Originally posted by ktanner3 The genre actually advances forward. Players will no longer accept boring leveling and will force companies to recognize the rpg in mmorpg. This forum gains a lifetime supply of haters who will forever curse bioware for ruining "their" genre.
Made me laugh, since leveling in swtor is one of the most boring things I've ever done.
I love how the people who claim star wars has no innovation refuse to acknowledge the trutht, That full voiced story based mmo with choice, and companions are all innovations
they dont change combat or the basic controls but they are innovations
The problem with this forum is people refuse to acknowledge innovation in mmo;s unless its gw 2
Rift was the first mmo with dynamic events and it was just a wow clone that didnt nothing diffrent, Tor brings story, choice, companions and new take on crafting and they still refuse to acknowledge it
So the haters iwll flame this post cause most tor fans like me are playing. Im surfing a bit before i go play.
That said sandbox games arent going anywhere if tor is succesful. Some one maybe archage just needs to get those sandbox fans to actually support it. When that happens when sandbox fans find a game they support and put there backing behind u will see more devs make good sandbox games
You want SWTOR haters to acknowledge the innovations that SWTOR is bringing to the genre, but then you turn around and say something like that Rift did dynamic events first. If you want people to learn about your game, then it probably would be wise to learn about other games in return. Rift has their own form of dynamic content, but it's absolutely nothing like GW2's dynamic events system.
I'm about as big as GW2 fan you'll find around here, but I'll be the first to acknowledge SWTOR's innovations. The problem for me, and the thing that keeps me from being able to play SWTOR, is that I don't think they're enough.
Traditional quests to this point have had a ton of issues; wall of text presentation, individually unimportant when having 20-30 in your log, linear progression, isolating due to needing to be on the same step, having to pick up and turn in, no credit if you do it before receiving, no partial credit, competition for spawns, unscaling when grouped, generally unrepeatable, generally unfailable, higher levels trivializing content, lack of impact on the world.
SWTOR attempts to solve some of these problems. Full VO cutscenes are vastly better than wall of text. Class story makes some quests very important, social points mitigate isolationism, different outcomes give impact (or illusion of impact). The issue though for me is that they're still quests. One of my biggest pet peeves is when you do a bunch of quests in one area, return to the hubs and then find out you missed one and you have to go back to where you just were. That's the kind of thing that can still happen in SWTOR, it happened to me in beta.
As far as companions go, they're a very nice touch, but at the same time I don't think they're as good as they could be, such as having everybody running around with the same one. There's innovation in the crafting (components especially), but at the same time I can't help look at it like, "traditional crafting is boring, lets have companions do it while people adventure." Not a dropped ball, but not a home run for me either.
To bring this thread back around to being directly on topic, it's just me, but I value innovation so highly when it comes to new releases. To me, Rift was like "WoW + 2 things" (rifts and soul system). SWTOR is like "WoW + I dunno, 10 things". I don't want to see games continue with a WoW base and innovate and iterate with that as a starting point. I'm a GW2 fan but I don't think that's the end all be all game either. I don't want to see a bunch of GW2 clones in 5 years. What I want is the lessons future developers take is that you have to do your own thing. If SWTOR is a hit, I can see developers saying that they just need a big IP, a big name developer, and a bunch of money, and we'll make a SWTOR clone, but with better camera angles and more customizable companions, and a stripped down talent system because that is where WoW is now, etc etc...
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
SWTOR and GW2 will both flop because they have innovations in pve not pvp. All the new mmos are coming out with "dynamic" events which doesnt really interest me with single player rpg elements in an mmo. A real "next gen" mmo to me would be an mmo with only players, no npcs.
1. Well, I imagine their would be improvements where the choices really do matter for quests, atleast a lot more than now. Grouping would be made more friendly...Everything would be VO...
2. I think all the VO stuff makes mmos even more restrictive if a indie startup were to try to make a mmo, so we would lose even more choices. We would go through 5-8 more years rail like questing in most mmos. Pets replace real people, and games probably become close to SPRPG.
I just don't see it being a model, I think VO is the 'it' thing now, but I think it will be a fad to be used so extensively. Imagine what kind of new things, space combat, etc could be in swtor, if they spent the VO money on more game play choices and in game content...I mean its different, but I just wonder what could of been. I know some love it, i think its kind of mehhh...I get a little more enjoyment out of it, but probably not the amount equal to what I would out of the content that could of been.
Imagine for a moment if SWTOR becomes the new "Model" for future AAA MMO releases . . .
1. What does the MMORPG Genre Gain ?
The extensive use of voice-overs ? (too expensive for most developers).
