Well, give them a chance.. It seems that Lucas has given certain companies a chance, to get it right.. Some have, Some have not. The man made his millions the old way, he had a dream and found people to help his dream come true, and from what I am observing, he want this done right..
Originally posted by summitus Originally posted by Hashbrick I've experienced the Hero Engine first hand, they made an excellent choice for the engine. It is pretty much a 3d Modeler setup (think Maya, 3d Max) that has a built in model database that modelers can import the models in. The world builders can pull up the library and drop and drag the model where ever, the programmers can load up the world builders space and add code to the space wherever they want. It is insanely customizable and dare I say the best engine ever built in terms of time saved and organization. As far as graphics go, they can go from a smooth stylized look to a more realistic look. I'm sure what they are shooting for is a more stylized WoW look something that older PCs can run, they are not looking to glorify the insane system builders that need the best every time a new piece of hardware comes out. A huge percent have older PCs it would be in any companies best interest to appeal to the masses rather than a small percent. All we are seeing is concept art, I'd wait for a screenshot before saying it's too "cartoonie". It is amazing how quick people come to conclusion that the game will blow without much viable info on it. /sigh.
Thats really interesting ! where did you experience the Hero Engine if you dont mind me asking ?
I was on the Simutronics team for World Building Hero's Journey, the game yet to be seen. Even though they say they are working on it... they are way more interested in updating and marketing the engine. They found a better path then marketing an MMO. I'm not sure what happened to a lot of the staff but they cut out enough to make it a smaller project than what it started with.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
Well first off this SW isnt set in the current Star Wars time frame. Its set thousands of yrs before ep1. So Bioware can pretty much go into places and directions that SWG couldnt. As far as story driven goes thats not a bad thing heck look at WoW you could do the story arcs if you wanted to if not that was fine to. Even City of Heros had good story arcs if you so choose to do them as well as LotRO. As long as the world is open ended and you are free to chose what you want or dont want to do there shouldnt be a problem
Originally posted by Fadedbomb Too bad the art-style isn't even Starwasy. This game might as well have been a single player game, because it most certainly has nothing Star Wars oriented about it based on everything we've been told and can see with our eyes ^.
I like star wars alot, Kotor alot....and this art style they have adopted, well I wont say its WoWish because everyone says that about everything but I will say that I dont like it, its cartoony, its not gritty enough and its not Star Warsy enough imo.
Star Wars Galxies nailed it imo with the art style. This art style doesnt come anywhere close to what it should of been.
I have alot of faith in Bioware simply because I played alot of their games and they have yet to disappoint. I know alot are excited but it's barely been 24 hours since the announcement. We all will eventually find out the answers to all of our concerns over time. I'm just excited that Bioware will be making this game and not anyone else.
Oh and people complaining that it will not be a sandbox. Let me remind you that one of the main reasons why people played SWG was because they are first and foremost Star Wars fans and it will be one of the main reasons why people will come to play SW:TOR because they are Star Wars fans first.
No matter the spin you put on it, It is a jedi theme park first and formost. Hence Lucas Arts gets the game they want with the appeal to the younger set and MMO veterans get the old finger flag.
I hate to be pessimistic, but honestly BioWare is dead. They were bought out by EA who is just looking for another WoW clone. Look at Mythic and WAR. Mythic made a much better game when they were an indie company. WAR is worse than WoW.
EA+LucasArts=Fail. There is no BioWare. Be fooled if you want. They fooled me with WAR, and it won't happen again.
This is BioWare we're talking about: they specialize in SPRPGs that ROCK. Play the hero and enjoy a kickass movie-script-quality story that you won't soon forget.
Just think, though. They may make good games, but can you really generalize and say that MMOs are just like any other genre? BioWare does single-player stuff very well, but they probably know next to nothing about social mechanics.
My prediction: I half expect this game to fail due to developer inexperience. They will likely release a single player role-playing game with multiplayer capabilities tacked on the side... at the very least. At best, you'll get AoC's player progression time line.
This information scares me; they think to give each player an experience as a hero using story-driven gameplay... in an MMOG. It's a horrible idea to teach players that they're especially unique and important to a plot in a massively multiplayer game when the very nature of this genre does not allow for heroes.
