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Common (or not) MMO features that shall not be in TOR (at least at launch)
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The only things that bother me from this list are:
1. No swimming. I just like freedom in games. I hated the fact that you couldn't jump in GW1 and this is along those lines. I don't like to have a lot of "invisible walls."
2. Third Party Addons. This is too be expected I guess, but one of my favorite parts of WoW was all of the awesome UI addons that you can get. It's almost a game in and of itself. But I can live without this all the same.
3. Dual Spec. I love flexibility, and I worry that not being able to have a dual spec will limit that. However, this all depends on how the class system is designed.
4. Space combat in general. I don't like the idea of the whole Star Fox minigame. It just feels...disjointed from the rest of the MMORPG. I would have liked space flight/combat to fit within the world rather than just being an arcade game. I have always felt that space flight/combat is a huge part of the Star Wars universe, so yeah, it does suck to just have it be a minigame that is "tacked on."
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I just gotta add here..Ok yeah i played SWG yeah i liked it sandbox features,but i also stopped paying for it not when the game was changed to pre-Cu, i stopped when they started listening to imginary focus groups and stopped listening to the community as whole.
I don't get why kotor fanbois persist with this SWG 2.0 which is humerous at best when someone suggest a sandbox like feature. I have seen them flame a guy that asked for such on the TOR forums and he was in to EVE never played SWG but they got his post locked.
People need to just relax becuase many people from many games will play TOR and flaming them with generic reply's that assume they are all hardcore SWG people is sad at best attempt to flame someone that has a viewpoint that is contrary to your own.
I think it will be a good game and flaming me for playing game called SWG is not going to stop me from running raids and playing TOR. fanbois needs to grow a few hairs and just chill man.
Have you ever made a dish where you're trying to follow a recipe to the letter and someone starts putting in ingredients that they think should go in even before the dish is ready to taste? This is what we are trying to get across. See how the dish turns out first BEFORE you go throwing in crap you think is good all willy-nilly. Most of the time you'll end up ruining it before it's finish.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Good advice. I'd expand that advice and recommend that SWTOR critics grow a few hairs and just relax and accept that SWTOR is what it is, a themepark MMO, and either give it a try or move on when they find it's not a gametype they like.
Oh, and I' advise them to follow their own recommendations and stop automatically concluding that people are 'KOTOR fanbois' or 'TOR fanbois' in general, because hey, it has to come from both sides, eh?
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."
Those limitations also exist to make Bioware's life easier in terms of development, regardless of what Lucas put into the cantina scene. Also, keep in mind that this game is set thousands of years BEFORE that cantina scene and before any of the events in any of the films. Some of those wilder species may not exist or may not have been discovered yet.
Plus, let's face it-- aside from something entirely CGI generated, most of the races shown in the films were "human" with different color schemes, tails on their heads, or whatever.
Humanoid characters all have the same basic skeleton underneath them. This makes the animators happy, and makes the programming of the game smoother, especially in terms of combat. This is a GOOD thing. Sure, you can't play some weird arachnoid type race or whatever, but unless you've got a working encyclopedic knowledge of every single race and every single planet in the Star Wars universe, few people are going to care.
Just to add to that, players are paying for a service.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
For me seeing a body of water and not being able to swim or dive is very frustrating. Also not seeing water at all (no i don't mean a "desert world")
A static sun/moon will be also frustrating.
Those are not "fluff" features, they are importante features that I don't understand how Bioware can dismiss them so lightly.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
To me, there is a big difference between I hate x feature in TOR becasue it is not sandbox vs I think feature x from a sandbox game would be cool in TOR.
A lot of times someone that wants sandbox features starts out with the negative and how the game will fail because it will not have sanbox features. Try stating the sandbox feature without the negative and I bet a good discussion will occure. Some sandbox features could fit in the game as a hybrid. But you have to allow for things you don't like as well.
An example is the limitations because of the story based game play. Lack of sandbox choice with skills, classes, races, weapons and so on are because of the story based themepark approach. If those could be overlooked, but a teritorial control aspect could be added or meaningful polictical features for end game could be added. That would be a way to become a hybrid.
