I want a new and original space opera. Not some redone lore "from the 70's movies".
40 years of Jedi Knights with Light sabres was enough.
Even the movies 1-2-3 were a remake of 4-5-6 . Same theme, same story, same plot.
Milking it, but the cow outside of the US is dead.
I thought Dune a far more compelling universe and characters than SW.
As long as Lucas and his business partners pump money into the IP it will not die.
The "kiddie" TV series is one of the highest rated program on the cartoon network. This does not include the children's books and toys being some of the best sellers in their respective categories as well. Lucas is making a ton of money off of the Clone Wars series. Lucas is making money. Is that not what everybody is trying to do?
Edit: just checked a couple of the most popular shows on cable. The numbers are bigger than I remember.
Mine doesnt sell any either. Well the two shops I go to in my town. Not saying your not right Colddog just seems to not sell as well as they used to. Maybe SWTOR will change some of that when/if they release figures from the game.
Oh yeah, dry spells and lack of interest have happened a lot for the franchise in general. Before Phantom Menace is a good example. But long term? I'd put my money on this franchise being successful in many markets for a long, long time. The ebb and flow has been happening for a while. I'm sure Europe and the US will both be back at some point.
It funny how many people think the same Bioware developers are making Tor that made the other games. Very few of Bioware developers are working on this title.
Most of the team is developers who made other mmos like SWG and WAR.
They are all working on making Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3.
Edit: What so good about today Bioware anyway? I dislick both Mass Effect and Dragon age. One was far to short for $60 dollar price. It took me 15 hours on hard and the next installment made me repeat the same shit to end when everything just got started!. Dragon Age felt "unbalance" and not even challenging. Also it didnt wow me like Valve or Blizzard games.
-- "Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
I want a new and original space opera. Not some redone lore "from the 70's movies".
40 years of Jedi Knights with Light sabres was enough.
Even the movies 1-2-3 were a remake of 4-5-6 . Same theme, same story, same plot.
Milking it, but the cow outside of the US is dead.
I thought Dune a far more compelling universe and characters than SW.
As long as Lucas and his business partners pump money into the IP it will not die.
The "kiddie" TV series is one of the highest rated program on the cartoon network. This does not include the children's books and toys being some of the best sellers in their respective categories as well. Lucas is making a ton of money off of the Clone Wars series. Lucas is making money. Is that not what everybody is trying to do?
Edit: just checked a couple of the most popular shows on cable. The numbers are bigger than I remember.
In America you mean
True, the only numbers that I know about are US and Japan. The other hard part is measuring the downloads of the episodes from the site. Since, every episode is freely downloadable after few months after initial airing counting the numbers gets very hard. Honestly, I believe that Lucas is trying to widen his brand's (ala Star Wars) appeal by primarily focusing on children's series / books / toys. Lucas has seemed to have moved away from Comics as being a major venue to widen the brand's appeal. The reach of comics is fairly limited after all.
Shame you don't realize that CCP is in the midst of developing their own ground based MMO called "World Of Darkness", which is based off of the Whitewolf franchise of the same name.
Ironic too...
Apparently it's okay to bash CCP as having a reputation for making a "spreadsheet" game, but god forbid anyone insinuate that Bioware has been making hand-holding linear storyline games lately.
I did love playing EvE for a while... Eventually got tired of not having an immersive story. Mining was not fun, playing the "exchange" was not fun, and there wasn't enough constant pvp to be fun. All in all the game felt kind of spreadsheet-y. Is that bashing? ?? Hopefully World of Darkness will make these areas it's strengths. But we don't know yet.
Not sure how anyone can say BW has made "hand-holding linear storyline games lately." Compared to which other major games? lol Mass Effect 1+2, and Dragon Age are the primary rpg games with branching storylines and varied character customization. What other games allow that much storyline choice? Witcher, Bioshock, Oblivion, Fall Out 3, Gothic 2? Not really, great games but I think Mass Effect 2 defecated on them. Maybe even DA too lol. Seriously, ME2 is the first game in almost 4 years to make my jaw drop. Party members choices, storyline, visuals, voice, music, combat, detail.