"Personalised" gameplay with a storyline tailored to the specific "track" that the player chooses in the game ?
The "everybody wins" playstyle, where each participant in a raid or group instance gets their own "boss chest drops"
A new crop of poorly developed, badly financed and half finished MMO's from independant developers who hope to provide an alternative to the BIG TWO. Unless MMO players universally reject the "flash and polish" of the big titles, these indie games limp along with less than 20K subs.
2. What does the MMORPG Genre Lose ?
Diversity. If there are two 500-pound gorillas in the room (WoW and SWTOR), nothing else will be able to survive the onslaught. Financial backers will finally be convinced that these 2 games provide the "true" model for good financial returns. And sadly, they will probably be correct.
All hope of ever creating open-ended virtual worlds where players actually shape their own destiny. At least for the next 5-10 years ?
3. Can Bioware stay ahead of all its clones like Blizzard did with WoW and why ?
Most probably, yes. SWTOR is argueably the pinnacle of the themepark model's evolution. It has the accessability, easy gameplay and general quality that WoW is renowned for, plus the glitz of full voice-overs, cutscenes and class-specific storylines. And the huge StarWars IP.
SWTOR will not be copied for any other reason than it would be too expensive to risk it.
as its extremely unlikely now that SW;TOR will be the run away success that WoW was, its a bit of a moot point, at the moment the only question is whether or not its success or failure, and that won't be known for sure for several months, if SW;TOR does have any effect on future MMO's i would say that it might well mean that future MMO's will have more diversity, gameplay over 'features' etc..
SWTOR is destined to sell at least two million copies just because it's "Bioware". EA could poop in a bucket and put Bioware logo on it and people would mass around going "Oh Oh I TAKE TWELVE!!!" ...wait,..that already happened! (Dragon age 2)
SWTOR is destined to sell at least two million copies just because it's "Bioware". EA could poop in a bucket and put Bioware logo on it and people would mass around going "Oh Oh I TAKE TWELVE!!!" ...wait,..that already happened! (Dragon age 2)
DA2... how many people bought that game thinking that it was a continuation or at least, more of the same, that Dragon Age;Origins was... luckily i caught the reviews and managed to avoid that mistake, my only fear is that Mass Effect 3 is going to be the Mass Effect version of DA2... when you compare Mass Effect 1 and 2, 1 is definitely the better game... imo.. there is nothing worse than a sequalitis that has run out of steam.. and ME3's addition of multiplayer combat, could be a huge sticking plaster over the games other 'discrepencies' ... a few months ago i would have said ME3 was a sure thing in terms of purchase.. now.. im going to wait and see. As for SW;TOR... don't think i'll ever get it.. even a F2P version is a bit of a stretch...
Alot of blah blah blah from the usual MMORPG.com whiney blah blahers I see. Basically TOR makes all previous MMOs feel crude and obsolete. The days of NPCs standing there like a questbot statue are probably over.
Lol, so no day-night cycle, no swimming and non-interactive statue NPCs are the next step forward? Jeez UO's towns looked more lively than SW:TOR's cities of the dead.
Sorry, but to me it is SW:TOR that looks crude and obsolete compared even to 8 year old titles.
The only revolutionary features SWTOR brings to the table are cutscenes between each kill-10-rats quest and the fact that each and every sword in the game is a GLOWY SWORD omgosh!!!!! It definitely has an edge over WoW in the glowy swords department but that's pretty much it.
I had to lmfao at the above quote,is he talking about another MMO because SWTOR is as static and lifeless as they come.A standard hybrid of co-op and single player RPG.Just follow the story line that is really your standard quest system and forget about the drap photoshop world painted on in the background.Forget the laughable mobs and NPC ai and the bad dated graphics,it's all about the quest npc and the pointless decisions that don't actually do anything other than turn your screen blue or red.
Imagine for a moment if SWTOR becomes the new "Model" for future AAA MMO releases . . .
1. What does the MMORPG Genre Gain ?
Another 10 years of recycled mechanics that were already old with WoW
2. What does the MMORPG Genre Lose ?
Creativity and room for inovation
3. Can Bioware stay ahead of all its clones like Blizzard did with WoW and why ?
Of course it can, untill something even more polished comes out, around 2020.
Curious what people think...
SWTOR being significantly big spells doom for any kind of diversity in the MMO industry, because having one dominant of anything is bad, its always bad.
Exactly this, no question.
Played: Asheron's Call(still the best fantasy MMO!), EQ1, EQ2, Vanguard, DAoC, Horizons, City of Heroes/Villians, WoW (crap), LOTORO, D&D Online, Eve, Anarchy Online, and still playing SWG daily.
