So the author of the article is miffed cause TOR is an evolution and not a revolution? The road is littered with games with revolutionary features that just weren't fun for most people. Warhammer's RvR zones were fun for me but a lot of people hated them. Guild Wars' heavy instancing gets a lot of hate. SWG had sandbox elements but the rest of the game had issues.
All mainstream MMOs have evolved the game before them, not revolutionized the genre. Ultima evolved MUD gaming. EQ evolved 2d Ultima to 3d. WoW evolved ease-of-use, graphics, and quest variety from EQ. There were other games with more revolutionary features but they never made it mainstream. To be honest, it's cool to try out those games with revolutionary features, but I usually prefer the game with the heavy polish that has just evolved from another mainstream game.
Ultima wasn't revolutionary at its time? Technically it would have have NwN that evolved muds, but thats here nor there.
You don't think EQ brought a whole lot to the table that UO didnt have? Even DAoC gave MMOs faction warfare, that game did pretty well in its time. EvE, for an indie company, that game is doing absolutley great imo. I wouldn't consider any of these game heavily polished, and/or a slight evolution of it predesessor...
I don't think its games with revolutionary features that are the problem. How many times have we seen games with the "wow clone" fall by the wayside? Wether that title is deserved or not, I don't know.
I don't consider heavy instancing revolutionary..
SWG had issues of course, the biggest being they took a chainsaw to it instead of a scalpel.
I also don't consider WARs biggest problems to be RvR.
My opinions only of course.
Yeah, Ultima was not revoutionary. I was playing a few MUDs, text based massively multiplayer rpgs, in the 90s. Some of them actually had rudimentary graphics. Then Merdian 59 came out, arguably the first graphical MMO. Then a year later Ultima came out with more 2d graphics, and EA marketed it as the first MMO *cough* lol *cough*.
Playing Ultima was basically like playing a text MUD with new 2d graphics and more pvp. Then EQ released and I don't think it brought much more to the table than UO had besides 3d graphics. It had open world PvP servers like UO. Nothing unrelated to graphics that was revolutionary that hadn't been done in text MUDS years before.
If you dont think UO was a drastic change from what from we had prior (muds) then i'm not sure why i am even bothering to go on...
DAoC and Asheron's Call, again I can't think of anything revolutionary. I think text MUDs had RvR pvp years before. Shadowbane, Eve Online, Anarchy Online. Same thing, text MUDs have done it. Not really revolutionary.
RvR in a text-based Mud, and grabbing relics with 100 or so people is a pretty huge jump in evolution. My opinion only
I think MMOs are good at taking what has worked in the behind-the-scenes server mechanics (that MUDs have used), updating it with current technology and combining it with 3d graphics. It's evolution. Revolutionary would be some huge jump, but we haven't seen that. Pvp, graphics, party grouping, quests, raids, mounts. It all happened slowly over time from pure text MUDs, to MUDs with partial graphics, to fledgling MMOs, to typical MMOs, to today's MMOs.
The only thing that might be a little more revolutionary than evolutionary was the move from the 2d sprites to 3d polygons. EQ was unbelievable when it first came out, 3d graphics in an MMO! Unheard of. Has there been a novel feature in MMOs (text MUDs with graphics) since then? I can't think of one lol.
I'm not discounting what MuDs did (i was there too ), but raiding in a text-based game and raiding in EQ were two very different things.
The games i mentioned (and you), all brought either something new to the table, or changed how we played our MMOs . Were the features in muds? ya. But it was a whole lot different in my opinion. Perhaps you're right revolutionary may be too strong a word, but as i said, they certainly changed the way we played our MMOs, and that, we just don't really see anymore.
We've gotten way off topic here. I'm really not expecting anything new from KOtOR, and thats fine. Chances are I'll buy it, and it will end up in the heap of other MMOs that don't i play after a month or two, because they feel all too familiar. but i'm still hoping otherwise ; )
I'm not looking for a fight, but I find it silly that people keep feeling the need to try to act like it isn't really an MMO or doesn't have an MMO feature-set. You brought that up yourself.
Based on what the article is saying, yes I did. Off one person's description of what they did on a hands on play at E3. It is certainly too far in the future to critcize any information as nothing, imho, is set in stone. You were the one that seemed so upset about people criticizing a game that isn't even out yet. We're all seeing information and processing it differently. I see no reason for your anger other than to say you don't share my point-of-view and therefore feel justified in attacking it. It's clear you don't know my pov since, once again, my responses in this thread are based on the article and what i already know about bioware, as a singleplayer RPG maker (some games having a multiplayer element).
I'm curious if a hands on at E3 would even allow someone to say this isn't an MMO... Would there even be a 'massive' amount of players playing at the same time during E3, for someone to to make that judgement?
I'm curious if a hands on at E3 would even allow someone to say this isn't an MMO... Would there even be a 'massive' amount of players playing at the same time during E3, for someone to to make that judgement?
I wouldn't think the game is at a point where there could be a even a large amount of players,certainly not massive, to give it a run through. I mean reading the article, the author makes a few not so good comments on the MMO nature from a single character in the world perspective. He talks about some combat and story. Well... those aren't really the question with Bioware right?
