get ready to be surprised people , because space combat is going to be nothing like that fringe gaming magazine said it was. They have no facts and have no clue what they are talking about. They took a few posts off the swtor forums and took what one of the dev team said out of context and ran with it, to make it seem as if they know what they are talking about....
I admire your blind optimism, sir.
TOO bad the english version of this arctile was already posted in this thread. This is why we all need to be a tad rational and understand that good dev/ co can make good games, and visa versa. Never ASSume your game will be good look at it for its +s and -s.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Not that i disagree with you entirely, but how many themeparks since WOW have garnered that mass market you speak of?
I honestly can't think of one that has lived up to the deveopers pre-release expectations and hung on to their subs.. There may be a few, i just can't think of any.
Getting off topic here, and this is not my intent.
Was that due to the games or the hype that lead up to their releases? Look at AOC, most felt ripped on what was promised to them for so long, yet not delivered, WAR promised awesome PVP, yet ended up being a scenario fest.
Don't get me wrong those games certainly had launch issues in terms of performance. It still seems the straw that broke the camels back, was the seemingly broken promises that were made. Had they delivered what people were expecting when they made a purchase, or promised what they released. It might have went differently for those two games in particular.
At least they seem to be up front in what they are going to be offering with TOR, we'll know if they have been in about a year or so.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Not that i disagree with you entirely, but how many themeparks since WOW have garnered that mass market you speak of?
I honestly can't think of one that has lived up to the deveopers pre-release expectations and hung on to their subs.. There may be a few, i just can't think of any.
Getting off topic here, and this is not my intent.
Was that due to the games or the hype that lead up to their releases? Look at AOC, most felt ripped on what was promised to them for so long, yet not delivered, WAR promised awesome PVP, yet ended up being a scenario fest.
Don't get me wrong those games certainly had launch issues in terms of performance. It still seems the straw that broke the camels back, was the seemingly broken promises that were made. Had they delivered what people were expecting when they made a purchase, or promised what they released. It might have went differently for those two games in particular.
At least they seem to be up front in what they are going to be offering with TOR, we'll know if they have been in about a year or so.
last straw for me no. my last straw was months ago when they showed that the game was a pve carebearfest with only 8 classes no pvp just theme park wow bs that no one wants.
the sad part is bioware see's what the players want and yes the players want something great like swg was back in the day. with a wonderful crafting system that didn't have the players getting loot from mobs. pvp that lasted the whole weekend. 32+ professions that allowed you the player to fully make your own custom toon. and unlockable jedi one of the greatest rewards in the history of mmorpg's.
bioware should take note and start changing the game as han said when the nge came out "get on the falcon kid this place is going to blow"
You are so wrong its not even funny...
A small (albeit very vocal) minority wants those sandbox features you mentioned. The majority do not. The majority actually think that Bioware's vision for the game is a refreshing take on MMOs. None of us know for sure how things will turn out, but for you to say that Bioware isn't listenning to the players is wrong. If they listened to the sandbox whiners, their game would fail just like SWG did. The most successful sandbox game is EVE online and it only has around 300k subscribers. Do you honestly think Bioware would spend SO MUCH money making a game that they know already will not have the mass market appeal to be any sort of real competition for games like WoW?!?
Its simple logic people:
Mass market appeal = more players. More players = more money. Sandbox != mass market appeal. Therefore SWTOR != sandbox. If you don't like that, move on. This game will never be what you want it to be...
Not that i disagree with you entirely, but how many themeparks since WOW have garnered that mass market you speak of?
I honestly can't think of one that has lived up to the deveopers pre-release expectations and hung on to their subs.. There may be a few, i just can't think of any.
Getting off topic here, and this is not my intent.
Final Fantasy is the only other Themepark to actually hold on to its user base for a long period of time anyway. From mid 03 t0 mid 2009 it held at 500k and now is looking at 350k. .. but they have a new release coming out so.. But FF is different it's not a WOW based type of themepark it does it's own thing and fans appreciate it. Lineage2 has held at 1million L2 with some themepark elements but.. more in the Vein of Aion. Again pre wow release, L1 is also still at 1m. The Everquest generation and post WOW clones all average out at 150k, the highest being LOTR at 200k.. Conan barely has 100.. probably lower that that already this chart I'm looking at is a year behind.