So discussions about sandbox features would be great. But a full on negative bash because the game will not be a sandbox will never work.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
You do have a very valid point.
Both sandbox and themed park games can be improved by implementing tweaked features from each others.
Some people have been advocating the renewal of MMO lies somewhere in between both: a themed sandbox. That's what I hoped TOR would turn out. It obviously did not.
I agree, though I think we're more likely to get a sandy themepark than a themed sandbox
. I think that GW2 is going in this direction with their dynamic events. Because, even though they are scripted, they offer a more "open world" experience than typical exclamation point quests do.
Also, dynamic events "happen" to "the world" whereas exclamation point quests happent to "the player." So dynamic events are closer to the whole "virtual world" thing that sandboxes stand for.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
As an extremely experienced mmo vet i can say with great confidence that there cant be a TRUE next gen MMO game until the themed and sandbox are united into one epic universal graphical game world with an FPS type combat system, ummm and the very thought of a dev team actually combining these elements successfully is absolutely mind boggling and i wouldnt look for it to happen any time soon..
As far as TOR goes i think most of us know this game isnt bringing anything really new or exciting but it is being developed by the legendary bioware so it should be fun even if for only a short time..
Playing GW2..
You should check planetside 2 for sure.
good list.
Add to this the draconian restrictions on gear and appearence, alongside a cookie cutter MMO build, and I am starting to wonder where all the time and money has with this game.
Those voice actors must be expensive.
The companions (despite their limitations) and story areas/ multi conversations are the only interesting part of this game to me. The rest is pretty lacking.
Naah, this is just another case (again) of not paying attention to the information available and only seeing/reading what someone wants to read.
As for what can cost a lot of money: how about bucketloads of content, more than most other themepark based MMO's have, in some cases even a multitude of the amount of content of those MMO's? Or how about 13 planets that each one comes already close to the whole ingame world of Rift and taken all together is quite a lot larger than even a WoW or LotrO were at their launch (or even now)? And we're talking handcrafted and diverse here, not procedurally generated or huge barren lands as seen in some former MMO's.
I'd say that those are valid and understandable reasons enough for the higher costs, it's a size matter and SWTOR will be huge.
If you can't live without all the SWG-similar features and stuff, I'd advise to move along and try to find another MMO that fits that specific taste more, constant whining about it won't change the situation as is.
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."
Every thread Maverick... every thread. I am suprised you even get the chance to play MMOs lol, forums seem to be more your hobby. I never mentioned SWG, thats you assuming and imposing what you want me to be saying onto my post (again... I seem to be able to point this out in every post you make to me).
To be clear, the usual statements for you, because you seem to forget what i type in between each of the threads- I never mentioned SWG because I didnt like SWG, I don't yearn for it in this game. I like themepark games as well as ones with more open sandbox elements, I think a well made themepark is a good thing. I don't want TOR to be anything except for what it aims to be- a well made, interesting, and fun themepark. I don't need your clarifications and, to be frank, your 'advice' to 'move along' isnt required or welcome.
But anyhow, that aside...
'Bucket loads'? well, thats partially true.It's good that they have put in a quest line for each class, but thats hardly 'bucket loads of content' imo. Just to be clear, what is your defintion of 'bucket loads' in terms of playing hours?
Have had a chance to measure the SWtoR world yet then? Or are you just basing everything you say here off pre launch spin?
You didn't mention SWG but the OP did with summing up a number of features that are SWG specific and mainly/mostly seen in SWG. A large group of them you won't find in most other current themepark MMO's as well. So that had nothing to do with you. If people are looking for those features up to the point that most of their MMO enjoyment is bled dry without them, then SWTOR won't be a game for them. That's my opinion and I'll keep voicing it.