Like I mentioned before, he said something about the downside being that the game is an MMO which gave me some concern. I mean when I play an MMO, I don't spend much time thinking boy, too bad this is an MMO. It never crosses my mind in fact. I also know it's a year out or so so concern is just that, not rejection, not even really critcism at this point, just concern. For me the question never was whether or not Bioware is capable of character development, interesting combat, and story (well a good story for the gaming industry anyway, no great novels or anything)... I know they can do that. I've played their RPGs. So if anything my criticism and questions are about what is in the article... if there wasn't enough to make a comment on the MMO portion of the game, I don't know why the author chose to bring it up, but they did. The author also mentioned it was a mixed impression, so i think the OP of this thread is a little premature in saying its not positive instead of saying something like early impressions are a mixed bag but nothing real alarming yet, the author clearly wants to get a crack at the game again which is a good thing and implies the good outweights the bad, for the author, at this point.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
I'm curious if a hands on at E3 would even allow someone to say this isn't an MMO... Would there even be a 'massive' amount of players playing at the same time during E3, for someone to to make that judgement?
I wouldn't think the game is at a point where there could be a even a large amount of players,certainly not massive, to give it a run through. I mean reading the article, the author makes a few not so good comments on the MMO nature from a single character in the world perspective. He talks about some combat and story. Well... those aren't really the question with Bioware right?
Like I mentioned before, he said something about the downside being that the game is an MMO which gave me some concern. I mean when I play an MMO, I don't spend much time thinking boy, too bad this is an MMO. It never crosses my mind in fact. I also know it's a year out or so so concern is just that, not rejection, not even really critcism at this point, just concern. For me the question never was whether or not Bioware is capable of character development, interesting combat, and story (well a good story for the gaming industry anyway, no great novels or anything)... I know they can do that. I've played their RPGs. So if anything my criticism and questions are about what is in the article... if there wasn't enough to make a comment on the MMO portion of the game, I don't know why the author chose to bring it up, but they did. The author also mentioned it was a mixed impression, so i think the OP of this thread is a little premature in saying its not positive instead of saying something like early impressions are a mixed bag but nothing real alarming yet, the author clearly wants to get a crack at the game again which is a good thing and implies the good outweights the bad, for the author, at this point.
And this is where you aren't making a lot of sense.
You acknowledge it is really too early to talk about how "MMO"-like it is. Then you act like because the author is erroneously talking about something like that, we should pay attention and it is a "concern." You won't specify exactly how this is a concern, exactly what you are looking for, exactly how your mind could be eased, or even how it would be remotely reasonable to evaluate the game in this manner a year before it is released. The game has an open world, has lots of people, will have an end game, etc, etc. What exactly is the "concern" here? What's the basis of it? Some random writer who shouldn't even be talking about it before it makes sense?
This is dangerously close to "Concern Troll" territory, imho.
As for why this bothers me...irrationality bothers me in general.
i agree completely, they could call it world of star wars if they wanted to and i would be completely fine with that .. with bioware behind it you know the story will be great and with star wars as the IP it's a win/win situation
I've heard this before...
Star Trek Online anyone?
You must be dealing with "issues"(to be kind about it) to even make a comparison between this game, and the BS Craptic has been pulling with their limited budget 1.5 yr MMO development time.
150M and 5 or 6 yrs of dev time doesnt equate in any way/shape/form to STO/CO. STO had what? 80 hrs of gameplay? You truly think that is all there will be to TOR? Please.
The folks playing those games wish they had been in development for 5 yrs.
I am with the posters, that are going on the notion, that it is the butt-hurt EX SWG fans making the most negative posts on this site. They didnt get the PRECioUs 2, and our eyes get to bleed due to it. You would think whining, for over 4 yrs, about their game would be enough.
Would be nice if they would STFU already, and go play a sandbox....this isnt their droid.
Thats funny. If memory serves me correct, SWG origonally had 300-500,000 subscribers until NGE was introduced, then a nose dive and abysmal failure as subscriptions are concerned.
Maybe the pre-NGE folks have something important to say since its them that bailed on SWG, which prior to NGE, was a better performing mmorpg compared to subscriptions of any other mmorpg in the past 5 years, except Aion. /shrug
i agree completely, they could call it world of star wars if they wanted to and i would be completely fine with that .. with bioware behind it you know the story will be great and with star wars as the IP it's a win/win situation
I've heard this before...
Star Trek Online anyone?
You must be dealing with "issues"(to be kind about it) to even make a comparison between this game, and the BS Craptic has been pulling with their limited budget 1.5 yr MMO development time.
150M and 5 or 6 yrs of dev time doesnt equate in any way/shape/form to STO/CO. STO had what? 80 hrs of gameplay? You truly think that is all there will be to TOR? Please.
The folks playing those games wish they had been in development for 5 yrs.
I am with the posters, that are going on the notion, that it is the butt-hurt EX SWG fans making the most negative posts on this site. They didnt get the PRECioUs 2, and our eyes get to bleed due to it. You would think whining, for over 4 yrs, about their game would be enough.
Would be nice if they would STFU already, and go play a sandbox....this isnt their droid.
