuming that it is possible to somehow sway an angst ridden SWG vet to pick up a game that isn't an exact replica of their pre-whatever tearjerker game. It is probably a better move for them to not try to attract SWG vets with promises of this and that, as it would merely result in said players cancelling after the first comped month of a digital download sale. That of course leads to a double disgruntled player, and an unnecessary addition to negative buzz in the community, which would only serve to further dissuade an on-the-fence prospective player.
Besides, Bioware has always excercised their right to dickishness in response to hostile expectations. I for one find it refreshing. Were I in that same position of being a hate filled, entitled veteran of , walking up to a developer and saying "make your game a spiritual successor to , or I will forever haunt you with my picket sign and bullhorn," I'd rather be told flat out that I won't get what I want. There is no developer-community transaction more condescending and panderous than the old "now, this will be different than what you are used to, but you might like it anyway" line, it tends to leave a bad aftertaste more often than not.
Actually I'm assuming no such thing. I am assuming however that it is possible to antagonise them and cause controversy and drama where none is needed. Which just very well may help to polarise the fence sitters who aren't sure about this game. Whether they be old time MMO and SWG players, Burnt Wow players looking for a change, or didn't start playing MMOs until last week.
As to Bioware exercising their right to "dickishness" to respond to hostile expectations. Well first off the SOE SWG devs showed no shortage of that behavior either and look where it got them. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Second, did you bother to actually bother to go and read the original forum post this is from? While I feel the OP was asking for something he had no right to ask for, his behavior could hardly be classified as hostile. And in that resepct for a game developer to respond to his post with "dickishness" as you called it, is not only unwarrented but incredibly childish. A simple "Sorry we aren't doing that because we want to make our game our way" would have been sufficient.
Last but not least is your mention of condecention and pandering. Neither condecention, pandering or the reverse, telling a potential customer to just go "bleep" himself are a very bright thing to do when you are trying to sell something. And, if Bioware doesn't want to put up with all the drama that the SW ip brings, then they should have just made a game based off their own IP instead.
First don't forget many of SWG former devs are actually working for BioWare building TOR.
The good thing is they, hopefully, learnt from past mistake. The bad thing is seeing it lead us to the tunnel space shooter.
All I see at this point is, as pointed out 2 years ago: TOR leaves room for another SW MMO. It can be a SWG 2 or the Batlefront MMO that has been put on hold.
So I was listening to all those interviews from the fan site summit, and there was something the lead writer said that I wanted to clarify.
He was talking about how each class (8) has 3 chapters each. And in his example of the bounty hunter, he said the "great hunt" (chap 1) was 2 times as long as all the story in KOTOR.
Making several assumptions, can we presume that:
8 classes * 3 chapters each * 2x length of KOTOR = 48 times more story then KOTOR?
I think it's reasonably safe to assume that the chapters for each class are fairly close in length to other classes. The only thing I don't know is if Chapter 1 is roughly the same length as Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
Or, I could have taken it out of context and what he meant was that chapter 1 for all the classes was two times as long as Kotor. Which would mean roughly 6 times more story.
What say you?
Hey Folks,
Glad to clarify. Please bear with me, though, as it can be hard when we're talking about story and story length. So let's start with a few rules for how we tend to talk about it at Bioware:
First: the whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you'd have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together. Sneaking through the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers was just as much of Luke's story as talking about going and saving the princess. So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
Second: Your mileage may vary. When we talk about the length of the game at all, we keep it vague for the important reason that people burn through content at different rates. The numbers we're using today are based on best case estimates from hundreds of people playing through Chapter 1. Some people were faster, some people were much, much, much slower as they apparently not just stopped to smell the flowers but had their CCs pick some, studied them, made adrenals out of them and then decided to sit by the roadside and consider what they'd done.
Third: This may change somewhat before ship. Difficulty has been going up in the mid and late leveling game to create real, RPG-style combat challenges. This makes the game longer. Death penalties have been going down. This makes the game shorter. But we have a general idea where we want it to end up and I think it's safe now to make some broad statements.
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
If we are talking about playthroughs of all the classes we're well into four digit hours but even one class is in the plural hundreds. Anything more specific is going to get me into trouble and honestly will just make me look silly when one guild makes it their all encompassing mission to beat the leveling game in a single marathon session then Photoshop their completion time onto a shocked looking picture of my face and spread it all over the interwebs.
