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Chasing the Dragon
MigPosada
Member Posts: 92
Just to clarify, I don't want to convert anybody, if you are having a blast playing this game, don't listen to me or anybody! Probably, you aren't even reading forums in the first place.
However, I wanted to share my impressions on this game. No everybody not liking a game you love is a hater, as no everybody enjoying one you don't like a blind fanboy.
First things first.
The story and dialogs are really GOOD, they alone made me instant buy Swtor while playing the Beta, and for a while I thought Bioware storytelling was enough to make me enjoy this for many months to come. Sadly, I proved myself to be wrong, somewhat faster than expected.
My problem is the game itself, I'm simply tired of looking tiny icon flashes (or applying macro sequences). I'm also tired of games where I'm continously chasing better stats to beat monsters with higher stats, so they can give me higher stat gear to defeat even higher stat foes.
I feel guilt when I'm playing this type of games, like I'm really wasting my time. Alright, this is an entertainment product, so I shouldn't feel like that, but there are so many games much more fulfilling, and some even enrich us as a person in one way or the other. Stat-grinding games are the junk food in the entertainment industry.
There are other points, like not liking the idea of paying a subscription for a game so focused on personal stories (there's an M missing in that MMO tag) and not enjoying PvP of any MMO game (that's what actual competitive/e-sport online games are good for), but I don't wanna convert this into a discussion of why this game sucks or the other rules, because this is a problem beyond game genres.
What do we play for? Do we want to neverendly chase a dragon?
There are so many things a game could do, even beyond eye/hand coordination and solving optimization problems (which is the best/faster way to do this or that). It could explore creativity, it could push us beyond our comfortable zone, it could place us in situations where we could actually excersice thinking skills. Or we just want escapism and an artificial way to feel rewarded?
Comments
You could have said "I'm tired of playing level-based class-oriented chance-determined dice roll combat roleplaying games". Which is nearly every MMORPG in existence (and almost all of the ones worth playing) and is the foundations of what RPG's have been built on for decades. You're pretty much screwed bud. Might I suggest Modern Warfare 3?
I'm even more screwed than that xD
I'm also tired of hand/eye coordination-based games, which is pretty much everything. When our future robot overlords take over the world, it won't be because we were bad at aiming weapons, but because we were left behind in the evolution race just like our simian ancestors.
Great post, OP. You and I share much of same ideology when it comes to gaming, or entertainment in general. Unfortunately, I think your post is going to be ignored or misunderstood by most people who read it, much like any brilliance.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Hehe, brilliance could be too much, but I'm glad you liked it
Perhaps I should have wrote some inflammatory statements to put this rolling :P
You mistake Brilliance for biased opinion. I fixed your post for you.
~ ~
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
You don't dislike SWTOR because of the game itself, you dislike it because of the genre (themepark).
Much the same as I dislike BF3, because I dislike the entire FPS genre.
Sounds like you just aren't a big fan of themepark MMOs anymore. It happens, and this game doesn't deviate from that formula aside from the storyline that they mix in, which even if you are are only playing for that feature, you'd still have to do it within the confines of a themepark system.
I do disagree with your comment regarding "the first M," however. This game has all of that, but again...it's done in a themepark format, so it won't suit everyone.
My issue is when people use that themepark excuse as some reason why it's not a good game, as if being a themepark game is some kind of universal indicator of a game being bad. What people who hate on this game don't seem to realize is that just because themeparks don't appeal to THEM, doesn't mean that there is something inherantly wrong with the game, particularly when there is still obviously a big market for them. A game can be well-made even if it isn't your cup of tea. And this isn't directed to the OP, just to people that hate on the game because it doesn't fit into their own personal preference of what they want in a game.
Well, that's one way to see it. But I think the problem is not the genre, but what the genre has become.
In the beginning of times MMO was acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online games, it didn't imply instancing or grouping or those abstract features we have got locked into, it was meant to be a breathing living world. Diablo wasn't an MMO, but yet, most MMOs are not so far from it, you are not interacting with hundreds (less millions) of people.