Thats funny. If memory serves me correct, SWG origonally had 300-500,000 subscribers until NGE was introduced, then a nose dive and abysmal failure as subscriptions are concerned.
Maybe the pre-NGE folks have something important to say since its them that bailed on SWG, which prior to NGE, was a better performing mmorpg compared to subscriptions of any other mmorpg in the past 5 years, except Aion. /shrug
That's nonsense it was widely reported that even before the CU and NGE the game was losing around 10k subs a month.
NGE was just the final nail in the coffin. Not to mention for a huge IP like Star Wars to only have 300-500k subs is pretty bad in itself. It should of had a mil atleast, but when it was released it suffered heavily from bugs, broken professions and a multitude of other things. It wasn't solely the NGE like alot of vets would want you to think.
i agree completely, they could call it world of star wars if they wanted to and i would be completely fine with that .. with bioware behind it you know the story will be great and with star wars as the IP it's a win/win situation
I've heard this before...
Star Trek Online anyone?
You must be dealing with "issues"(to be kind about it) to even make a comparison between this game, and the BS Craptic has been pulling with their limited budget 1.5 yr MMO development time.
150M and 5 or 6 yrs of dev time doesnt equate in any way/shape/form to STO/CO. STO had what? 80 hrs of gameplay? You truly think that is all there will be to TOR? Please.
The folks playing those games wish they had been in development for 5 yrs.
I am with the posters, that are going on the notion, that it is the butt-hurt EX SWG fans making the most negative posts on this site. They didnt get the PRECioUs 2, and our eyes get to bleed due to it. You would think whining, for over 4 yrs, about their game would be enough.
Would be nice if they would STFU already, and go play a sandbox....this isnt their droid.
Thats funny. If memory serves me correct, SWG origonally had 300-500,000 subscribers until NGE was introduced, then a nose dive and abysmal failure as subscriptions are concerned.
Maybe the pre-NGE folks have something important to say since its them that bailed on SWG, which prior to NGE, was a better performing mmorpg compared to subscriptions of any other mmorpg in the past 5 years, except Aion. /shrug
That's nonsense it was widely reported that even before the CU and NGE the game was losing around 10k subs a month.
NGE was just the final nail in the coffin. Not to mention for a huge IP like Star Wars to only have 300-500k subs is pretty bad in itself. It should of had a mil atleast, but when it was released it suffered heavily from bugs, broken professions and a multitude of other things. It wasn't solely the NGE like alot of vets would want you to think.
We all agree NGE was an epic fail, but it was a move of desperation because SWG was already losing massive numbers of people.
Again, most Star Wars fans don't want to be washing dishes in a Cantina.
Best thing about SWG, from what I hear, was the original crafting system.
i agree completely, they could call it world of star wars if they wanted to and i would be completely fine with that .. with bioware behind it you know the story will be great and with star wars as the IP it's a win/win situation
I've heard this before...
Star Trek Online anyone?
You must be dealing with "issues"(to be kind about it) to even make a comparison between this game, and the BS Craptic has been pulling with their limited budget 1.5 yr MMO development time.
150M and 5 or 6 yrs of dev time doesnt equate in any way/shape/form to STO/CO. STO had what? 80 hrs of gameplay? You truly think that is all there will be to TOR? Please.
The folks playing those games wish they had been in development for 5 yrs.
I am with the posters, that are going on the notion, that it is the butt-hurt EX SWG fans making the most negative posts on this site. They didnt get the PRECioUs 2, and our eyes get to bleed due to it. You would think whining, for over 4 yrs, about their game would be enough.
Would be nice if they would STFU already, and go play a sandbox....this isnt their droid.
Thats funny. If memory serves me correct, SWG origonally had 300-500,000 subscribers until NGE was introduced, then a nose dive and abysmal failure as subscriptions are concerned.
Maybe the pre-NGE folks have something important to say since its them that bailed on SWG, which prior to NGE, was a better performing mmorpg compared to subscriptions of any other mmorpg in the past 5 years, except Aion. /shrug
That's nonsense it was widely reported that even before the CU and NGE the game was losing around 10k subs a month.
NGE was just the final nail in the coffin. Not to mention for a huge IP like Star Wars to only have 300-500k subs is pretty bad in itself. It should of had a mil atleast, but when it was released it suffered heavily from bugs, broken professions and a multitude of other things. It wasn't solely the NGE like alot of vets would want you to think.
We all agree NGE was an epic fail, but it was a move of desperation because SWG was already losing massive numbers of people.
Again, most Star Wars fans don't want to be washing dishes in a Cantina.
Best thing about SWG, from what I hear, was the original crafting system.
Absolutley, the crafting and harvesting system was by far the best thing about that game. I wish SWTOR would have taken its concept and improved upon it.
I'm curious if a hands on at E3 would even allow someone to say this isn't an MMO... Would there even be a 'massive' amount of players playing at the same time during E3, for someone to to make that judgement?
I wouldn't think the game is at a point where there could be a even a large amount of players,certainly not massive, to give it a run through. I mean reading the article, the author makes a few not so good comments on the MMO nature from a single character in the world perspective. He talks about some combat and story. Well... those aren't really the question with Bioware right?
