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How TOR's game world should have been
musicmann
Member UncommonPosts: 1,095
Listening to these guys and how they feel about their game world goes a long way into seeing that Bioware cut corners on many aspects in this title. If they would have made the planets with this setup, you would have had a totally different and in my opinion richer game. This is how you create a game world for real open world PVP and exploration.
Comments
hmmm...so....does the world stretch on forever in each direction?
I predict the game shown in the video will tank and hard.
eqnext.wikia.com
I dunno, it might do great. I remember this one game, called Dark and Light that had pretty much the same claims, go anywhere, see the horizon, explore every place. It was the hit of the year if I remember correctly.
On a more serious note, being able to go everywhere, see everything, does not make a game better. Granted SW:TOR has a very weak Open World PvP set, its terribad actually, but again, making the world more open doesn't make it great either. Having a cool setting for your open PvP is just an cool setting for PvP. What have they got that makes anyone want to PvP?
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
What i was trying to convey, is that being able to go anywhere with a world or planets, gives the players a reason to explore. If Bioware truly followed the 4 pillars of mmo's then they would not have made TOR's planets so restrictive. There is little to no exploration value in the game and that's a shame. There are gamers that get into setting out on a journey and just stubble upon things in the game world. Not everything needs to be combat 24 -7 and the lack of a big open world to explore in, makes the game to one sided.
Open PVP is another thing. That should be able to happen anywhere, not just in a specific location. While yes there should be objectives, once again that shouldn't be the end all be all to open PVP. PVP should be able to happen between small parties or guilds anytime or anywhere. Objective open PVP is different and i think something like random bases that are on spawn timers would be interesting. The faction that can capture and hold the base/base's is the objective. Tokens or PVP points can be given out to the winner. Once the base or base's despawn, they spawn back in a random place on random planets.
These are the little things that make communites come together. Being shoeboxed off and seperated from each other on every planet except for 2 little area's is not real open PVP. Just like the 2 devs from Firefall said, the easy route would have been to make a small closed in world that has a few paths to get to the ovjective, even though huge open world design's are much harder, in the end it gives a mmo a real living and breathing atmosphere, something that TOR sadenly lacks.
Swtor would have been so much better if there was an open world. Instead we get Exhaustion Zones and Inaccessible Backdrops. So much for immersion.
Simply put..
It shouldn't of been like it is now. Dead, desolate, cold, empty and rather lifeless in appeal outside of cutscenes and voiceovers. Worst part it can't and won't change; players will be stuck on the rail-coaster of unfun forever in existance of this game..
Some will enjoy, most will not. It's not uncommon but sad for a game with such backing and overall promise..
OH WELL!
NEXT!!!!!
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
Except that it isn't a mmo-rpg. It is a MOFPS from the looks of it and the description on wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefall_(video_game)
Agreed they are passionate about their game world, but if you watch any video blog from a developer you'll see that sort of passion.
The reasons for not having a large and open world are probably due to the cost and having story on the pedestal. They went with many planets with fairly unique visual themes as opposed to maybe 6-8 planets that are very large and open/partially barren. Really though, there are some planets that do feel very open and you can explore what you'd want to in the distance.
Firefall has an open world because it really needs to. You get jetpacks so it would be so wrong to make the levels closed in and and unexplorable.
That and weather systems, day and night cycles and maybe some animal life roaming around the planets. I laughed a good one when on Tatoonine for the first time and hit that exhaustion zone right outside of the main port for the Republic. I mean literally the exhaustion hit within 30 yards or so, shocked me. Yet my character is wearing enviremental combat armor and was on a speeder and could see the jawa crawler in the very near distance. Take the damn npc speeder and it drops you off not to far from that same damn jawa crawler and you can then ride on over there. I kept mumbling WTF to myself, the wife finally told me to hush I was distracting her pvp in WoW. lol
OMFG! Exhaustion Zones LawL... Don't wanna talk about it..
EDIT: Serioulsy tho, they suck
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
Hah, I remember running into that as well. I mean, just... WHY?!?
The environments in SWTOR didn't really feel all that dead to me, just... repetitive, I guess, mainly due to the copy/paste wildlife. The flying mobs on Taris are the same as on Voss (and other worlds), there are nexu on almost every planet, etc. These planets are supposed to be entirely different ecosystems, with potentially completely different evolutionary paths, and Bioware really missed an opportunity to give each one its own unique species' of flora & fauna.
One or two mobs 'exclusive to the planet' is NOT a diverse ecosystem. It's incredibly lazy programming and world design.