I have nothing against Themepark styles myself, as long as its a byproduct of the game design and not designed around a design for the sake of doing it. Case in point most.. ok ALL of the successful Themeparks were original inceptions, they were not cut and pasted from the Blizzard handbook. Final Fantasy is the ONLY successful Themepark with no PVP elements, or any useful ones for that matter, well then theres Everquest, ... But the PVP there is pretty terribad, I think they hurt themselves trying to be more like wow... I doubt the EQ player base wanted wow elements,.. then again they started emulating wow about the same time the NGE disaster hit. Its this urge to copy wow that leaves the fans in the dust.... I think Execs are the only ones that really want a wow clone.
But on another note since were talking about Mass Market Appeal, lets just dispel a myth here.WOW, AION, L1,L2, EVE Online are the top 5 P2P games right now. not EQ2 or AOC or any of the WOW clones, the only WOW clone doing well is WOW itself... FF is in a close 6th.
Personally I never cared much about space combat, so it doesn't affect me much. It sure is a letdown. Make something good or not at all. This is just half assed space combat and I wonder why Bioware/EA/Lucasart decided to give a $150 million triple AAA MMO just such a figleaf space combat.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
"TOR's space game is not a revival of the classic X-Wing vs TIE Fighter space combat games."
Along with the big, bold "Tunnel Shooter."
That seals the deal. Off to the trashpile with the game.
Even the author of the article was questioning BioWare's route of the space game being too safe.
Trashpile? Odds are this game will do quite well, people were following and interested in this game long before space was announced, and still even when it began to look as if there was no possibility of space combat. You're at fault for your own silly expectations. Go play a flight sim, it was obvious from the start this game would focus on ground combat. Your loss, one optional mini-game has upset you so much you've completely thrown the entire game aside. Seems kinda silly to me.
I was looking for a complete Star Wars experience. Pave my way through the Star Wars universe by hitting hard on the ground and fighting in space, and being able to sink my teeth into both.
Sorry if I had those kind of expectations.
What BioWare is setting out to accomplish is a worked out ground game and slapping the gaming equivalent of Pong for a space game.
Their space game from what the US PC Gamer article describes is about as deep as a puddle of water on the sidewalk on a hot summer day.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I wonder why Bioware/EA/Lucasart decided to give a $150 million triple AAA MMO just such a figleaf space combat.
Because of all the people kicking and screaming that if this game didn't have space-based content at launch, they wouldn't play, so they added some within short notice - and go figure - it shows.
I find it ironic that all the people throwing plates against the wall over it not being there are now strangling the housepet over it not being good enough. Keep crying people, maybe it will come with a hooker in the box if you can fill a bathtub full of your tears.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
[sarcasm]This game will suck at release less they make a full EVE style space combat system. If they don't do it I will totally sue them for not doing it cause it's all about what I want since I obviously know everything there is to know about MMO's. Since I've played AOL NWN thus anything I say is right and you are all wrong.[/sarcasm]
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
They probably would have been better off leaving space out entirely than doing some half-assed system like this. Most people probably won't even play it past a few times, making it a waste of development time.
It doesn't really affect me too much since I was planning on primarily playing for the avatar play anyways though. It would have been better of coarse to have an in-depth space system but meh, I can do without it.
Man, some people will find *anything* to bitch at.
Playing: *sigh* back to WoW -------- Waiting for: SW:TOR, APB, WoD --------- Played and loved: Eve and WoW -------- Played and hated: WoW:WotLK, Warhammer, every single F2P
I would have preferred something more in the vein of Tie Fighter and XWA, but this should be fine, if it's visceral enough. Hopefully you'll have access to ship systems and whatnot. If it's just point and click and a life bar, ala Syberia, these optional space bits, for me, will probably be "opted out".
Depends on how the tunnel shooter missions are implemented. If we are talking heavy immersion and story driven shooter then it could be a blast as the length fits with these being space quests/missions. Doing it this way Bioware avoids the pitfall of part of the game turning into a space simulator/ trader game, and by doing so keeps SWTOR firmly in the realms of being a story-driven mmo based on star wars lore. let's face it folks in the Star Wars genre of RPG/MMO being theme parks pays as surely a sandbox would just end up being a player-driven mess.
"TOR's space game is not a revival of the classic X-Wing vs TIE Fighter space combat games."
Along with the big, bold "Tunnel Shooter."