Really, if everyone's "special" in the same way, they're not really that special are they?
Every developer worth his salt knows that you can never satisfy players with raw content for more than a month without throwing in some grinding tasks to stretch it out. So either there will be a lot of heroic fed-ex missions with lightsaber in hand (still a day-in-the-life), or this game is going to last for one month and die abruptly.
This is BioWare we're talking about: they specialize in SPRPGs that ROCK. Play the hero and enjoy a kickass movie-script-quality story that you won't soon forget. Just think, though. They may make good games, but can you really generalize and say that MMOs are just like any other genre? BioWare does single-player stuff very well, but they probably know next to nothing about social mechanics. My prediction: I half expect this game to fail due to developer inexperience. They will likely release a single player role-playing game with multiplayer capabilities tacked on the side... at the very least. At best, you'll get AoC's player progression time line.
This information scares me; they think to give each player an experience as a hero using story-driven gameplay... in an MMOG. It's a horrible idea to teach players that they're especially unique and important to a plot in a massively multiplayer game when the very nature of this genre does not allow for heroes. Really, if everyone's "special" in the same way, they're not really that special are they? Every developer worth his salt knows that you can never satisfy players with raw content for more than a month without throwing in some grinding tasks to stretch it out. So either there will be a lot of heroic fed-ex missions with lightsaber in hand (still a day-in-the-life), or this game is going to last for one month and die abruptly.
1. Blizzard had no experience making mmos prior to WOW so saying the game will fail do to lack of inexperience is way off base.
2. Bioware is listed as one of the best developers in gaming today.
Nothing wrong with voicing your opinions but really we do not even know 3/4th of the info on the game and saying it is going to fail already is just mind boggling.
Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks. Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level. Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story. Call me a cynic but meh!
I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2. No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it. If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.
The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ). The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.
Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks. Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level. Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story. Call me a cynic but meh!
I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2. No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it. If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.
The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ). The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.
The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.
Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks. Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level. Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story. Call me a cynic but meh!
I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2. No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it. If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.
The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ). The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.
The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.
Actually it is. The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way. Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.
In their interview, Muzyka says that, “It’s not a day-in-the-life of Star Wars”. Instead, he tells them that it’s about being a hero. Obviously, this puts a damper on players who may have been hoping to spend their time strictly as an entertainer or moisture farmer. This was one of the most encouraging things they could have said about this MMORPG. This is Star Wars. It’s not about owning a shop or growing crops. It’s about fighting for the fate of the galaxy. Bioware gets this and I expect they’ll focus first on making a fun game rather then following the insipid design choices of the SOE developers. A wonderful, player-interdependent crafting system doesn’t help when you ignore balance and gameplay design problems. Star Wars isn’t a story about musicians. I'm looking forward to seeing a company who finally understands that produce a real Star Wars MMORPG.
Okay first of all I know what to expect from Bioware so I aint expecting some sort of world simulation MMORPG, but............
That hero thing bothers me abit , maybe it's because I am not limited to MMORPG's but play plenty of other games in different genre's, this means there are already tons and tons of games that offer you to be a hero and MMORPG use to be so much more, sure you could become a hero but all by your own doing and not because the games story is making you one as like I said we have tons of games that catter to that and MMORPG's use to be so much more then that so I am really puzzeld at to why people want to be a hero that is already written instead of creating their own hero source.
The Bioware MMORPG however probebly will be good, it will be nothing like SWG but will be everything Bioware is known for.
Overall only time will tell what the game will be like, maybe it will become awesome to me, maybe not.
Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks. Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level. Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story. Call me a cynic but meh!
I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2. No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it. If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.
The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ). The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.
The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.
Actually it is. The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way. Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.
That's why I said if your choices -MATTER-. In Mass Effect, your choices didn't matter so much, as in, they always led you down the same path, while they had interesting variations to the linear story.
However if the choices MATTER, as BioWare said they would in this game, that's a different story. I don't know if they will, but after all they HAVE said that they have more Story-Content in this game than in all their SP games combined. So it might work. I am positively hopeful.
Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks. Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level. Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story. Call me a cynic but meh!
I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2. No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it. If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.