Saying eve is a very number oriented game that feels like playing with spreadsheets isn't bashing CCP, it's an opinion about Eve. Saying that CCP is only good at making spreadsheet games, is bashing CCP. It's just a comment on the hipocracy of basing a company's ability to create a decent MMO based solely on the shortcomings of their previous project/s -- Which would be similar to someone claiming with absolute belief that SWTOR will suck because Bioware only has experience making Single Player games that are designed around very strict story structure.
As per the Bioware making "hand-holding linear storyline games lately" remark, it's because they have been. If you actually analyse the deeper structure of Bioware's latest games, you'll see that they're very linear. Yes, they do provide some measure of "choices", however no matter what choices you make, you're still limited to limited measure of outcomes, which all feed back into the same linear story. There is no "open" world in Bioware games, you're always confined to explore only the places the game allows you to, and only when you're supposed to go there. There's rarely many opportunities to go off and explore off the beaten path and find something interesting. This was not the case in Bioware's older games such as Baldur's gate and NWN, but it is for DA:O and ME.
I still don't get the "hand-holding linear storyline games lately" part in comparison to what other games recent games? Bioware seems to be doing the best out of any major developer in bringing open ended storylines (not sandbox). Sandboxes are nice, but they are very different from an engaging immersive open-ended storyline game.
What other developer does a good AAA open-ended storyline game? That's why I said ME2 and DA were the best to me lately, compared to other games. Is there room for improvement. Always, but what else is there? Who does it better than Bioware?
In Mass Effect/Dragon Age party members can be killed. You can be a hero, a villain, a corrupted hero, a redeemed villain, or something even grayer. You can make your companions hate you or love you. You can leave a path of destruction in your wake or be a beacon of growth and diplomacy. You can kill the storyline villain or let him live. Some of these choices can effect what happens in the sequel.
I don't see that much branching and end game effects in any other games. So how is it fair to say Bioware is making "rpgs on rails"... Compared to which other games? lol Seems like BW is doing more storyline branching then any other developer.
It funny how many people think the same Bioware developers are making Tor that made the other games. Very few of Bioware developers are working on this title.
Most of the team is developers who made other mmos like SWG and WAR.
They are all working on making Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3.
Edit: What so good about today Bioware anyway? I dislick both Mass Effect and Dragon age. One was far to short for $60 dollar price. It took me 15 hours on hard and the next installment made me repeat the same shit to end when everything just got started!. Dragon Age felt "unbalance" and not even challenging. Also it didnt wow me like Valve or Blizzard games.
I'm just guessing but you sound like you enjoy the combat in the games, and not so much the story. I've played all of Bilzzard's games, most of Valve's, and all of Bioware's. And they excite me for different reasons.
With Valve I know I'm going to get awesome physics, awesome game mechanics, awesome graphics, awesome animations, good combat, great pvp, ok story.
With Blizzard I know I'm going to get awesome pvp, awesome addictive gameplay, great animations, great combat, good game mechanics, ok graphics, ok story, ok physics.
With Bioware I know I'm going to get awesome story, awesome graphics, awesome universe building/immersion, awesome voice acting/music, great game mechanics, good animations, good combat, ok physics, no pvp.
Their games have different strengths, different reasons to be excited. If you didn't like Mass Effect or Dragaon Age it's probably because you don't like deep involved story lines in your games. People who say "I don't want to sit here and listen to this dude talking about whatever he's talking about, I just wanna stab stuff." They probably aren't gonna be too excited by Bioware games.
If the company is trying to create an exact or near exact duplicate of the KoToR games then really only BW will pull that off.
Reason: Everyone paints or does things differently, you'll lose the general feel of the game and it will "look" different if another company tries to recreate this near duplicate.
If your trying to create something similar, then you'll need people from BW on it to give advice and oversee the operation but really any sci-fi company could pull it off and do it well.