SWTOR and GW2 will both flop because they have innovations in pve not pvp. All the new mmos are coming out with "dynamic" events which doesnt really interest me with single player rpg elements in an mmo. A real "next gen" mmo to me would be an mmo with only players, no npcs.
My second lmfao in this thread.I don't know if you would call GW2 pvp inovative but perhaps you need to actually read up a bit more on GW2 and a bit on DAOC.
Imagine for a moment if SWTOR becomes the new "Model" for future AAA MMO releases . . .
1. What does the MMORPG Genre Gain ?
2. What does the MMORPG Genre Lose ?
3. Can Bioware stay ahead of all its clones like Blizzard did with WoW and why ?
Curious what people think...
1. Simplistic always 3 options dialogues?
2. RPG feeling in sense of PLAYING a ROLE in a WORLD. Western Mmorpg's will start to evolve even further into single player (with co-op in instances) experience. Feeling of virtual world and interdependancies between players will be lost for another 7 years. More single player, individual experience. Less MMO and world experience. Most important though is lost of innovation. Same old 'WoW-like' just with VO this time.
3. Apart of Activision-Blizzard no company will propably risk kind of money was put in Swtor. So less western big budget mmorpg's.
You know alot of people complain about lack of innovation and using same tired mechanics...Well if it ain't broke dont fix it.
Lets take a look at sqaure softs final fantasy series. After the flop of x2 and the rather dismal performace of the mmo, they came out with another console game that changed the game play mechanic. And Ruined the game for 80% of its player base. While inovations may seem like a good idea, they tend to bring more issues then they are worth.
While people compare the mechanics of wow as outdated they work well...However Lets look at the at other mechanics to see if they worked....Conan, had to go f2p, dc universe went f2p,
Most of the time players ask for all these things but when they get them they end up not playing it thus a company is more likely to stick with what works then what is new.
Except that every Final Fantasy title since the first one has changed major aspects compared to their predecessors. Most of the time, they still feel like Final Fantasy, but not similar enough that anyone in their right mind would call them "clones".
As it stands now, if we base on how Final Fantasy has performed, it argues that implementing innovations can sometimes be risky and cause backlash from the fans, but most of the time works out more than fine and makes the game stand out and more refreshing.
Comments
Made me laugh, since leveling in swtor is one of the most boring things I've ever done.
You want SWTOR haters to acknowledge the innovations that SWTOR is bringing to the genre, but then you turn around and say something like that Rift did dynamic events first. If you want people to learn about your game, then it probably would be wise to learn about other games in return. Rift has their own form of dynamic content, but it's absolutely nothing like GW2's dynamic events system.
I'm about as big as GW2 fan you'll find around here, but I'll be the first to acknowledge SWTOR's innovations. The problem for me, and the thing that keeps me from being able to play SWTOR, is that I don't think they're enough.
Traditional quests to this point have had a ton of issues; wall of text presentation, individually unimportant when having 20-30 in your log, linear progression, isolating due to needing to be on the same step, having to pick up and turn in, no credit if you do it before receiving, no partial credit, competition for spawns, unscaling when grouped, generally unrepeatable, generally unfailable, higher levels trivializing content, lack of impact on the world.
SWTOR attempts to solve some of these problems. Full VO cutscenes are vastly better than wall of text. Class story makes some quests very important, social points mitigate isolationism, different outcomes give impact (or illusion of impact). The issue though for me is that they're still quests. One of my biggest pet peeves is when you do a bunch of quests in one area, return to the hubs and then find out you missed one and you have to go back to where you just were. That's the kind of thing that can still happen in SWTOR, it happened to me in beta.
As far as companions go, they're a very nice touch, but at the same time I don't think they're as good as they could be, such as having everybody running around with the same one. There's innovation in the crafting (components especially), but at the same time I can't help look at it like, "traditional crafting is boring, lets have companions do it while people adventure." Not a dropped ball, but not a home run for me either.
To bring this thread back around to being directly on topic, it's just me, but I value innovation so highly when it comes to new releases. To me, Rift was like "WoW + 2 things" (rifts and soul system). SWTOR is like "WoW + I dunno, 10 things". I don't want to see games continue with a WoW base and innovate and iterate with that as a starting point. I'm a GW2 fan but I don't think that's the end all be all game either. I don't want to see a bunch of GW2 clones in 5 years. What I want is the lessons future developers take is that you have to do your own thing. If SWTOR is a hit, I can see developers saying that they just need a big IP, a big name developer, and a bunch of money, and we'll make a SWTOR clone, but with better camera angles and more customizable companions, and a stripped down talent system because that is where WoW is now, etc etc...