Hope that helps!
Daniel Erickson
Lead Writer
Star Wars, The Old Republic
Thank you. An impressive amount worthy of a $300m budget to be sure. I worry that they aren't focusing so much on the game as the story, but I suppose that's the point isn't it? I'll wait for reviews and probably pick it up when they put a trial or "Refer-a-friend" program out. I've lost interest in being "the best, the first, the elite!" in MMOs, but I still enjoy them. Here's to hoping this doesn't crash as hard as I expect it to!
So I was listening to all those interviews from the fan site summit, and there was something the lead writer said that I wanted to clarify.
He was talking about how each class (8) has 3 chapters each. And in his example of the bounty hunter, he said the "great hunt" (chap 1) was 2 times as long as all the story in KOTOR.
Making several assumptions, can we presume that:
8 classes * 3 chapters each * 2x length of KOTOR = 48 times more story then KOTOR?
I think it's reasonably safe to assume that the chapters for each class are fairly close in length to other classes. The only thing I don't know is if Chapter 1 is roughly the same length as Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
Or, I could have taken it out of context and what he meant was that chapter 1 for all the classes was two times as long as Kotor. Which would mean roughly 6 times more story.
What say you?
Hey Folks,
Glad to clarify. Please bear with me, though, as it can be hard when we're talking about story and story length. So let's start with a few rules for how we tend to talk about it at Bioware:
First: the whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you'd have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together. Sneaking through the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers was just as much of Luke's story as talking about going and saving the princess. So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
Second: Your mileage may vary. When we talk about the length of the game at all, we keep it vague for the important reason that people burn through content at different rates. The numbers we're using today are based on best case estimates from hundreds of people playing through Chapter 1. Some people were faster, some people were much, much, much slower as they apparently not just stopped to smell the flowers but had their CCs pick some, studied them, made adrenals out of them and then decided to sit by the roadside and consider what they'd done.
Third: This may change somewhat before ship. Difficulty has been going up in the mid and late leveling game to create real, RPG-style combat challenges. This makes the game longer. Death penalties have been going down. This makes the game shorter. But we have a general idea where we want it to end up and I think it's safe now to make some broad statements.
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
If we are talking about playthroughs of all the classes we're well into four digit hours but even one class is in the plural hundreds. Anything more specific is going to get me into trouble and honestly will just make me look silly when one guild makes it their all encompassing mission to beat the leveling game in a single marathon session then Photoshop their completion time onto a shocked looking picture of my face and spread it all over the interwebs.
Hope that helps!
Daniel Erickson
Lead Writer
Star Wars, The Old Republic
Thank you. An impressive amount worthy of a $300m budget to be sure. I worry that they aren't focusing so much on the game as the story, but I suppose that's the point isn't it? I'll wait for reviews and probably pick it up when they put a trial or "Refer-a-friend" program out. I've lost interest in being "the best, the first, the elite!" in MMOs, but I still enjoy them. Here's to hoping this doesn't crash as hard as I expect it to!
TORs budget has been announced at a little over 80 mil, no where near the 300 mil that has been known to be false since it first hit the internet.
you mentioned that you loved 'Star Wars' before video game even existed, which is impossible. games might not have been very complex back then, but they existed.
you also compared the jedi order to samuri. the samuri were warriors that served Japanese nobles (those that lost their master or defected, became ronin). i see no real comparison, unless you are just looking at the fact that they use swords. how sad... (note: none of these are true personal attacks, just designed in a manner so that i may get another ban)
i'm not a fan, nor a detractor of bioware, and i only pay attention to this game because the nostalgia i feel towards Star Wars (ep 4-6). i will probably try it at some point, but have no real anticipation for it. that said....
Star Wars has existed for over 30 years. MANY games have been created, of various design, using this IP. bioware has no obligation to please the crowd of some past game. just because it is online, or whatever else, gives people no right to dictate what SWTOR, should, or should not, be like.
in my opinion, it looks like it will be a well made theme-park experience, with heavy focus on the solo/stroy element. it looks like small groups will be favored over large raids, but that is just more speculation really, on my end. i'm sure they will have large group content for 'end-game', but i have not been following the game close enough to really say what it will or won't have, other than a few basics.
if the game looks like it will be for you, try it, if it doesn't, don't, and if you have not yet decided, continue collecting data until you reach a conclusion. this is the logical thing to do in my opinion.