I explained that to my son as well, about all the lazy, short cut cut and paste work done in SWTOR as well as the lazy code work left and right that they did. Truly amazed me at how bad it all was and from a company with Biowares reputation. They indeed did miss a golden opportunity to really do this well. Instead they spent most of their money on the VO and cuttaway work, leaving out so much of the meat and potatoes of what make up a good mmo-rpg. SWTOR should be looked at by developers in the future as the example of what not to do.
edit: Bioware joined my short list of developers I'll just watch for a bit before buying anything from them. Like Funcom and a few others.
I try to look on the bright side.
Atleast they are safe from Death Star,ultimate weapon, a space station capable of destroying a planet with one shot of its superlaser.
Even Death Star cant destroy thousands of tiny hubs,most likely cant even target those.
Let's internet
The best thing, ideally, Bio could do is buy the 'Rift' engine and start all over with a totally different philosophy and approach. This approach would focus on actual game design, rather than their own bottle-necked, constrained paradigm.
What the mmo desperate needed was a MASSIVE injection of FREEDOM and CHOICE, and ideally, a total redesign of graphics -- getting rid of the cartoony look and going with 100% realism (Rift as a model). Frankly the mmo is so badly designed, from engine to game philosophy, it doesn't really matter what they do, imo.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
Whoa, wait a minute.
1, Rift is not 100% realism. It's a very stylized game.
2, Though I prefer a more realistic approach, other than personal preference, there really isn't anything wrong with their art design other than some technical nonsense such as those horrible shadows. And that's not really that game breaking.
3, As far as MASSIVE injection of FREEDOM and CHOICE, what game really has that? I mean of the new games? Older games certain seemed to have it but these new games create a very scripted experience, some like it some don't. I say all this because it just seems like you are saying "make it like the old games" and all that means is that "if it was different it would be different". This is a Bioware game. It plays exactly like a Bioware mmo would play. I realize people were shocked by this but frankly that's on them. Nothing plays any differently than one should have expected. Other than having bugs on Ilum.
The game is what it is, whether people like their design or not. Some actually do like it. I'm in the middle though my experience is not the experience of som. Case in point, I've groped more in SWToR than I have in all my years of LOTRO. So I don't experience the "it's a single player game" syndrome. However, within their design there are issues. It's those issues that need to be addressed.
Otherwise what I'm reading from you is "this is not the game i want, Bioware should make a whole new game.
and that's just not going to happen.
This game is exactly what they said it would be. It just needs to be better at their goals.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Let me expand on the Rift component. Apart from the obvious, the structural strata is perfectly designed for "realism". I see in rift the structure and potentiality for an astonishing Star Wars mmo (realtime & over world).
On the other hand, will it happen? No. However, my statement wasn't about communicating a dichotomy of what will and will not be, it was about offering an objective look -- how not to insult your player base.
TOR as an "MMO" was an attempt at making a pellet feeder cash cow, and nothing else. Around every corner TOR insults you, and one is paying for being insulted; now we know what LA really thinks of the player base, and by proxy, Bioware.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
Hmm yep, remember this one too form Dark and Light - weather systems, even had full seasons, snow built up on the ground, lasted for weeks. The animals migrated too, not just the animals but the monsters too.
Xsyon has seasons too, winter lasts way too long there. The animals migrate as well, grow old from young as well. Trees grow.
Now granted Dark and Light is pretty much all promisses and a graphics engine nobody can figure out how to turn into a playable game. But the world is HUGE, not a single place yuo can't go if you wanted to. And Xsyon, while still my favorite sandbox indie out there, does leave some to be desired. My point being, just having an open world to explore, a living breathing world, does not make or break a game.
Take SW:TOR right now. Yes, they could open up more of the planets to explore. And there are places to explore on them now if you are willing to go look. Half the people I hear in game say there is nothign to explore to find have never found a single named champion mob out on the planets which aren't for quests. There are plenty. Plenty of AREA quest regions too, most of them way off the beaten path of normal questing.
Even taking all that into account, you have to look at future expansion possibilities. There is nothign that says they can't open Tatooine up to double its size with expanded territory at any time. Of course if they opened it ALL up right now, to do that they would have to alter the areas everyone already knows (not a big issue, WoW loves this theory). Or, they could just add it all in on the side of what is there already. On Hoth, that would make it take 8-10 days to find and do EVERYTHING on its surface instead of the 4-5 days it takes now. Seriously, some of the planets are already big enough size wise. Give them a chance to add in more where they want to.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
Wow...
Ord Mandell... I was liike, 'the Ocean is only two feet deep, how could I be exhausted...?"