The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ). The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.
The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.
Actually it is. The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way. Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.
That's why I said if your choices -MATTER-. In Mass Effect, your choices didn't matter so much, as in, they always led you down the same path, while they had interesting variations to the linear story.
However if the choices MATTER, as BioWare said they would in this game, that's a different story. I don't know if they will, but after all they HAVE said that they have more Story-Content in this game than in all their SP games combined. So it might work. I am positively hopeful.
I love your optimism
To create the kind of story that you are talking about though would require more than a dozen writers and many years of development, not to mention quantum computers that could intelligently react to the players decisions. A non-linear storyline by definition would have an infinate number of possibilities and the hardware just does not exist yet that can deliver that. The story as is would need to be much larger and longer than all the SP games as it has to keep people playing for a lot longer in an MMO, 80 hours or so just wouldn't cut it in the MMO genre. That said however it is still impossible to stay ahead of the players as some will still power through it at breakneck speeds, reaching level cap in a week or so as with all other MMO's.
They want you to be the hero but again this idea falls flat on it's face because when you reach the end there are a few thousand others that have already done the same thing you just completed. The only way around this is to have a unique story for each player and again, that's impossible as you would need an army of writers or hardware that could think and produce content on demand like an electronic and superfast GM. In the future maybe but it doesn't exist yet
I love your optimism To create the kind of story that you are talking about though would require more than a dozen writers and many years of development, not to mention quantum computers that could intelligently react to the players decisions. A non-linear storyline by definition would have an infinate number of possibilities and the hardware just does not exist yet that can deliver that. The story as is would need to be much larger and longer than all the SP games as it has to keep people playing for a lot longer in an MMO, 80 hours or so just wouldn't cut it in the MMO genre. That said however it is still impossible to stay ahead of the players as some will still power through it at breakneck speeds, reaching level cap in a week or so as with all other MMO's.
They want you to be the hero but again this idea falls flat on it's face because when you reach the end there are a few thousand others that have already done the same thing you just completed. The only way around this is to have a unique story for each player and again, that's impossible as you would need an army of writers or hardware that could think and produce content on demand like an electronic and superfast GM. In the future maybe but it doesn't exist yet
Actually, they -HAVE- more than a dozen writers working on content for this game. There#s a link somewhere to an interview about that.
I agree that -complete- freedom of choice is something you can't have in the games of today, not in the setup that we're talking about, but at least you can have a long long list of variables. Choices leading to different choices leading to more choices. Maybe each time you choose you only have three options, but even then, progressing from zero to top will lead you through many choices and the combinations of those are maybe not infinite, but at least offer abroad variety.
True freedom of choice is something reserved for the future, at least in MMO's. But hey, variety will be good to begin with.
The same blabla as Age of Conan .... You're a hero ... story driven .... bla bla bla ...
Half the AoC players i spoke told me that questing for them in AoC is pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 The only reason they love the main story line quests is for the rewards.
I think only few people have the interest or attention span to read the quest text, all the rest doesn't care and only wants to kill and loot. A "day-in-the-life-of" so to speak.
The same blabla as Age of Conan .... You're a hero ... story driven .... bla bla bla ... Half the AoC players i spoke told me that questing for them in AoC is pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 The only reason they love the main story line quests is for the rewards. I think only few people have the interest or attention span to read the quest text, all the rest doesn't care and only wants to kill and loot. A "day-in-the-life-of" so to speak.
Sorry I laughed out loud at your horrible attempt to bundle SWTOR with AoC. I agree most people(including my self) just pushed 1 over and over, but that was only because it did not matter what line you chose. The fact you say people only did the stories for the loot is the funny part though. I will give you the benefit of the doubt but you obviously never played the game to 80 if you think loot did anything in this game. The loot from the destiny quests gave nothing but garbage and a tiny amount of permanent stat boosts.
No one did the destiny quests for loot, no one did the quests for loot, hell you barely even needed armor to begin with. How can you possibly put SWTOR in the same catagory as AoC knowing this? Please, next time try use something other then your biased opinion.
~ ~
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.