That seals the deal. Off to the trashpile with the game.
Even the author of the article was questioning BioWare's route of the space game being too safe.
Trashpile? Odds are this game will do quite well, people were following and interested in this game long before space was announced, and still even when it began to look as if there was no possibility of space combat. You're at fault for your own silly expectations. Go play a flight sim, it was obvious from the start this game would focus on ground combat. Your loss, one optional mini-game has upset you so much you've completely thrown the entire game aside. Seems kinda silly to me.
I was looking for a complete Star Wars experience. Pave my way through the Star Wars universe by hitting hard on the ground and fighting in space, and being able to sink my teeth into both.
Sorry if I had those kind of expectations.
What BioWare is setting out to accomplish is a worked out ground game and slapping the gaming equivalent of Pong for a space game.
Their space game from what the US PC Gamer article describes is about as deep as a puddle of water on the sidewalk on a hot summer day.
I'd dare say this tunnel shooter mini-game is just the beginning of space combat. I would rather they take their time to perfect space exploration and combat then hand us another terrible JTL. If not, Star Fox makes me happy too.
... it has all the signs of being a hasty 'bolt on' though tbh, they would have been better off not bothering at all, as it will only decrease the games credibility further if they don't do a proper job of it.. all i can say is, if this is real, then Biowares reputation after this is going to be catching up to cryptics... if there was one area of the game that could have saved it, it would have been the space side of the game, to have such a rubbish implementation just beggars belief. well they still have the best part of a year to fix this.. i hope their listening real hard to what people are saying.
As stated in the article the space combat is similar to rogue squadron, which was actually a very good and challenging game. I think many of those complaining on this site just haven't had enough experience with a wide variety of games to make a good enough comparison to really know what this game could be like. They hear rail shooter and can't fathom the mechanics of it in a way that could prove challenging. The truth is, there are many great rail shooters out there, and they can be challenging, but also and most inportantly, extremely fun.
A small (albeit very vocal) minority wants those sandbox features you mentioned. The majority do not. The majority actually think that Bioware's vision for the game is a refreshing take on MMOs. None of us know for sure how things will turn out, but for you to say that Bioware isn't listenning to the players is wrong. If they listened to the sandbox whiners, their game would fail just like SWG did. The most successful sandbox game is EVE online and it only has around 300k subscribers. Do you honestly think Bioware would spend SO MUCH money making a game that they know already will not have the mass market appeal to be any sort of real competition for games like WoW?!?
Its simple logic people:
Mass market appeal = more players. More players = more money. Sandbox != mass market appeal. Therefore SWTOR != sandbox. If you don't like that, move on. This game will never be what you want it to be...
Not that i disagree with you entirely, but how many themeparks since WOW have garnered that mass market you speak of?
I honestly can't think of one that has lived up to the deveopers pre-release expectations and hung on to their subs.. There may be a few, i just can't think of any.
Getting off topic here, and this is not my intent.
L2 and Aion have both held large playerbases and they are certainly not sandbox games. So has FFXI and LOTRO. None of these games came close to WoW in terms of success, but some of them did as well or better than THE most successful sandbox game. I think its pretty hard to deny at this point that themepark games have a wider audience than sandboxes...
As for WAR and AOC, I blame the failure of both of those games on features that were promised and then weren't delivered. Both games were released FAR too early and you only really get one chance to make a first impression. They both sold nearly a million copies around launch, but they just couldn't keep those players. A lot of people who bought AOC for PvP and sieges (me) were severely disappointed to find that those features were terribly imbalanced/broken. WAR was the same situation... they promised the world in terms of PvP gameplay and then somehow forgot all of the lessons they had learned about successful RvR from DAOC. I don't blame anyone but the developers for AOC and WAR...
A small (albeit very vocal) minority wants those sandbox features you mentioned. The majority do not. The majority actually think that Bioware's vision for the game is a refreshing take on MMOs. None of us know for sure how things will turn out, but for you to say that Bioware isn't listenning to the players is wrong. If they listened to the sandbox whiners, their game would fail just like SWG did. The most successful sandbox game is EVE online and it only has around 300k subscribers. Do you honestly think Bioware would spend SO MUCH money making a game that they know already will not have the mass market appeal to be any sort of real competition for games like WoW?!?