I got there with DA:O. Lot of backstory to it with my being on the forums pretty constantly from 1998 through 2005... And BioWare, despite asking for fan input, simply shot it all down.:
People wanted fantasy without dwarves and elves. Nope, you will have dwarves and elves sayeth BioWare.
People wanted to get off the rails. Nope, you will be on rails sayeth BioWare.
People want to be able to go to any world zone in any order. Nope, you will only get to go to places we allow vis our plot critical path sayeth BioWare.
People want to be able to jump and freely navigate on outdoor maps. Nope, you may not jump or freely navigate sayeth BioWare.
Now they're copying elements/concepts from Skyrim for DA3... http://tinyurl.com/d76tpny
“[The next Dragon Age] is gonna have the best of features from the prior Dragon Age games, but it’s also gonna have a lot of things I think players are gonna find compelling from some of the games that are out now that are doing really well with more of an open world feel,” Muzyka said.
“We’re checking [Skyrim] out aggressively. We like it. We’re big admirers of [Bethesda] and the product,” he said. “We think we can do some wonderful things.”
SEVEN YEARS after I, and hundreds of other gamers, bothered them for years for some originality, freedom, and competent level design in the making of DA:O. And while I'm sure many carried on after DA:O's release, I didn't. I just stopped buying their games or bought them bargain bin. I'm not paying full retail for one of their games until they prove they can put out quality products.
But what do you expect from a Company that after taking one of it's old games, recycling the assets, patching on a crap story, gutting and dumbing-down it's RPG AND COMBAT systems, would have the gall to call it 'innovative:'
Muzyka acknowledged that polarization, saying that although he is proud of the Dragon Age II team and the innovations it brought to the table, he is listening closely to fan reactions for the next game in the series.
I keep asking, what innovations? Because all I saw was gutted combat. Gutted RPG. Gutted companions. Stories on rails. Recycled assets from DA:O that were also constantly recycled as combat areas... What is to be proud of? The worst selling BioWare game since they developed MDK2, one of the games that destroyed Interplay?
And when does a leader copy? Leaders don't copy. Suits copy. Suits without a creative idea between them. Copy. Paste. Copy. Paste. Just like they stole the ending from Deus Ex for ME3.
I have to agree with Sov here, SWTOR is an extension of what we saw in Kotar and other bioware games with added grouping (i have gouped more in this game than any other mmo) and other mmo elements in it. This is what Bioware does, I love the fact that they combined their single player rpg goodness into an mmo and I look forward ( the game has only been out for a short period of time) to other refinements (fleshed out space game) and further story lines. I think many people went into this thinking this was going to be completely different than what Bioware always does, why they thought that is beyond me. I was expecting a combo of baldurs gate, dragon age, me1, 2 all morphed into a vision of what Bioware thinks an mmo should be and I was rewarded as such
When the long term beta testers were telling bio that the "mmo" is going to flop and others couldn't find the desire to even download the latest beta build... should have have signaled somthing? Moreover, other comments were peppered with "I've cancled my order".
Since launch, Bioware certinly fired everyone from the original development team they could seem to find, and others have serendipitously "left the project".
Now when you have a 200 to 300 million dollar investment, is it logical to take such a learning disabled approch? Bioware had the hubris of not listening, and got wrapped up in that they "thought they knew", rather than what the evidence was showing. This has the finger prints of lucas arts all over it.
The fact of the matter is Bio / LA thought they could design an MMO and take the human element out of the equation. They didn't want you to have an impact on the game world whatever, thusly they could do everything on the cheap going forward. But they discovered the rats were a little smater than they thought.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
On the contrary...
Dark and Light was one of those games that is attractive to some. Sandbox, fully open world with nothing to do kind of game. It obviously crashed and burned rapidly.
eqnext.wikia.com
It sounds like you are over thinking the process, Bioware did what Bioware does best, there are going to be many who apprecaite it and some who dont. Take Eve for example, I cant stand that game, I dont like looking at little dots on a black screen, it is not a game to me, more of like a chat room with the game a secondary experience. Yet there are many who love the game, to each his own I guess. I am glad Bioware did what it does best because I like Bioware games-nuff said
A lot of TOR's harshest critics are Bioware fans. I know I am. A top 10 list of PC games, Bioware earns at least 3 of those titles no doubt. This game certainly was not "what Bioware does best." The writing wasn't inspired. The VO was good, but grew old. Hell, even in their single player games on occasion I will be spacebarring through the VO, especially if I've played the game more than once. The "story" such as it is, only is going to make up around 5% of a players time in an MMO, even this one.