So what will be the end game? Raiding? Grinding for gears? What?
I hope we don't know until we actually get to the play the game and like most MMOs it will grow with us if we enjoy it.
I can feel your anger. This game is defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike this game down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards towards the Dark Side will be complete.
Thank you. An impressive amount worthy of a $300m budget to be sure. I worry that they aren't focusing so much on the game as the story, but I suppose that's the point isn't it? I'll wait for reviews and probably pick it up when they put a trial or "Refer-a-friend" program out. I've lost interest in being "the best, the first, the elite!" in MMOs, but I still enjoy them. Here's to hoping this doesn't crash as hard as I expect it to!
TORs budget has been announced at a little over 80 mil, no where near the 300 mil that has been known to be false since it first hit the internet.
Yea, that $300 Million budget was debunked a LONG time ago and even the person that originally made it later admitted to having no way of actually knowing the real budget. Your showing your ignorance and prejudice here, nothing more.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Thank you. An impressive amount worthy of a $300m budget to be sure. I worry that they aren't focusing so much on the game as the story, but I suppose that's the point isn't it? I'll wait for reviews and probably pick it up when they put a trial or "Refer-a-friend" program out. I've lost interest in being "the best, the first, the elite!" in MMOs, but I still enjoy them. Here's to hoping this doesn't crash as hard as I expect it to!
TORs budget has been announced at a little over 80 mil, no where near the 300 mil that has been known to be false since it first hit the internet.
Yea, that $300 Million budget was debunked a LONG time ago and even the person that originally made it later admitted to having no way of actually knowing the real budget. Your showing your ignorance and prejudice here, nothing more.
-chuckle- Note the thread title, then reread that phrase.
The fail and stupidity in this thread is just amazing.
It's cool that some people KNOW stuff about the game that only people at Bioware seem to know. It's even better that they have made an opinion about those things, and preach that opinion as fact to the rest of us here. I know more then most of you here, but there are things people here know about that haven't even leaked yet.
I do find it...weird? That some people say they will personally burn through the content in a game such as this, because like in DAO, instead of playing the 70ish hours of the game, they finished in 40. They yearn for sandboxy elements, yet when given options, they go for the "get me done as fast as possible". Why must it be about being level capped like that, no matter which type you like? Why can't the journey be fun?
Sandbox themeparks currently only contain little to less then no content. Because they expect players to make it. That's fine and all. I enjoyed the community content in SWG. It even had some very tiny content in game too. But that's it. Outside of the community, it was barren empty worlds populated by non moving mobs with random npc houses. You can go kill random mobs in Rift for the same effect. Great, you can create the same 5 houses and make a small city! That's fun to do too. Oh look, I burned through that too! Yet main dev created content is automatically bad to so many SBTP lovers, it's silly.
Would it be cool to see a Huge real sandbox with a huge themepark aspect? Sure, in a way. But doing something like that would be insane for the people creating it. You'd have such a hassle of trying to cater to both styles of players, when one side gets an update the other side screams bloody mary.
Of course, outside of these forums, I don't see nearly as many people begging for a sandbox. Nor do I see them ask for innovation and then call it trash when a team tries it.
I'm not telling any sandbox themepark lovers to go and buy TOR because it might change your mind. You'd go in kicking and screaming, you'd hate it as you installed it, you'd be tapping your foot for it to end before you created your character, and in the chance you did like it, you'd still tell yourself otherwise. But it's good to see those of you coming here to "Harold Camping" the release of this game.
Anyone who has had any dealings with Bioware should have known what types of games they do. They do Theme park style quest getting games.
Baldur's gate was just one giant quests with levels, spells and armor (ala every themepark i can think of)
Neverwinter nights (same thing here to)
Knights of the old republic. Same thing here as well. One giant long quest with side quests thrown about.
Dragon age..same way.
Only Mass effect differs slightly, and only slightly by making it more of a first person shooter but it's still theme park in nature.