Its simple logic people:
Mass market appeal = more players. More players = more money. Sandbox != mass market appeal. Therefore SWTOR != sandbox. If you don't like that, move on. This game will never be what you want it to be...
Not that i disagree with you entirely, but how many themeparks since WOW have garnered that mass market you speak of?
I honestly can't think of one that has lived up to the deveopers pre-release expectations and hung on to their subs.. There may be a few, i just can't think of any.
Getting off topic here, and this is not my intent.
L2 and Aion have both held large playerbases and they are certainly not sandbox games. So has FFXI and LOTRO. None of these games came close to WoW in terms of success, but some of them did as well or better than THE most successful sandbox game. I think its pretty hard to deny at this point that themepark games have a wider audience than sandboxes...
As for WAR and AOC, I blame the failure of both of those games on features that were promised and then weren't delivered. Both games were released FAR too early and you only really get one chance to make a first impression. They both sold nearly a million copies around launch, but they just couldn't keep those players. A lot of people who bought AOC for PvP and sieges (me) were severely disappointed to find that those features were terribly imbalanced/broken. WAR was the same situation... they promised the world in terms of PvP gameplay and then somehow forgot all of the lessons they had learned about successful RvR from DAOC. I don't blame anyone but the developers for AOC and WAR...
I hate to burst your bubble but EVE is the fifth highest grossing mmo on the market right now, it's behind L1,L2, Aion and WOW, its ahead of WAR, AOC, LOTR, EQ, EQ2 and numerous other Themeparks. Actually its a good 200k higher than AOC and WAR. Actually FTP Dofus is killing most high budget themeparks in sub numbers.
And the question was SINCE WOW and the answer to that question is One, and that is AION, which is totally geared around PVP, actually if you look at the top games, PVP seems to be more a prevailing factor than Themepark. I also dont think AION set out to Clone WOW in the first place, that probably helped.
Themepark, sandbox... What really matters is if the game is fun. The other determining factor for this whole debate why themparks haven't been doing great since WoW, is polish. Look at how WAR and the like were released... Sure you can always fix them but the question is on them whether they will impliment fixes quickly, let it play out a bit or let it slide altogether. I started playing WoW back in 2005 after the NGE fiasco and right away I noticed that SOE's development team had NOTHING on Blizzard. There was a lot of love put into that game and it showed. That's one of the reasons themeparks have been kind of tanking.
Now, like I said, as long as it's fun and polished enough, it'll have me hooked.
OR the Themeparks for kids strategy is getting old, I mean seriously how much presence of mind does it take to play WOW, hop hop hop, hit question mark, hop hop, fire fire, complete quest, go back to question mark... hop to new big question mark.
Then when your done doing that for 80 levels you get to turn in dailys to the same mobs for doing the same thing all day and night, or you grind WG all day and night.. when you can, farm mats to make the same things everyone else makes, do the same Instances over and over again. Its such a braindead playstyle some poeple are just burnt out on it. We sort of know what to expect. TOR will end up being like WhackAMole in Space.
OR the Themeparks for kids strategy is getting old, I mean seriously how much presence of mind does it take to play WOW, hop hop hop, hit question mark, hop hop, fire fire, complete quest, go back to question mark... hop to new big question mark.
Then when your done doing that for 80 levels you get to turn in dailys to the same mobs for doing the same thing all day and night, or you grind WG all day and night.. when you can, farm mats to make the same things everyone else makes, do the same Instances over and over again. Its such a braindead playstyle some poeple are just burnt out on it. We sort of know what to expect. TOR will end up being like WhackAMole in Space.
WoW used to be more difficult and even used to be more immersive than it is now. Badge gear and the like paired with the, though nice, immersion-breaking dungeon finder tool kind of slapped the prior version of WoW down.
A company could take a cue from that. I think if Bioware sees the things that knock WoW down a couple of notches, they'll be able to adjust to avoid the major pitfalls. I hope so at least. I have faith in Bioware but still worry sometimes. I agree with your saying that WoW has turned into a kind of braindead grind scheme. I still have doubts that TOR will be in that realm of gaming.
I personally didn't expect space combat to play a huge role in the game like with JTL, I did expect it to be in the form of smaller missions and instanced battles.
But I can't hide that I'm a bit disappointed that they decided to put it on rails, something like the Trench runs or compact battles of Rogue Squadron would have been a better idea imo.