Like I mentioned before, he said something about the downside being that the game is an MMO which gave me some concern. I mean when I play an MMO, I don't spend much time thinking boy, too bad this is an MMO. It never crosses my mind in fact. I also know it's a year out or so so concern is just that, not rejection, not even really critcism at this point, just concern. For me the question never was whether or not Bioware is capable of character development, interesting combat, and story (well a good story for the gaming industry anyway, no great novels or anything)... I know they can do that. I've played their RPGs. So if anything my criticism and questions are about what is in the article... if there wasn't enough to make a comment on the MMO portion of the game, I don't know why the author chose to bring it up, but they did. The author also mentioned it was a mixed impression, so i think the OP of this thread is a little premature in saying its not positive instead of saying something like early impressions are a mixed bag but nothing real alarming yet, the author clearly wants to get a crack at the game again which is a good thing and implies the good outweights the bad, for the author, at this point.
Someone call for the author? Seraphina here, what can I do y'all for?
~Seraphina Brennan Senior Editor / Community Manager Massively.com
So, in short, don't get yourself super hyped about this game. It's not amazingly innovative or a complete genre changer. It's not re-inventing the wheel, but it is taking that wheel and giving it the gold plating it needs.
Which, to my mind is really what Bioware THEMSELVES have been saying to those who would listen.
Yes, they are excited about the stories they have put together for us in an MMO setting, and yes they think the stories gives MMO gameplay more of a purpose, but that is it.
Anyone with half a brain would have realised long ago that Bioware is not setting out to be innovative in the same way as Anet are with Guild Wars 2.
The problem is that it is Star Wars and people go a bit silly. Not a completely bad thing.
Bioware has never attempted to redefine anything. They're known as good storytellers and creating good systems. Besides, MMOs are MMOs. How they play is how they're going to play.
Look for a new genre if you can't play WoW.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
I liked WoW but I'm glad I quit playing it. If this game keeps the good things about WoW I'm not sure I'd complain. What I really want out of the game is that it FEELS like Star Wars and the writer seemed to get that feeling at least part of the time. Combine that with the level of polish one can expect from Bioware and even if the game isn't super inventive, it should be a really entertaining gaming experience... at least until it feels too much like playing WoW again.
.
Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.
From another hands on thread (which has mysteriously disappeared)
"When he clicked on it, it launched the website launch.swtor.com and he was able to launch the game from there..."
Urg, I hope this is releated to the beta/development and we're not going to get stuck with some horrendous launchpad website/launcher to play the game. Knowing EA and how fond they are of making completely clunky and unintuative account services and their penchant for changing them and merging them every five seconds though, I wouldn't be surprised...
Someone call for the author? Seraphina here, what can I do y'all for?
If you are the author of ths massively hands on article/report or whatever you want to call it, feel free to read this discussion and contribute whatever you like. I have no idea what you mean by "call for the author".
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Until the game launches... anything marked 'review' is bullsh*t.
I mean that wholeheartedly.
Clown shoes. Rubbish.
When the game has launched and someone has played the first few days/levels/etc. (graduated measurement value inserted here) then they can say 'review'.
"I spent a day reviewing the review of the preview of initial implementation of concepts of a Post-Lucas-Brain-Fart pre- pre-alpha area. OMG! WHERE THE F*CK ARE ALL OF THE PEOPLE!?!!? Let me start by saying, this game is dying. The low population may drive people away from this game. The content will certainly attract die-hard/deep thinking RP/lore lovers, but without a playerbase... this game sucks."
Most 'reviews' for alpha/pre-alpha games might as well read like that. And I'm not some SW:tOR fanboy... but ffs.
The more I play these games and read the boards... the less I like the younger generations and crowds.
I love it when some people say "SWG had only like 300-500k subs", well, what did you expect? Market was a lot smaller back then. Major MMO's were Everquest, FFXI and SWG. Every one of them peaked around 500k (maybe except FFXI, but I couldn't care less about it back then, and still do).
Only after huge marketing campaign (anything from advertisement to paid critics) and increased availability of broadband internet, MMO's started to reach higher numbers.
In before someone utters the word "Lineage", well, thats asian market. We all know how crazy those asian guys/gals are.
Originally posted by Marcus- I agree, I dont expect KOTOR to bring a whole lot new to the table, and as i said in my post, i don't know enough about it yet to even make that call. I just get a lil pessimistic when i see see a reviewer use statements like So we herd u leik World of Warcraft
I'm not expecting the industry to change by leaps and bounds with the drop of a single game, but i also would like a new game that shows a little creativity. Yes voice acting is probably a nice addition, but its hardly a reason for me personally to run out and plop down $50. As i said, i have my eye on the game for certain, and i thinks its too early for anyone to judge it.. And i typically don't go by game reviews either ; )
Originally posted by SanHor Such a waste of Star Wars IP....
Originally posted by Krux Essentailly WoW with light-sabers?