Almost, every, single, game, Bioware, has, release, is, closer, to, a, theme, park, game, then, a, sandbox one.
What they do well is making this sort of play interesting by getting people invovled in the characters of the world, making the aesthetics of the world fit. and making the gameplay fun and engaging.
I personally play Bioware games because i start off wanting to be evil, then i start to listen to the characters then i start reacting as i would in that normal situation (at least on the second play through). I do it for the story, and character interaction (which is sort of the same thing, kinda). I never do it so i can roam big open worlds and building buildings. I also rarely notice the levels as they just come with play and i'm far more engrossed with whats going on in the game then i do watching how much more exp i need to get X level.
Really if you take a look at Bioware's history you should be able to, within a margin of error know exactly what to expect from SW:ToR.
The small margins may be that in Bioware single player games (as they are described) you don't interact with other people. Thus PvP and grouping with others may be a guess (kinda, but not too much really you should be able to make a leap here and figure out how that will work). There worlds in single player games tend to be...very narrow. Whereas here it seems to be the opposite with a wide open world.
However quests, and how you pick them up. The way Bioware works and how they design their games should be easy to see as they do keep pretty consistent here.
Your character has a voice, you make choices in your quest, story is forefront, level based game, theme park style. This is present in nearly all their games and i foresee it remaining that way. Why change something that works? All they are basically doing here is taking a Bioware game...stick it into a themepark style world (where there storytelling and design and expertise for games is best suited in) Expanding it a bit, adding in the ability for other people to join in on your story/side quests and adding PvP. Other then a few tweaks and additional features thats what they are doing. Theme park with Bioware storytelling. What they've been saying all along. To be frankly honest i would have been shocked and concerned if they had gone a sandbox route as there expertise in that area is never shown in their previous games. At least on your first venture into a new area, stick to what you know, succeed and then start experimenting. To me what i expect from this game is a Bioware game i can share with others. Those not familer with Bioware but of MMOs can expect an MMO with a great interactive story that impacts your character in a meaningful way.
Note: Before anyone mentions the sonic game, MDK and shatter steel, yes your right they aren't RPGS, but then again this was before Bioware really hit their ninche. MDK and shattered steel were projects they did before they fell into the RPG feild they are known for. As for sonic. Well they tried to put RPG/story into the game but it didn't go well with the sonic universe. So there ya go. Other then those 3 oddities which were earlier in Bioware's carrer the above statement about their games hold true.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Some people seem surprised by this but Bioware have been very clear on this topic numerous times in several interviews going back as far as late last year. Im not even following the game that closely anymore and Even I have seen these statements several times.
Not that it's suprising, but I am glad that they aren't focusing on that stuff, maybe in the future, but honestly I don't want to play a Star Wars game to be a moisture farmer...I mean...come on.
Instead, you want a scripted instanced solo story JUST FOR YOU! and the other thousands of people on the server you don't interact with.
But yeah this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I mean, come on, you have NPC companions and scripted voice overed instanced storylines.
Comments
I may be flat out wrong, however I get the impression from reading these forums that tons of people will roll alts not because they are in love with the other classes but rather they want to experience the stories behind the other classes. The sith and jedi might seem like mirrored copies of each other however there stories may not.
They're still content. If you choose not to play through that content then that's your choice. It's not a choice the game is making for you.
But yeah, you could play 1 class story and do some mini-games, some flashpoints and osme PvP. You'd pay 50 bucks for it and you'd get that value. You get a good Bioware RPG for the standard price. If that's your choice then feel free.
The difference to other Bioware games though is that in SWToR each class has an unique story. The Bounty Hunter story is nothing like the Sith Warrior story. They're different tales. They've got some touching points and there's a greater mystery going on that touches all the class stories but each story has it's own focus and it's own content.
In Mass Effect you face the same threat no matter your class, you're always going up against a certain Reaper.
Look at it this way: Jedi Knight = KotOR 3. Jedi Consular = KotOR 4 ( new game, but still same series so there's connections ). Smuggler = KotOR 5. Trooper = KotOR 6. Sith Warrior = KotOR 7. Sith Inquisitor = KotOR 8. Imperial Agent = KotOR 9. Bounty Hunter = KotOR 10.