The same blabla as Age of Conan .... You're a hero ... story driven .... bla bla bla ... Half the AoC players i spoke told me that questing for them in AoC is pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 The only reason they love the main story line quests is for the rewards. I think only few people have the interest or attention span to read the quest text, all the rest doesn't care and only wants to kill and loot. A "day-in-the-life-of" so to speak.
Sorry I laughed out loud at your horrible attempt to bundle SWTOR with AoC. I agree most people(including my self) just pushed 1 over and over, but that was only because it did not matter what line you chose. The fact you say people only did the stories for the loot is the funny part though. I will give you the benefit of the doubt but you obviously never played the game to 80 if you think loot did anything in this game. The loot from the destiny quests gave nothing but garbage and a tiny amount of permanent stat boosts.
No one did the destiny quests for loot, no one did the quests for loot, hell you barely even needed armor to begin with. How can you possibly put SWTOR in the same catagory as AoC knowing this? Please, next time try use something other then your biased opinion.
You are correct ..... it is my opinion and it might even be biased, which is not that rare on a forum.
I thought i editted my previous post from rewards into stat-rewards, but it seems i didn't. Indeed armor, and itemisation in general was not that great in AoC. Those epic quests were fun... but the story telling part was 1,1,1,1,1,1,1. Heh, the number of times i've seen people complain on the forums because they selected the wrong stat reward because they were bashing 1 proves my case
What i'm comparing here btw (not categorising, that's your opinion) is the story driven element heroic part , not the game as a whole. In my opinion the few people that care to read the quest, will loose there interest soon ... only a few hardcore readers might actually read it all.
Ps: I'm pleased i could amuse you, i always like to make people laugh
No, we do not know a lot about the game yet, but we do know what we are getting reported.
And those reports indicates strongly that the major focus is on the individual player (you are THE hero) and not on interaction of players (your involvement with other players determine your success). Based on the information given it seems SW:TOR will be another "theme-park" MMO with fancy rides and stories being to told you, and not a virtual universe where stories are what the players make them to be.
is there going to be any crafting, or open professions aside from fighting, player housing, a starwars mmo seems nice, but I dont want it to just be running around and killing stuff, hopefully it will have some more playing options other than fighting.
Don't know why everyone seems to have an issue with the graphics. Reminds me a lot of the "Tales of the Jedi" comics put out by Dark Horse which is where this entire era of SW got it's start.
Comments
Well, give them a chance.. It seems that Lucas has given certain companies a chance, to get it right.. Some have, Some have not. The man made his millions the old way, he had a dream and found people to help his dream come true, and from what I am observing, he want this done right..
Thats really interesting ! where did you experience the Hero Engine if you dont mind me asking ?
I was on the Simutronics team for World Building Hero's Journey, the game yet to be seen. Even though they say they are working on it... they are way more interested in updating and marketing the engine. They found a better path then marketing an MMO. I'm not sure what happened to a lot of the staff but they cut out enough to make it a smaller project than what it started with.
Thanks for the link. That was pretty informational.
An emphasis on story and choice in an MMO? I think I may faint! ..../swoon.
Joined - July 2004
Can i be a creature handler?
Well first off this SW isnt set in the current Star Wars time frame. Its set thousands of yrs before ep1. So Bioware can pretty much go into places and directions that SWG couldnt. As far as story driven goes thats not a bad thing heck look at WoW you could do the story arcs if you wanted to if not that was fine to. Even City of Heros had good story arcs if you so choose to do them as well as LotRO. As long as the world is open ended and you are free to chose what you want or dont want to do there shouldnt be a problem
the more i hear about this game, the more it sounds like something being made for the console kiddies, but will wait and see
I like star wars alot, Kotor alot....and this art style they have adopted, well I wont say its WoWish because everyone says that about everything but I will say that I dont like it, its cartoony, its not gritty enough and its not Star Warsy enough imo.
Star Wars Galxies nailed it imo with the art style. This art style doesnt come anywhere close to what it should of been.
I have alot of faith in Bioware simply because I played alot of their games and they have yet to disappoint. I know alot are excited but it's barely been 24 hours since the announcement. We all will eventually find out the answers to all of our concerns over time. I'm just excited that Bioware will be making this game and not anyone else.