Originally posted by Complication well great, i just read the review and i feel dissapointed. it seems from the article that this truely is just another WoW clone. like the guy said a few posts above me "WoW with lightsabers" how fucking dissapointing. good job bioware, the lack of information you release about the game builds up all these amazing ideas people have in their heads about what the game is really like, then we see the little clips or read the reviews and get to find out its almost identical to world of warcraft. only difference is the voice overs and dialog options..
Originally posted by Cecropia
Originally posted by SanHor
..... It is a simple, already tested (WoW) and profitable forumla, a safe bet for BioWare indeed. Yet again...
Safe bet? I don't know about that. How well have all of the studios chasing after WOW's wake fared in the past several years. The industry is beyond ready for some innovation. I'm certain Bioware will sell a shit tonne of boxes, but I'm just curious as to how the subs are going to look 6 months down the line. We need some new evolution in this genre and we need it yesterday. I can't really judge SWTOR at this time obviously, but it's a shame they weren't a little more ambitious with such a major IP. I'm still gonna wait-and-see though, as I can't do much else.
Originally posted by Hendo0069
Originally posted by Drachasor We all agree NGE was an epic fail, but it was a move of desperation because SWG was already losing massive numbers of people. Again, most Star Wars fans don't want to be washing dishes in a Cantina. Best thing about SWG, from what I hear, was the original crafting system.
Absolutley, the crafting and harvesting system was by far the best thing about that game. I wish SWTOR would have taken its concept and improved upon it.
Originally posted by eburn Bioware has never attempted to redefine anything. They're known as good storytellers and creating good systems. Besides, MMOs are MMOs. How they play is how they're going to play. Look for a new genre if you can't play WoW.
but after all,
Originally posted by BlackWatch Until the game launches... anything marked 'review' is bullsh*t. I mean that wholeheartedly. Clown shoes. Rubbish. When the game has launched and someone has played the first few days/levels/etc. (graduated measurement value inserted here) then they can say 'review'. "I spent a day reviewing the review of the preview of initial implementation of concepts of a Post-Lucas-Brain-Fart pre- pre-alpha area. OMG! WHERE THE F*CK ARE ALL OF THE PEOPLE!?!!? Let me start by saying, this game is dying. The low population may drive people away from this game. The content will certainly attract die-hard/deep thinking RP/lore lovers, but without a playerbase... this game sucks." Most 'reviews' for alpha/pre-alpha games might as well read like that. And I'm not some SW:tOR fanboy... but ffs. The more I play these games and read the boards... the less I like the younger generations and crowds.
Someone call for the author? Seraphina here, what can I do y'all for?
If you are the author of ths massively hands on article/report or whatever you want to call it, feel free to read this discussion and contribute whatever you like. I have no idea what you mean by "call for the author".
I am! (And, also, for future thread reference, I'm a she. ) And I meant that many of you seem to have questions, and you're free to ask me about anything. I don't exactly hide, and it's not exactly hard to speak with me. ^_^
Well, it just seems everyone keeps guessing what I'm thinking, but I can wholeheartedly tell you what I was thinking. There's lots of speculation here! However, the truth is a lot less complicated.
First of all, as others have said, I saw 1 level of the game. 1 level. Heck, it was one quest. The whole idea of this article was to get all of the things I saw during this one quest onto paper. I wanted to go over everything I saw, both bad and good. However, because this is in a very limited early build, everything I noted is subject to change -- both the bad and the good.
This is not a review -- it is a list. It's a window into what the game looks like right now.
Many people here seem to be quick to judge it based on this brief window into the development. You're quick to use my words to both praise and condemn the title, based on your current beliefs of the game. Simply put, you find what you want to hear in my article, and then use it to back up your preconceived notions. It's pretty much inevitable.
Some have also speculated on my opinion of the game. I can tell you that while I wasn't impressed with everything I saw, I did like the package as a whole. I think I made it clear in my article that the game didn't blow me out of the water. It didn't shock me with an amazing look into the Star Wars universe. It didn't grab me and scream, "I'M AN AMAZING GAME, LOOK AT ME, PLAY ME NOW!" It was simply a good game, and I would certainly buy it and play it.
But that's solely my opinion. If you're a Star Wars fan, then you pretty much want to be all over this game. If you're not too keen on the whole Star Wars idea, then maybe you should do some more research to make sure this game is for you. If you hate Star Wars, then you might just want to stay away from this game entirely, unless you really like some of the mechanics being presented. There's a wide variety of opinions here that can be found in this one article, and none of them are wrong or misguided.
My goal here is for you to use my words and my descriptions and form an opinion for yourselves. I'm not trying to lead you one way or the other. It's simply a description, and nothing more.
~Seraphina Brennan Senior Editor / Community Manager Massively.com
Like the guys, sometimes us girls default into the masculine pronoun too. You made a very strange comment, imho, when you did this hands on piece.
The other downside? It's still an MMO. You'll still run into mobs milling about almost aimlessly, even though Bioware has taken care to give them a reason to be there. Things like that take you out of the whole experience.
Specifically, the downside being it's an MMO when you are, in fact, playing what is meant to be a very large MMO. And yet your perspective implies what you want it to be is a singleplayer RPG, or an instance, where there aren't any wondering mobs. Is that truly your expectation, that for it to be a good MMO, or for the upside to be it's an MMO, there won't be any wandering mobs?