So yeah, I'd pay 50 bucks + 15 bucks/month to play all those games. Sign me up! And I'm getting BG PvP, World PvP, crafting, trading, flashpoints, multiplayer conversations etc. all for free.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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Perhaps "Themebox" would be more appropriate.
No worries though, they'll be countless hours of videos and cut scenes to play through.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
You're still forgetting world content, that is quest content that isn't specific to class. World content makes up the majority of the quest content. Add that to what you've already mentioned and we're talking a whole lot of content.
Yay! More content I'm not paying for!
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
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(")("),,(")("),(")(")
I wonder how much of those 200 hours is video or voices you stand there listening to. How much is actual gameplay? Does 200 hours account for intelligent players, or devs that chew it up as slow as they can so they can extend the number of hours?
In short: What source are we basing 200 hours on?
The devs expected this to be the average based on the players in the beta.
So a player who skips every scene and just rushes straight through will be below it while a player who has trouble finding things and reguraly stops to admire the landscape or chat with other people etc. will take a lot longer.
So it accounts for the average SWToR beta tester. Do note that this purely the class story, It does not include any side-quests, any flashpoints, any PvP, any crafting, any space combat etc. Just the class storyline.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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Dev statements, and they based it upon metrics. Game data they gathered from all the beta testers and such; iirc they stated in an interview that everything is taken into account that is needed to do the quests, walking to quest area, killing, dialogues, etc.
They stated that it took on average like 200 hours to reach level cap, and the 3 story chapters into which the class quests of each class are separated, the first chapter took double the time that it'd take people on average to finish KOTOR when they played it for the first time, and the other 2 chapters are somewhat shorter but not that much shorter, resulting in hundreds of hours of gameplay to reach the end of the third chapter of your class quests.
At least, this is what I can remember of those interviews.
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."
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6297786#post6297786
05.04.2011 , 01:34 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by nezitx
So I was listening to all those interviews from the fan site summit, and there was something the lead writer said that I wanted to clarify.
He was talking about how each class (8) has 3 chapters each. And in his example of the bounty hunter, he said the "great hunt" (chap 1) was 2 times as long as all the story in KOTOR.
Making several assumptions, can we presume that:
8 classes * 3 chapters each * 2x length of KOTOR = 48 times more story then KOTOR?
I think it's reasonably safe to assume that the chapters for each class are fairly close in length to other classes. The only thing I don't know is if Chapter 1 is roughly the same length as Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
Or, I could have taken it out of context and what he meant was that chapter 1 for all the classes was two times as long as Kotor. Which would mean roughly 6 times more story.
What say you?
Hey Folks,
Glad to clarify. Please bear with me, though, as it can be hard when we're talking about story and story length. So let's start with a few rules for how we tend to talk about it at Bioware:
First: the whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you'd have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together. Sneaking through the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers was just as much of Luke's story as talking about going and saving the princess. So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
Second: Your mileage may vary. When we talk about the length of the game at all, we keep it vague for the important reason that people burn through content at different rates. The numbers we're using today are based on best case estimates from hundreds of people playing through Chapter 1. Some people were faster, some people were much, much, much slower as they apparently not just stopped to smell the flowers but had their CCs pick some, studied them, made adrenals out of them and then decided to sit by the roadside and consider what they'd done.
Third: This may change somewhat before ship. Difficulty has been going up in the mid and late leveling game to create real, RPG-style combat challenges. This makes the game longer. Death penalties have been going down. This makes the game shorter. But we have a general idea where we want it to end up and I think it's safe now to make some broad statements.
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
If we are talking about playthroughs of all the classes we're well into four digit hours but even one class is in the plural hundreds. Anything more specific is going to get me into trouble and honestly will just make me look silly when one guild makes it their all encompassing mission to beat the leveling game in a single marathon session then Photoshop their completion time onto a shocked looking picture of my face and spread it all over the interwebs.
Hope that helps!
Daniel Erickson
Lead Writer
Star Wars, The Old Republic
So what will be the end game? Raiding? Grinding for gears? What?
Likely mostly the standard fare ( AKA WoW-fare ).