The screenshots in the magazine don't look bad at all though and there's quite a bit of contradicting statements (they said it was like Rogue Squadron, but a 'tunnel shooter' at the same time, which Rogue Squadron isn't) and speculation in that article.
So I'm going to reserve final judgement until I see the damn thing in action.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I have to say, I want to play TOR a lot. I've been a big fan of it for a while.
But this is one huge step backwards. I think this is as bad as it gets in terms of how they could have chosen how space works.
I did not want, nor expect space combat in TOR to be like Eve or even SWG. I thought the game would be much closer to Xwing Alliance or Tie FIghter. You get a mission somewhere (ie in a ship in a zone), your friends in your group join you on said mission. You complete certain objectives (Primary, secondary, bonus). You can fail the mission of course. But the whole point is that you can fly in space. And not just fly in a pre determined path. And two to eight minute missions. lol. Wow.
This is swoop racing with shooting that looks like space. Why not just have swoop racing (which makes me think there will be swoop racing), and have a real space sim game.
Sorry if I need to spend more time in my ship than SWTOR is offering then I'd rather play the game that already dominates that area, namely EVE. If I was expecting Earth and Beyond 2 or EVE 1.5 then I'd be a bit more disappointed. But since I'm looking to blast away with a pulse gatlin gun against a horde on pansy sith wannabes then I think my expectations will be rewarded.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Themepark, sandbox... What really matters is if the game is fun. The other determining factor for this whole debate why themparks haven't been doing great since WoW, is polish. Look at how WAR and the like were released... Sure you can always fix them but the question is on them whether they will impliment fixes quickly, let it play out a bit or let it slide altogether. I started playing WoW back in 2005 after the NGE fiasco and right away I noticed that SOE's development team had NOTHING on Blizzard. There was a lot of love put into that game and it showed. That's one of the reasons themeparks have been kind of tanking. Now, like I said, as long as it's fun and polished enough, it'll have me hooked.
Mythic rushed WAR and let's face it endgame RvR was a major let down on launch. One thing Blizzard and Bioware have in common is that they do put a polished product on the table at launch. SWTOR will be story-driven mmorpg...but that will hit the spot for many players looking for a good new theme park ScyFy game.
Comments
TOO bad the english version of this arctile was already posted in this thread. This is why we all need to be a tad rational and understand that good dev/ co can make good games, and visa versa. Never ASSume your game will be good look at it for its +s and -s.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Was that due to the games or the hype that lead up to their releases? Look at AOC, most felt ripped on what was promised to them for so long, yet not delivered, WAR promised awesome PVP, yet ended up being a scenario fest.
Don't get me wrong those games certainly had launch issues in terms of performance. It still seems the straw that broke the camels back, was the seemingly broken promises that were made. Had they delivered what people were expecting when they made a purchase, or promised what they released. It might have went differently for those two games in particular.
At least they seem to be up front in what they are going to be offering with TOR, we'll know if they have been in about a year or so.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
So you can't think of any either then...
/shrug
Final Fantasy is the only other Themepark to actually hold on to its user base for a long period of time anyway. From mid 03 t0 mid 2009 it held at 500k and now is looking at 350k. .. but they have a new release coming out so.. But FF is different it's not a WOW based type of themepark it does it's own thing and fans appreciate it. Lineage2 has held at 1million L2 with some themepark elements but.. more in the Vein of Aion. Again pre wow release, L1 is also still at 1m. The Everquest generation and post WOW clones all average out at 150k, the highest being LOTR at 200k.. Conan barely has 100.. probably lower that that already this chart I'm looking at is a year behind.
I have nothing against Themepark styles myself, as long as its a byproduct of the game design and not designed around a design for the sake of doing it. Case in point most.. ok ALL of the successful Themeparks were original inceptions, they were not cut and pasted from the Blizzard handbook. Final Fantasy is the ONLY successful Themepark with no PVP elements, or any useful ones for that matter, well then theres Everquest, ... But the PVP there is pretty terribad, I think they hurt themselves trying to be more like wow... I doubt the EQ player base wanted wow elements,.. then again they started emulating wow about the same time the NGE disaster hit. Its this urge to copy wow that leaves the fans in the dust.... I think Execs are the only ones that really want a wow clone.
But on another note since were talking about Mass Market Appeal, lets just dispel a myth here.WOW, AION, L1,L2, EVE Online are the top 5 P2P games right now. not EQ2 or AOC or any of the WOW clones, the only WOW clone doing well is WOW itself... FF is in a close 6th.