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Anybody expecting Bioware to be innovative, especially with so much of EA's money on the line, is clearly not living in the real world.
I'm starting to think you could add any AAA game developers name in there...
So here we are, the same rehased stuff from the big budget boys, or the indie companies who don't have enough money to be innovative and/or release half finished games.
No one is innovative when you discount the innovations they do make. Making story decisions that matter is new to the MMO genre, but there seem to be plenty of people that completely ignore this. Maybe it isn't your cup of tea because you hate role-playing, but you should at least admit it is an innovation.
No one is innovative when you discount the innovations they do make. Making story decisions that matter is new to the MMO genre, but there seem to be plenty of people that completely ignore this. Maybe it isn't your cup of tea because you hate role-playing, but you should at least admit it is an innovation.
Last time I checked the polls on this site, most MMO players didn't care much of a story or quest texts. While I enjoy a good story and lore I definitely don't like BW's style to make long animations (often unskippable) and movies to their games. I remember when WAR was about to launch and the devs talked about it to us, players, they many times repeated how it's not fun when you lose a control of your toon in a game. They were talking about crowd control then but in this case it pretty much applies to everything that interrupts the control of your toon, including long cut scenes and stuff like that.
So the author of the article is miffed cause TOR is an evolution and not a revolution? The road is littered with games with revolutionary features that just weren't fun for most people. Warhammer's RvR zones were fun for me but a lot of people hated them. Guild Wars' heavy instancing gets a lot of hate. SWG had sandbox elements but the rest of the game had issues.
All mainstream MMOs have evolved the game before them, not revolutionized the genre. Ultima evolved MUD gaming. EQ evolved 2d Ultima to 3d. WoW evolved ease-of-use, graphics, and quest variety from EQ. There were other games with more revolutionary features but they never made it mainstream. To be honest, it's cool to try out those games with revolutionary features, but I usually prefer the game with the heavy polish that has just evolved from another mainstream game.
Ultima wasn't revolutionary at its time? Technically it would have have NwN that evolved muds, but thats here nor there.
You don't think EQ brought a whole lot to the table that UO didnt have? Even DAoC gave MMOs faction warfare, that game did pretty well in its time. EvE, for an indie company, that game is doing absolutley great imo. I wouldn't consider any of these game heavily polished, and/or a slight evolution of it predesessor...
I don't think its games with revolutionary features that are the problem. How many times have we seen games with the "wow clone" fall by the wayside? Wether that title is deserved or not, I don't know.
I don't consider heavy instancing revolutionary..
SWG had issues of course, the biggest being they took a chainsaw to it instead of a scalpel.
I also don't consider WARs biggest problems to be RvR.
My opinions only of course.
Yeah, Ultima was not revoutionary. I was playing a few MUDs, text based massively multiplayer rpgs, in the 90s. Some of them actually had rudimentary graphics. Then Merdian 59 came out, arguably the first graphical MMO. Then a year later Ultima came out with more 2d graphics, and EA marketed it as the first MMO *cough* lol *cough*.
Playing Ultima was basically like playing a text MUD with new 2d graphics and more pvp. Then EQ released and I don't think it brought much more to the table than UO had besides 3d graphics. It had open world PvP servers like UO. Nothing unrelated to graphics that was revolutionary that hadn't been done in text MUDS years before.
If you dont think UO was a drastic change from what from we had prior (muds) then i'm not sure why i am even bothering to go on...
DAoC and Asheron's Call, again I can't think of anything revolutionary. I think text MUDs had RvR pvp years before. Shadowbane, Eve Online, Anarchy Online. Same thing, text MUDs have done it. Not really revolutionary.
RvR in a text-based Mud, and grabbing relics with 100 or so people is a pretty huge jump in evolution. My opinion only
I think MMOs are good at taking what has worked in the behind-the-scenes server mechanics (that MUDs have used), updating it with current technology and combining it with 3d graphics. It's evolution. Revolutionary would be some huge jump, but we haven't seen that. Pvp, graphics, party grouping, quests, raids, mounts. It all happened slowly over time from pure text MUDs, to MUDs with partial graphics, to fledgling MMOs, to typical MMOs, to today's MMOs.
The only thing that might be a little more revolutionary than evolutionary was the move from the 2d sprites to 3d polygons. EQ was unbelievable when it first came out, 3d graphics in an MMO! Unheard of. Has there been a novel feature in MMOs (text MUDs with graphics) since then? I can't think of one lol.
I'm not discounting what MuDs did (i was there too ), but raiding in a text-based game and raiding in EQ were two very different things.
The games i mentioned (and you), all brought either something new to the table, or changed how we played our MMOs . Were the features in muds? ya. But it was a whole lot different in my opinion. Perhaps you're right revolutionary may be too strong a word, but as i said, they certainly changed the way we played our MMOs, and that, we just don't really see anymore.
We've gotten way off topic here. I'm really not expecting anything new from KOtOR, and thats fine. Chances are I'll buy it, and it will end up in the heap of other MMOs that don't i play after a month or two, because they feel all too familiar. but i'm still hoping otherwise ; )
I was playing muds long before the 90s and I will tell that imo, it was not revolutionary and in fact just another small step. People had been dreaming and playing around with these games since the 70s and it was just a matter of time before we got there.