But if you're going to be playing SWToR purely and only for the end-game then I think you'll find it to be mostly standard experience and possibly not really worth it. Where I think SWToR will excell is in it's storylines and alt-friendly setup. But I've yet to see anything hinting at extraordinary end-game. But to be completely honest I've personally always enjoyed the journey more then the destination and since SWToR does appear to be offering an extraordinary journey I've got no problems with the destination being standard fare.
The only thing that could possibly have great end-game options is the world PvP, but that has yet to be reveiled, so we'll have to see.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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(")("),,(")("),(")(")
First don't forget many of SWG former devs are actually working for BioWare building TOR.
The good thing is they, hopefully, learnt from past mistake. The bad thing is seeing it lead us to the tunnel space shooter.
All I see at this point is, as pointed out 2 years ago: TOR leaves room for another SW MMO. It can be a SWG 2 or the Batlefront MMO that has been put on hold.
Thank you. An impressive amount worthy of a $300m budget to be sure. I worry that they aren't focusing so much on the game as the story, but I suppose that's the point isn't it? I'll wait for reviews and probably pick it up when they put a trial or "Refer-a-friend" program out. I've lost interest in being "the best, the first, the elite!" in MMOs, but I still enjoy them. Here's to hoping this doesn't crash as hard as I expect it to!
TORs budget has been announced at a little over 80 mil, no where near the 300 mil that has been known to be false since it first hit the internet.
@Tardcore
you mentioned that you loved 'Star Wars' before video game even existed, which is impossible. games might not have been very complex back then, but they existed.
you also compared the jedi order to samuri. the samuri were warriors that served Japanese nobles (those that lost their master or defected, became ronin). i see no real comparison, unless you are just looking at the fact that they use swords. how sad... (note: none of these are true personal attacks, just designed in a manner so that i may get another ban)
i'm not a fan, nor a detractor of bioware, and i only pay attention to this game because the nostalgia i feel towards Star Wars (ep 4-6
). i will probably try it at some point, but have no real anticipation for it. that said....
Star Wars has existed for over 30 years. MANY games have been created, of various design, using this IP. bioware has no obligation to please the crowd of some past game. just because it is online, or whatever else, gives people no right to dictate what SWTOR, should, or should not, be like.
in my opinion, it looks like it will be a well made theme-park experience, with heavy focus on the solo/stroy element. it looks like small groups will be favored over large raids, but that is just more speculation really, on my end. i'm sure they will have large group content for 'end-game', but i have not been following the game close enough to really say what it will or won't have, other than a few basics.
if the game looks like it will be for you, try it, if it doesn't, don't, and if you have not yet decided, continue collecting data until you reach a conclusion. this is the logical thing to do in my opinion.
I hope we don't know until we actually get to the play the game and like most MMOs it will grow with us if we enjoy it.
I can feel your anger. This game is defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike this game down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards towards the Dark Side will be complete.
Yea, that $300 Million budget was debunked a LONG time ago and even the person that originally made it later admitted to having no way of actually knowing the real budget. Your showing your ignorance and prejudice here, nothing more.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
This was in question still? :
He who keeps his cool best wins.
I never expected this to be a sandbox. I'll be more surprised of people being surprised that this game's "endgame" is similar to WoW.
So what if you've reached endgame? Just put down your mouse, or experience the other classes.
-chuckle- Note the thread title, then reread that phrase.
The fail and stupidity in this thread is just amazing.
It's cool that some people KNOW stuff about the game that only people at Bioware seem to know. It's even better that they have made an opinion about those things, and preach that opinion as fact to the rest of us here. I know more then most of you here, but there are things people here know about that haven't even leaked yet.
I do find it...weird? That some people say they will personally burn through the content in a game such as this, because like in DAO, instead of playing the 70ish hours of the game, they finished in 40. They yearn for sandboxy elements, yet when given options, they go for the "get me done as fast as possible". Why must it be about being level capped like that, no matter which type you like? Why can't the journey be fun?
Sandbox themeparks currently only contain little to less then no content. Because they expect players to make it. That's fine and all. I enjoyed the community content in SWG. It even had some very tiny content in game too. But that's it. Outside of the community, it was barren empty worlds populated by non moving mobs with random npc houses. You can go kill random mobs in Rift for the same effect. Great, you can create the same 5 houses and make a small city! That's fun to do too. Oh look, I burned through that too! Yet main dev created content is automatically bad to so many SBTP lovers, it's silly.