Oh and people complaining that it will not be a sandbox. Let me remind you that one of the main reasons why people played SWG was because they are first and foremost Star Wars fans and it will be one of the main reasons why people will come to play SW:TOR because they are Star Wars fans first.
No matter the spin you put on it, It is a jedi theme park first and formost. Hence Lucas Arts gets the game they want with the appeal to the younger set and MMO veterans get the old finger flag.
I hate to be pessimistic, but honestly BioWare is dead. They were bought out by EA who is just looking for another WoW clone. Look at Mythic and WAR. Mythic made a much better game when they were an indie company. WAR is worse than WoW.
EA+LucasArts=Fail. There is no BioWare. Be fooled if you want. They fooled me with WAR, and it won't happen again.
This is BioWare we're talking about: they specialize in SPRPGs that ROCK. Play the hero and enjoy a kickass movie-script-quality story that you won't soon forget.
Just think, though. They may make good games, but can you really generalize and say that MMOs are just like any other genre? BioWare does single-player stuff very well, but they probably know next to nothing about social mechanics.
My prediction: I half expect this game to fail due to developer inexperience. They will likely release a single player role-playing game with multiplayer capabilities tacked on the side... at the very least. At best, you'll get AoC's player progression time line.
This information scares me; they think to give each player an experience as a hero using story-driven gameplay... in an MMOG. It's a horrible idea to teach players that they're especially unique and important to a plot in a massively multiplayer game when the very nature of this genre does not allow for heroes.
Really, if everyone's "special" in the same way, they're not really that special are they?
Every developer worth his salt knows that you can never satisfy players with raw content for more than a month without throwing in some grinding tasks to stretch it out. So either there will be a lot of heroic fed-ex missions with lightsaber in hand (still a day-in-the-life), or this game is going to last for one month and die abruptly.
1. Blizzard had no experience making mmos prior to WOW so saying the game will fail do to lack of inexperience is way off base.
2. Bioware is listed as one of the best developers in gaming today.
Nothing wrong with voicing your opinions but really we do not even know 3/4th of the info on the game and saying it is going to fail already is just mind boggling.
Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks. Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level. Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story. Call me a cynic but meh!
I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2. No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it. If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.
The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ). The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.
The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.
Actually it is. The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way. Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.
Okay first of all I know what to expect from Bioware so I aint expecting some sort of world simulation MMORPG, but............
That hero thing bothers me abit , maybe it's because I am not limited to MMORPG's but play plenty of other games in different genre's, this means there are already tons and tons of games that offer you to be a hero and MMORPG use to be so much more, sure you could become a hero but all by your own doing and not because the games story is making you one as like I said we have tons of games that catter to that and MMORPG's use to be so much more then that so I am really puzzeld at to why people want to be a hero that is already written instead of creating their own hero source.
The Bioware MMORPG however probebly will be good, it will be nothing like SWG but will be everything Bioware is known for.
Overall only time will tell what the game will be like, maybe it will become awesome to me, maybe not.
The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.
Actually it is. The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way. Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.
That's why I said if your choices -MATTER-. In Mass Effect, your choices didn't matter so much, as in, they always led you down the same path, while they had interesting variations to the linear story.
However if the choices MATTER, as BioWare said they would in this game, that's a different story. I don't know if they will, but after all they HAVE said that they have more Story-Content in this game than in all their SP games combined. So it might work. I am positively hopeful.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.
Actually it is. The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way. Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.
That's why I said if your choices -MATTER-. In Mass Effect, your choices didn't matter so much, as in, they always led you down the same path, while they had interesting variations to the linear story.
However if the choices MATTER, as BioWare said they would in this game, that's a different story. I don't know if they will, but after all they HAVE said that they have more Story-Content in this game than in all their SP games combined. So it might work. I am positively hopeful.
I love your optimism
To create the kind of story that you are talking about though would require more than a dozen writers and many years of development, not to mention quantum computers that could intelligently react to the players decisions. A non-linear storyline by definition would have an infinate number of possibilities and the hardware just does not exist yet that can deliver that. The story as is would need to be much larger and longer than all the SP games as it has to keep people playing for a lot longer in an MMO, 80 hours or so just wouldn't cut it in the MMO genre. That said however it is still impossible to stay ahead of the players as some will still power through it at breakneck speeds, reaching level cap in a week or so as with all other MMO's.