Comments
The games i mentioned (and you), all brought either something new to the table, or changed how we played our MMOs . Were the features in muds? ya. But it was a whole lot different in my opinion. Perhaps you're right revolutionary may be too strong a word, but as i said, they certainly changed the way we played our MMOs, and that, we just don't really see anymore.
We've gotten way off topic here. I'm really not expecting anything new from KOtOR, and thats fine. Chances are I'll buy it, and it will end up in the heap of other MMOs that don't i play after a month or two, because they feel all too familiar. but i'm still hoping otherwise ; )
I'm curious if a hands on at E3 would even allow someone to say this isn't an MMO... Would there even be a 'massive' amount of players playing at the same time during E3, for someone to to make that judgement?
I wouldn't think the game is at a point where there could be a even a large amount of players,certainly not massive, to give it a run through. I mean reading the article, the author makes a few not so good comments on the MMO nature from a single character in the world perspective. He talks about some combat and story. Well... those aren't really the question with Bioware right?
Like I mentioned before, he said something about the downside being that the game is an MMO which gave me some concern. I mean when I play an MMO, I don't spend much time thinking boy, too bad this is an MMO. It never crosses my mind in fact. I also know it's a year out or so so concern is just that, not rejection, not even really critcism at this point, just concern. For me the question never was whether or not Bioware is capable of character development, interesting combat, and story (well a good story for the gaming industry anyway, no great novels or anything)... I know they can do that. I've played their RPGs. So if anything my criticism and questions are about what is in the article... if there wasn't enough to make a comment on the MMO portion of the game, I don't know why the author chose to bring it up, but they did. The author also mentioned it was a mixed impression, so i think the OP of this thread is a little premature in saying its not positive instead of saying something like early impressions are a mixed bag but nothing real alarming yet, the author clearly wants to get a crack at the game again which is a good thing and implies the good outweights the bad, for the author, at this point.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
And this is where you aren't making a lot of sense.
You acknowledge it is really too early to talk about how "MMO"-like it is. Then you act like because the author is erroneously talking about something like that, we should pay attention and it is a "concern." You won't specify exactly how this is a concern, exactly what you are looking for, exactly how your mind could be eased, or even how it would be remotely reasonable to evaluate the game in this manner a year before it is released. The game has an open world, has lots of people, will have an end game, etc, etc. What exactly is the "concern" here? What's the basis of it? Some random writer who shouldn't even be talking about it before it makes sense?
This is dangerously close to "Concern Troll" territory, imho.
As for why this bothers me...irrationality bothers me in general.
The game doesn't have to be innovative or ground breaking to be GOOD. I'm satisfied with a decent sci fi / Star Wars game.
I think everyone is looking for the next WOW killer, I'm just looking for something good and entertaining. Fun to play.....
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
Couldn't agree more.
"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet." -Bob Marley
I'm probably one of those people who just get wet.
Thats funny. If memory serves me correct, SWG origonally had 300-500,000 subscribers until NGE was introduced, then a nose dive and abysmal failure as subscriptions are concerned.
Maybe the pre-NGE folks have something important to say since its them that bailed on SWG, which prior to NGE, was a better performing mmorpg compared to subscriptions of any other mmorpg in the past 5 years, except Aion. /shrug
That's nonsense it was widely reported that even before the CU and NGE the game was losing around 10k subs a month.
NGE was just the final nail in the coffin. Not to mention for a huge IP like Star Wars to only have 300-500k subs is pretty bad in itself. It should of had a mil atleast, but when it was released it suffered heavily from bugs, broken professions and a multitude of other things. It wasn't solely the NGE like alot of vets would want you to think.
We all agree NGE was an epic fail, but it was a move of desperation because SWG was already losing massive numbers of people.
Again, most Star Wars fans don't want to be washing dishes in a Cantina.
Best thing about SWG, from what I hear, was the original crafting system.
Absolutley, the crafting and harvesting system was by far the best thing about that game. I wish SWTOR would have taken its concept and improved upon it.
Someone call for the author? Seraphina here, what can I do y'all for?
~Seraphina Brennan
Senior Editor / Community Manager
Massively.com
Bioware has never attempted to redefine anything. They're known as good storytellers and creating good systems. Besides, MMOs are MMOs. How they play is how they're going to play.
Look for a new genre if you can't play WoW.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
.
Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.
From another hands on thread (which has mysteriously disappeared)
"When he clicked on it, it launched the website launch.swtor.com and he was able to launch the game from there..."
Urg, I hope this is releated to the beta/development and we're not going to get stuck with some horrendous launchpad website/launcher to play the game. Knowing EA and how fond they are of making completely clunky and unintuative account services and their penchant for changing them and merging them every five seconds though, I wouldn't be surprised...
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
If you are the author of ths massively hands on article/report or whatever you want to call it, feel free to read this discussion and contribute whatever you like. I have no idea what you mean by "call for the author".
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Until the game launches... anything marked 'review' is bullsh*t.