Would it be cool to see a Huge real sandbox with a huge themepark aspect? Sure, in a way. But doing something like that would be insane for the people creating it. You'd have such a hassle of trying to cater to both styles of players, when one side gets an update the other side screams bloody mary.
Of course, outside of these forums, I don't see nearly as many people begging for a sandbox. Nor do I see them ask for innovation and then call it trash when a team tries it.
I'm not telling any sandbox themepark lovers to go and buy TOR because it might change your mind. You'd go in kicking and screaming, you'd hate it as you installed it, you'd be tapping your foot for it to end before you created your character, and in the chance you did like it, you'd still tell yourself otherwise. But it's good to see those of you coming here to "Harold Camping" the release of this game.
Anyone who has had any dealings with Bioware should have known what types of games they do. They do Theme park style quest getting games.
Baldur's gate was just one giant quests with levels, spells and armor (ala every themepark i can think of)
Neverwinter nights (same thing here to)
Knights of the old republic. Same thing here as well. One giant long quest with side quests thrown about.
Dragon age..same way.
Only Mass effect differs slightly, and only slightly by making it more of a first person shooter but it's still theme park in nature.
Almost, every, single, game, Bioware, has, release, is, closer, to, a, theme, park, game, then, a, sandbox one.
What they do well is making this sort of play interesting by getting people invovled in the characters of the world, making the aesthetics of the world fit. and making the gameplay fun and engaging.
I personally play Bioware games because i start off wanting to be evil, then i start to listen to the characters then i start reacting as i would in that normal situation (at least on the second play through). I do it for the story, and character interaction (which is sort of the same thing, kinda). I never do it so i can roam big open worlds and building buildings. I also rarely notice the levels as they just come with play and i'm far more engrossed with whats going on in the game then i do watching how much more exp i need to get X level.
Really if you take a look at Bioware's history you should be able to, within a margin of error know exactly what to expect from SW:ToR.
The small margins may be that in Bioware single player games (as they are described) you don't interact with other people. Thus PvP and grouping with others may be a guess (kinda, but not too much really you should be able to make a leap here and figure out how that will work). There worlds in single player games tend to be...very narrow. Whereas here it seems to be the opposite with a wide open world.
However quests, and how you pick them up. The way Bioware works and how they design their games should be easy to see as they do keep pretty consistent here.
Your character has a voice, you make choices in your quest, story is forefront, level based game, theme park style. This is present in nearly all their games and i foresee it remaining that way. Why change something that works? All they are basically doing here is taking a Bioware game...stick it into a themepark style world (where there storytelling and design and expertise for games is best suited in) Expanding it a bit, adding in the ability for other people to join in on your story/side quests and adding PvP. Other then a few tweaks and additional features thats what they are doing. Theme park with Bioware storytelling. What they've been saying all along. To be frankly honest i would have been shocked and concerned if they had gone a sandbox route as there expertise in that area is never shown in their previous games. At least on your first venture into a new area, stick to what you know, succeed and then start experimenting. To me what i expect from this game is a Bioware game i can share with others. Those not familer with Bioware but of MMOs can expect an MMO with a great interactive story that impacts your character in a meaningful way.
Note: Before anyone mentions the sonic game, MDK and shatter steel, yes your right they aren't RPGS, but then again this was before Bioware really hit their ninche. MDK and shattered steel were projects they did before they fell into the RPG feild they are known for. As for sonic. Well they tried to put RPG/story into the game but it didn't go well with the sonic universe. So there ya go. Other then those 3 oddities which were earlier in Bioware's carrer the above statement about their games hold true.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Quests =/= having a story.
Calling Baldur's Gate a "theme park style quest getting game" is borderline insanity.
Stop throwing around words just because you see them in similar sentences.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
Some people seem surprised by this but Bioware have been very clear on this topic numerous times in several interviews going back as far as late last year. Im not even following the game that closely anymore and Even I have seen these statements several times.
Instead, you want a scripted instanced solo story JUST FOR YOU! and the other thousands of people on the server you don't interact with.
But yeah this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I mean, come on, you have NPC companions and scripted voice overed instanced storylines.