As for these forums, yep, I find them hugely entertaining, that's why I visit them, stop trying to get all offended and indignant every time I respond upon 1 of your posts, it's getting tiresome and annoying and frankly, the way you do it is rather petty, so get over it
For those who paid attention, they've also implemented Heroic quests, World Arcs (stated to be 'tens of hours of gameplay' per faction for each of the 13 planets = 26 * 20+ hours = over 560 hours) and mentioned 200 hours of gameplay to reach level cap and over thousand hours of gameplay when taken all the questing content together for all the classes. To compare: in Rift you'll have reached level cap in 125-150 hours and then you'll have done about 50% of the total available questing content ingame. So 8 classes with unique questing content up to level cap, Group Quest content that's often enough for you to level on without having to do solo quests, additional World Arc and World Quest content and all this unique for both sides, I'd consider that bucketloads of questing/leveling content indeed, compared with other themepark based MMORPG's.
As for the planets, yes, I did manage to measure a number of the planets based upon available footage, so far it is in line with what the BW devs have been stating about their planets (normal planets at least 4 times larger than the largest Origin World, planets amounting to 7-8 average WoW zones, etc). It's not that hard a thing to do, in the same way I've already found out that GW2 is roughly 1.25-1.5 the size of WoW vanilla when it comes to explorable area, even if GW2 hasn't been launched yet.
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."
Swimming will not be in TOR for ship. It is not a 'free feature' we turned off and is actually a huge amount of animation, pathfinding and AI work. Either every creature in the game needs to have water moving/fighting animations and AI to handle 3D movement or combat has to stop in the water with all the AI craziness that having safe zones you can jump in and out of entails. We have nothing against swimming but it’s never going to outrank improving combat, Companion AI or any of our other core features.
This is such a ludicrous statement. This is why MMOS fail so fast. MMOs are supposed to be about immersion before super stylized combat and companions. COMPANIONS? MMOs are about being a champion, not about having a bunch of tools do things for you. I will probably still play this game cuz im a glutten for punishment I guess .. but with statements like this .. the genre is in a sad state.
To be clear .. I don't care so much about swimming .. but this mentality which extends to every part of the NWO of MMOs is sickening.
I can't believe talking npcs is more important than any of these other countless core MMO features ... let alone space combat .. in a FRIGGIN STAR WARS game .. mind boggling. Not only was text fine .. but I am one of the few people out there who ever actually cared what any of it said. It makes my eyeballs puke to think someone in charge of star wars thinks cute accents is more important than spaceships.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Take it up with George Lucas. If he hated what Bioware was doing with Star Wars, he wouldn't have a problem pulling the license.
I signed up on the SWTOR site Oct 2008. Since then I have been amazed at the sheer amount of time/energy people have put into finding things wrong with this game. Esp when you consider most of the haters have either never seen it or have played it for 30 mins at a convention.
This seems to be just another attempt to find fault with a game that has yet to let us behind the curtain.
Lost faith in George a long time ago .. stupid alien sidekicks and whiny goth boy vader, sucked.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
In the same vein I'm amazed how much has been sacrified on the story altar too.
You guys keep talking about pod racing...you mean swoop racing, right? The KOTOR games had swoop racing. Pod racing is from that God-awful movie whose name I refuse to mention ;-)
Personally I'd love to see minigames like swoop racing and pazaak added but I won't be devestated if it's something that isn't included at launch. As for a lot of the other "common" features mentioned by the OP, these features were not present in the single player KOTOR games and those were still awesome.
I think people need to stop judging a game by how it measures up to another game and instead by how the game stands in it's own light. Otherwise we would never get anything new or innovative in the genre because developers would just be immitating whatever is popular. Come to think of it, I think that's what's been happening for several years now. That's probably why the genre has become so stagnant.
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Sacrificed implys that it was there in the beginning. This is not SWG, there is no universal declaration of Star Wars IP Game features, BioWare has not strayed from the experience they said they were going to give.
Hate story all you want, but without having played the game yet, that hate is somewhat irrational.
Those movies don't even exists for me either
And I was speaking about... both!
All 6 Star Wars movies are great movies! Yes, Empire Strikes Back is the best of them all. But they are all great so get over yourselves and your nerdletism and just admit it.