Also, RPG was acronym for Roleplaying, which is to, you know, take the role of a character and pretend you are him in a virtual world. It wasn't about stats (that's just a mechanic pen and paper games used because it was the most practical way to do it), and no, Bioware storytelling isn't roleplaying either (you are just selecting from a few options, and mostly going through a fixed path).
i got to agree with you op!i love swtor,but saying it is a mmo is wrong!this is a corpg like guildwars was a corpg!
I do agree the game is good and lot of people can enjoy it.
But I think criticism, if well constructed, is healthy and fun
I am of a similar impression - SWTOR was good. I had some fun in the beta but I am done with that type of game for a bit.
So far I mananged to avoid buying RIFT (even at $5.00) and SWTOR. If I can pass up one more game I think I am on the way to a cure. . Skyrym is helping.. . and getting more into life outside of escapism
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
So, you know how I was writing about how people would ignore or misunderstand this post? Congratulations. What the OP is talking about is a philosophical question, not a bias, as to what we should be doing or what we want to receive from our game time. Just like I mentioned, you can tell that people aren't really interested in the "what if's", or discussing possibilities. Maybe that requires too much extrapolation from the ordinary board reader? I don't know.
To provide an actual bias, I'll mention what I'm looking for out of my entertainment time, no matter the medium. I want to be intellectually challenged, because through challenge we are able to better understand ourselves. Now, with gaming in particular, I don't believe that the things I'm playing directly relate to who I become, but rather who I am. So, does it make sense that an individual who loves pouring over ancient literature, history, and philosophy wants something more than a level based grinder from an MMO? Absolutely. There are also times when I would much rather just log in with friends to complete objectives, however. These objectives being difficult usually hinders group play, and in these situations you'll find that I play TF2 and DOD with friends because they're easy to understand, and they're easy to operate.
The reason I metion this all is for two specific reasons: 1) I play both themepark and sandbox MMO's, despite having a clear draw to one over the other, but this does not mean that they both don't have a place, and 2) we aren't what we play, but we play what we are (which fluxuates, depending on mood and surroundings).
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
great post OP, one of the better ones i've seen in a long time.
what am I looking in a game(mmo)? hmm... at first an obvious answer would be entertainment. but let us all be honest. when we play games, we intentionally escape into another woeld, this is much more prominent in the RPG and MMO genre. we want a world where we can live experiences not normally available to us.
it's why i dont judge the games people play, we all want something different.
aside from the obvious, games should be a challenge (that's what i want). and challenge is not necessarily in combat. i would love to be able to solve complicated problems and manipulate scenerios to advance in an MMO.
as soon as minecraft (Unreal engine edition) is made into a "EvE" like mmo you'll be completely sattisfied....at least for a wile
we all knew SWTOR was not gonna brake any new ground. no point in complaining. it's fun, it's well made, it's shallow, it's the same old same old with lightsabers. not gonna fullfill anyone for decades. let's just enojoy it for a few months shal we?
That's cool and I think a lot of people share this train of thought.
I think it would be very interesting if someone designed a game not as a set of carrots to follow, but as a medium where the players themselves can face and solve ever changing situations.
For example, if we design a board game, like Chess or Go, the game was not built around how to win and what the players can gain, but around having a set of rules that open a lot of possible situations. We have fun because we are always being challenged, even after the 100th match.
And I think we can go beyond abstract board games, and apply that to video games. What if an MMO is designed around how you get this thing rolling alone? And I think the answer is not sandboxes, or themeparks, or all these tags we are currently using, because they are all designed around the wrong design objectives.
I liked Minecraft, and I think there's a lot of potential on building an MMO with that type of openness. But even if we could build anything we want, the game may require some sort of structure.
I think adding achievements to Minecraft wasn't the best way to do it, they are just the cheapest tool of game designers to try to motivate players. Having to survive the first night, that was a real motivation.
If we make the game have always things to explore or do, not because the designer artificially place rewards there, but because we have the inner desire to do them, and if those things happen in a virtual world because of the game community itself, that would be a masterpiece.