Teh so much anger.
Personally I never cared much about space combat, so it doesn't affect me much. It sure is a letdown. Make something good or not at all. This is just half assed space combat and I wonder why Bioware/EA/Lucasart decided to give a $150 million triple AAA MMO just such a figleaf space combat.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I was looking for a complete Star Wars experience. Pave my way through the Star Wars universe by hitting hard on the ground and fighting in space, and being able to sink my teeth into both.
Sorry if I had those kind of expectations.
What BioWare is setting out to accomplish is a worked out ground game and slapping the gaming equivalent of Pong for a space game.
Their space game from what the US PC Gamer article describes is about as deep as a puddle of water on the sidewalk on a hot summer day.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Not rails. Training wheels.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Because of all the people kicking and screaming that if this game didn't have space-based content at launch, they wouldn't play, so they added some within short notice - and go figure - it shows.
I find it ironic that all the people throwing plates against the wall over it not being there are now strangling the housepet over it not being good enough. Keep crying people, maybe it will come with a hooker in the box if you can fill a bathtub full of your tears.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
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[sarcasm]This game will suck at release less they make a full EVE style space combat system. If they don't do it I will totally sue them for not doing it cause it's all about what I want since I obviously know everything there is to know about MMO's. Since I've played AOL NWN thus anything I say is right and you are all wrong.[/sarcasm]
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
They probably would have been better off leaving space out entirely than doing some half-assed system like this. Most people probably won't even play it past a few times, making it a waste of development time.
It doesn't really affect me too much since I was planning on primarily playing for the avatar play anyways though. It would have been better of coarse to have an in-depth space system but meh, I can do without it.
Man, some people will find *anything* to bitch at.
Playing: *sigh* back to WoW
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Waiting for: SW:TOR, APB, WoD
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Played and loved: Eve and WoW
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Played and hated: WoW:WotLK, Warhammer, every single F2P
Depends on how the tunnel shooter missions are implemented. If we are talking heavy immersion and story driven shooter then it could be a blast as the length fits with these being space quests/missions. Doing it this way Bioware avoids the pitfall of part of the game turning into a space simulator/ trader game, and by doing so keeps SWTOR firmly in the realms of being a story-driven mmo based on star wars lore. let's face it folks in the Star Wars genre of RPG/MMO being theme parks pays as surely a sandbox would just end up being a player-driven mess.Updated the OP with a link to a SW tunnel space sim video to help as reference point.
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/index.vm Enjoy your complete Star Wars experience, cards not included.
I'd dare say this tunnel shooter mini-game is just the beginning of space combat. I would rather they take their time to perfect space exploration and combat then hand us another terrible JTL. If not, Star Fox makes me happy too.
Fun stuff.
... it has all the signs of being a hasty 'bolt on' though tbh, they would have been better off not bothering at all, as it will only decrease the games credibility further if they don't do a proper job of it.. all i can say is, if this is real, then Biowares reputation after this is going to be catching up to cryptics... if there was one area of the game that could have saved it, it would have been the space side of the game, to have such a rubbish implementation just beggars belief. well they still have the best part of a year to fix this.. i hope their listening real hard to what people are saying.
As stated in the article the space combat is similar to rogue squadron, which was actually a very good and challenging game. I think many of those complaining on this site just haven't had enough experience with a wide variety of games to make a good enough comparison to really know what this game could be like. They hear rail shooter and can't fathom the mechanics of it in a way that could prove challenging. The truth is, there are many great rail shooters out there, and they can be challenging, but also and most inportantly, extremely fun.
L2 and Aion have both held large playerbases and they are certainly not sandbox games. So has FFXI and LOTRO. None of these games came close to WoW in terms of success, but some of them did as well or better than THE most successful sandbox game. I think its pretty hard to deny at this point that themepark games have a wider audience than sandboxes...
As for WAR and AOC, I blame the failure of both of those games on features that were promised and then weren't delivered. Both games were released FAR too early and you only really get one chance to make a first impression. They both sold nearly a million copies around launch, but they just couldn't keep those players. A lot of people who bought AOC for PvP and sieges (me) were severely disappointed to find that those features were terribly imbalanced/broken. WAR was the same situation... they promised the world in terms of PvP gameplay and then somehow forgot all of the lessons they had learned about successful RvR from DAOC. I don't blame anyone but the developers for AOC and WAR...