They want you to be the hero but again this idea falls flat on it's face because when you reach the end there are a few thousand others that have already done the same thing you just completed. The only way around this is to have a unique story for each player and again, that's impossible as you would need an army of writers or hardware that could think and produce content on demand like an electronic and superfast GM. In the future maybe but it doesn't exist yet
Actually, they -HAVE- more than a dozen writers working on content for this game. There#s a link somewhere to an interview about that.
I agree that -complete- freedom of choice is something you can't have in the games of today, not in the setup that we're talking about, but at least you can have a long long list of variables. Choices leading to different choices leading to more choices. Maybe each time you choose you only have three options, but even then, progressing from zero to top will lead you through many choices and the combinations of those are maybe not infinite, but at least offer abroad variety.
True freedom of choice is something reserved for the future, at least in MMO's. But hey, variety will be good to begin with.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
The same blabla as Age of Conan .... You're a hero ... story driven .... bla bla bla ...
Half the AoC players i spoke told me that questing for them in AoC is pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 The only reason they love the main story line quests is for the rewards.
I think only few people have the interest or attention span to read the quest text, all the rest doesn't care and only wants to kill and loot. A "day-in-the-life-of" so to speak.
Sorry I laughed out loud at your horrible attempt to bundle SWTOR with AoC. I agree most people(including my self) just pushed 1 over and over, but that was only because it did not matter what line you chose. The fact you say people only did the stories for the loot is the funny part though. I will give you the benefit of the doubt but you obviously never played the game to 80 if you think loot did anything in this game. The loot from the destiny quests gave nothing but garbage and a tiny amount of permanent stat boosts.
No one did the destiny quests for loot, no one did the quests for loot, hell you barely even needed armor to begin with. How can you possibly put SWTOR in the same catagory as AoC knowing this? Please, next time try use something other then your biased opinion.
~ ~
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.
Sorry I laughed out loud at your horrible attempt to bundle SWTOR with AoC. I agree most people(including my self) just pushed 1 over and over, but that was only because it did not matter what line you chose. The fact you say people only did the stories for the loot is the funny part though. I will give you the benefit of the doubt but you obviously never played the game to 80 if you think loot did anything in this game. The loot from the destiny quests gave nothing but garbage and a tiny amount of permanent stat boosts.
No one did the destiny quests for loot, no one did the quests for loot, hell you barely even needed armor to begin with. How can you possibly put SWTOR in the same catagory as AoC knowing this? Please, next time try use something other then your biased opinion.
You are correct ..... it is my opinion
and it might even be biased, which is not that rare on a forum.
I thought i editted my previous post from rewards into stat-rewards, but it seems i didn't. Indeed armor, and itemisation in general was not that great in AoC. Those epic quests were fun... but the story telling part was 1,1,1,1,1,1,1. Heh, the number of times i've seen people complain on the forums because they selected the wrong stat reward because they were bashing 1 proves my case
What i'm comparing here btw (not categorising, that's your opinion) is the story driven element heroic part , not the game as a whole. In my opinion the few people that care to read the quest, will loose there interest soon ... only a few hardcore readers might actually read it all.
Ps: I'm pleased i could amuse you, i always like to make people laugh
No, we do not know a lot about the game yet, but we do know what we are getting reported.
And those reports indicates strongly that the major focus is on the individual player (you are THE hero) and not on interaction of players (your involvement with other players determine your success). Based on the information given it seems SW:TOR will be another "theme-park" MMO with fancy rides and stories being to told you, and not a virtual universe where stories are what the players make them to be.
My spider sense is not tingling over this one.
is there going to be any crafting, or open professions aside from fighting, player housing, a starwars mmo seems nice, but I dont want it to just be running around and killing stuff, hopefully it will have some more playing options other than fighting.
playing eq2 and two worlds
Don't know why everyone seems to have an issue with the graphics. Reminds me a lot of the "Tales of the Jedi" comics put out by Dark Horse which is where this entire era of SW got it's start.