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
SWTOR and GW2 will both flop because they have innovations in pve not pvp. All the new mmos are coming out with "dynamic" events which doesnt really interest me with single player rpg elements in an mmo. A real "next gen" mmo to me would be an mmo with only players, no npcs.
If it sticks then I will look forward to all the QQ on this site.
1. Well, I imagine their would be improvements where the choices really do matter for quests, atleast a lot more than now. Grouping would be made more friendly...Everything would be VO...
2. I think all the VO stuff makes mmos even more restrictive if a indie startup were to try to make a mmo, so we would lose even more choices. We would go through 5-8 more years rail like questing in most mmos. Pets replace real people, and games probably become close to SPRPG.
I just don't see it being a model, I think VO is the 'it' thing now, but I think it will be a fad to be used so extensively. Imagine what kind of new things, space combat, etc could be in swtor, if they spent the VO money on more game play choices and in game content...I mean its different, but I just wonder what could of been. I know some love it, i think its kind of mehhh...I get a little more enjoyment out of it, but probably not the amount equal to what I would out of the content that could of been.
If SWTOR doesn't stick, I will eat your hat, my hat and everyone else's hat. It cannot fail unless the developers do something really, really stupid.
as its extremely unlikely now that SW;TOR will be the run away success that WoW was, its a bit of a moot point, at the moment the only question is whether or not its success or failure, and that won't be known for sure for several months, if SW;TOR does have any effect on future MMO's i would say that it might well mean that future MMO's will have more diversity, gameplay over 'features' etc..
SWTOR is destined to sell at least two million copies just because it's "Bioware". EA could poop in a bucket and put Bioware logo on it and people would mass around going "Oh Oh I TAKE TWELVE!!!" ...wait,..that already happened! (Dragon age 2)
DA2... how many people bought that game thinking that it was a continuation or at least, more of the same, that Dragon Age;Origins was... luckily i caught the reviews and managed to avoid that mistake, my only fear is that Mass Effect 3 is going to be the Mass Effect version of DA2... when you compare Mass Effect 1 and 2, 1 is definitely the better game... imo.. there is nothing worse than a sequalitis that has run out of steam.. and ME3's addition of multiplayer combat, could be a huge sticking plaster over the games other 'discrepencies' ... a few months ago i would have said ME3 was a sure thing in terms of purchase.. now.. im going to wait and see. As for SW;TOR... don't think i'll ever get it.. even a F2P version is a bit of a stretch...
Lol, so no day-night cycle, no swimming and non-interactive statue NPCs are the next step forward? Jeez UO's towns looked more lively than SW:TOR's cities of the dead.
Sorry, but to me it is SW:TOR that looks crude and obsolete compared even to 8 year old titles.
The only revolutionary features SWTOR brings to the table are cutscenes between each kill-10-rats quest and the fact that each and every sword in the game is a GLOWY SWORD omgosh!!!!! It definitely has an edge over WoW in the glowy swords department but that's pretty much it.
Exactly this, no question.
Played: Asheron's Call(still the best fantasy MMO!), EQ1, EQ2, Vanguard, DAoC, Horizons, City of Heroes/Villians, WoW (crap), LOTORO, D&D Online, Eve, Anarchy Online, and still playing SWG daily.
1. Simplistic always 3 options dialogues?
2. RPG feeling in sense of PLAYING a ROLE in a WORLD. Western Mmorpg's will start to evolve even further into single player (with co-op in instances) experience. Feeling of virtual world and interdependancies between players will be lost for another 7 years. More single player, individual experience. Less MMO and world experience. Most important though is lost of innovation. Same old 'WoW-like' just with VO this time.
3. Apart of Activision-Blizzard no company will propably risk kind of money was put in Swtor. So less western big budget mmorpg's.
Except that every Final Fantasy title since the first one has changed major aspects compared to their predecessors. Most of the time, they still feel like Final Fantasy, but not similar enough that anyone in their right mind would call them "clones".
As it stands now, if we base on how Final Fantasy has performed, it argues that implementing innovations can sometimes be risky and cause backlash from the fans, but most of the time works out more than fine and makes the game stand out and more refreshing.
looses or gains nothing at all since "swtor model" is the same model of every other diablo/WoW/blizzard-style pretend-mmo out there
the genre is almost completely dead, because of them. And TOR is probably the deathblow to an already bed-ridden sick genre.
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