I hate to burst your bubble but EVE is the fifth highest grossing mmo on the market right now, it's behind L1,L2, Aion and WOW, its ahead of WAR, AOC, LOTR, EQ, EQ2 and numerous other Themeparks. Actually its a good 200k higher than AOC and WAR. Actually FTP Dofus is killing most high budget themeparks in sub numbers.
And the question was SINCE WOW and the answer to that question is One, and that is AION, which is totally geared around PVP, actually if you look at the top games, PVP seems to be more a prevailing factor than Themepark. I also dont think AION set out to Clone WOW in the first place, that probably helped.
Themepark, sandbox... What really matters is if the game is fun. The other determining factor for this whole debate why themparks haven't been doing great since WoW, is polish. Look at how WAR and the like were released... Sure you can always fix them but the question is on them whether they will impliment fixes quickly, let it play out a bit or let it slide altogether. I started playing WoW back in 2005 after the NGE fiasco and right away I noticed that SOE's development team had NOTHING on Blizzard. There was a lot of love put into that game and it showed. That's one of the reasons themeparks have been kind of tanking.
Now, like I said, as long as it's fun and polished enough, it'll have me hooked.
OR the Themeparks for kids strategy is getting old, I mean seriously how much presence of mind does it take to play WOW, hop hop hop, hit question mark, hop hop, fire fire, complete quest, go back to question mark... hop to new big question mark.
Then when your done doing that for 80 levels you get to turn in dailys to the same mobs for doing the same thing all day and night, or you grind WG all day and night.. when you can, farm mats to make the same things everyone else makes, do the same Instances over and over again. Its such a braindead playstyle some poeple are just burnt out on it. We sort of know what to expect. TOR will end up being like WhackAMole in Space.
WoW used to be more difficult and even used to be more immersive than it is now. Badge gear and the like paired with the, though nice, immersion-breaking dungeon finder tool kind of slapped the prior version of WoW down.
A company could take a cue from that. I think if Bioware sees the things that knock WoW down a couple of notches, they'll be able to adjust to avoid the major pitfalls. I hope so at least. I have faith in Bioware but still worry sometimes. I agree with your saying that WoW has turned into a kind of braindead grind scheme. I still have doubts that TOR will be in that realm of gaming.
I personally didn't expect space combat to play a huge role in the game like with JTL, I did expect it to be in the form of smaller missions and instanced battles.
But I can't hide that I'm a bit disappointed that they decided to put it on rails, something like the Trench runs or compact battles of Rogue Squadron would have been a better idea imo.
The screenshots in the magazine don't look bad at all though and there's quite a bit of contradicting statements (they said it was like Rogue Squadron, but a 'tunnel shooter' at the same time, which Rogue Squadron isn't) and speculation in that article.
So I'm going to reserve final judgement until I see the damn thing in action.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I have to say, I want to play TOR a lot. I've been a big fan of it for a while.
But this is one huge step backwards. I think this is as bad as it gets in terms of how they could have chosen how space works.
I did not want, nor expect space combat in TOR to be like Eve or even SWG. I thought the game would be much closer to Xwing Alliance or Tie FIghter. You get a mission somewhere (ie in a ship in a zone), your friends in your group join you on said mission. You complete certain objectives (Primary, secondary, bonus). You can fail the mission of course. But the whole point is that you can fly in space. And not just fly in a pre determined path. And two to eight minute missions. lol. Wow.
This is swoop racing with shooting that looks like space. Why not just have swoop racing (which makes me think there will be swoop racing), and have a real space sim game.
Blah. Yucky taste in my mouth.
Sorry if I need to spend more time in my ship than SWTOR is offering then I'd rather play the game that already dominates that area, namely EVE. If I was expecting Earth and Beyond 2 or EVE 1.5 then I'd be a bit more disappointed. But since I'm looking to blast away with a pulse gatlin gun against a horde on pansy sith wannabes then I think my expectations will be rewarded.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Mythic rushed WAR and let's face it endgame RvR was a major let down on launch. One thing Blizzard and Bioware have in common is that they do put a polished product on the table at launch. SWTOR will be story-driven mmorpg...but that will hit the spot for many players looking for a good new theme park ScyFy game.