I mean that wholeheartedly.
Clown shoes. Rubbish.
When the game has launched and someone has played the first few days/levels/etc. (graduated measurement value inserted here) then they can say 'review'.
"I spent a day reviewing the review of the preview of initial implementation of concepts of a Post-Lucas-Brain-Fart pre- pre-alpha area. OMG! WHERE THE F*CK ARE ALL OF THE PEOPLE!?!!? Let me start by saying, this game is dying. The low population may drive people away from this game. The content will certainly attract die-hard/deep thinking RP/lore lovers, but without a playerbase... this game sucks."
Most 'reviews' for alpha/pre-alpha games might as well read like that. And I'm not some SW:tOR fanboy... but ffs.
The more I play these games and read the boards... the less I like the younger generations and crowds.
I love it when some people say "SWG had only like 300-500k subs", well, what did you expect? Market was a lot smaller back then. Major MMO's were Everquest, FFXI and SWG. Every one of them peaked around 500k (maybe except FFXI, but I couldn't care less about it back then, and still do).
Only after huge marketing campaign (anything from advertisement to paid critics) and increased availability of broadband internet, MMO's started to reach higher numbers.
In before someone utters the word "Lineage", well, thats asian market. We all know how crazy those asian guys/gals are.
After i read review i got a feeling like:
but after all,
so no more reviews for me...
SitH happens
I am! (And, also, for future thread reference, I'm a she.
) And I meant that many of you seem to have questions, and you're free to ask me about anything. I don't exactly hide, and it's not exactly hard to speak with me. ^_^
Well, it just seems everyone keeps guessing what I'm thinking, but I can wholeheartedly tell you what I was thinking. There's lots of speculation here! However, the truth is a lot less complicated.
First of all, as others have said, I saw 1 level of the game. 1 level. Heck, it was one quest. The whole idea of this article was to get all of the things I saw during this one quest onto paper. I wanted to go over everything I saw, both bad and good. However, because this is in a very limited early build, everything I noted is subject to change -- both the bad and the good.
This is not a review -- it is a list. It's a window into what the game looks like right now.
Many people here seem to be quick to judge it based on this brief window into the development. You're quick to use my words to both praise and condemn the title, based on your current beliefs of the game. Simply put, you find what you want to hear in my article, and then use it to back up your preconceived notions. It's pretty much inevitable.
Some have also speculated on my opinion of the game. I can tell you that while I wasn't impressed with everything I saw, I did like the package as a whole. I think I made it clear in my article that the game didn't blow me out of the water. It didn't shock me with an amazing look into the Star Wars universe. It didn't grab me and scream, "I'M AN AMAZING GAME, LOOK AT ME, PLAY ME NOW!" It was simply a good game, and I would certainly buy it and play it.
But that's solely my opinion. If you're a Star Wars fan, then you pretty much want to be all over this game. If you're not too keen on the whole Star Wars idea, then maybe you should do some more research to make sure this game is for you. If you hate Star Wars, then you might just want to stay away from this game entirely, unless you really like some of the mechanics being presented. There's a wide variety of opinions here that can be found in this one article, and none of them are wrong or misguided.
My goal here is for you to use my words and my descriptions and form an opinion for yourselves. I'm not trying to lead you one way or the other. It's simply a description, and nothing more.
~Seraphina Brennan
Senior Editor / Community Manager
Massively.com
Like the guys, sometimes us girls default into the masculine pronoun too. You made a very strange comment, imho, when you did this hands on piece.
The other downside? It's still an MMO. You'll still run into mobs milling about almost aimlessly, even though Bioware has taken care to give them a reason to be there. Things like that take you out of the whole experience.
Specifically, the downside being it's an MMO when you are, in fact, playing what is meant to be a very large MMO. And yet your perspective implies what you want it to be is a singleplayer RPG, or an instance, where there aren't any wondering mobs. Is that truly your expectation, that for it to be a good MMO, or for the upside to be it's an MMO, there won't be any wandering mobs?
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Anybody expecting Bioware to be innovative, especially with so much of EA's money on the line, is clearly not living in the real world.
I'm starting to think you could add any AAA game developers name in there...
So here we are, the same rehased stuff from the big budget boys, or the indie companies who don't have enough money to be innovative and/or release half finished games.
No one is innovative when you discount the innovations they do make. Making story decisions that matter is new to the MMO genre, but there seem to be plenty of people that completely ignore this. Maybe it isn't your cup of tea because you hate role-playing, but you should at least admit it is an innovation.
Last time I checked the polls on this site, most MMO players didn't care much of a story or quest texts. While I enjoy a good story and lore I definitely don't like BW's style to make long animations (often unskippable) and movies to their games. I remember when WAR was about to launch and the devs talked about it to us, players, they many times repeated how it's not fun when you lose a control of your toon in a game. They were talking about crowd control then but in this case it pretty much applies to everything that interrupts the control of your toon, including long cut scenes and stuff like that.
I was playing muds long before the 90s and I will tell that imo, it was not revolutionary and in fact just another small step. People had been dreaming and playing around with these games since the 70s and it was just a matter of time before we got there.