Reason: Sci-fi games have a unique look and way of going about things that don't really relate to fantasy style games well.
If your trying to create a star wars game in general then really any company can do it as long as they stay relatively true to the lore or in this case cannon of the story.
Reason: You really only have to stick to the cannon, once you do that you can kinda stumble your way through the rest and get a general star wars game.
Seeing as this is being made as almost a direct sequel to the KoToR games then really the only real choice for me would be the same people who thought up the idea, which is BW. Otherwise it's going to feel weird or wrong as things won't link up correctly (what i mean by this is when you look at something and it strikes you as odd, think of when a company tries to create a human with CGI and it looks odd, thats what i mean by that last statement).
After BW though, which is what the OP is asking, i would go with Funcom with BW overseeing to make sure they make it right.
A lot of people hate Funcom for various reasons of which are valid concerns, but they were involved in some interesting sci-fi type games in the past. I think most everyone agrees Anarchy online was a pretty good Sci-fi game and almost everyone agrees that the longest journey games were a good sci-fi game as well.
These are my opinions and views of course and i'm sure others will have differing views.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
It funny how many people think the same Bioware developers are making Tor that made the other games. Very few of Bioware developers are working on this title.
Most of the team is developers who made other mmos like SWG and WAR.
They are all working on making Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3.
Edit: What so good about today Bioware anyway? I dislick both Mass Effect and Dragon age. One was far to short for $60 dollar price. It took me 15 hours on hard and the next installment made me repeat the same shit to end when everything just got started!. Dragon Age felt "unbalance" and not even challenging. Also it didnt wow me like Valve or Blizzard games.
I'm just guessing but you sound like you enjoy the combat in the games, and not so much the story. I've played all of Bilzzard's games, most of Valve's, and all of Bioware's. And they excite me for different reasons.
With Valve I know I'm going to get awesome physics, awesome game mechanics, awesome graphics, awesome animations, good combat, great pvp, ok story.
With Blizzard I know I'm going to get awesome pvp, awesome addictive gameplay, great animations, great combat, good game mechanics, ok graphics, ok story, ok physics.
With Bioware I know I'm going to get awesome story, awesome graphics, awesome universe building/immersion, awesome voice acting/music, great game mechanics, good animations, good combat, ok physics, no pvp.
Their games have different strengths, different reasons to be excited. If you didn't like Mass Effect or Dragaon Age it's probably because you don't like deep involved story lines in your games. People who say "I don't want to sit here and listen to this dude talking about whatever he's talking about, I just wanna stab stuff." They probably aren't gonna be too excited by Bioware games.
I like Valve stories far more than Bioware stories. Guess it is subjective. Half Life and HL2 are stellar stories.
Well with BW games there is cutscene after cutscene, lots of talking, and conversation after conversation. BW is heavy on the story, Valve is not heavy on the story. You might like Valve's stories better but they put much less detail into their storylines, with more detail into the gamelay. Some people prefer that kind of storytelling.
I'm not rating the quality of the storylines when saying Valve is "ok on story" and BW is "awesome on story." It only means the amount of detail, depth, description of the people, the history, the lore, the land, the world of the story. It's the amount of focus and work they put into it. Most of the time I prefer BWs way.
I happen to love Bioware and I'm a Star Wars fanatic...from the moment I 1st heard the rumor about Bioware developing a Star Wars MMO (within weeks of the NGE), I've been excited about what they could develop. Every day there seem to be more complaints about Bioware and the fact that they are developing this game. While I understand concern and player passions about what "they" would love to see in the game (I have my own list too), I am also shocked by all the hate I see directed towards Bioware.
So let me ask - Who would you rather see developing the next Star Wars MMO?
Blizzard? CCP? SoE? Cryptic? NCSoft? Of that list, I'm still THRILLED we have Bioware designing this game. It won't be everything everyone wants it to be (no game is), but of all the companies out there, Bioware is hands down my favorite.
For me Bioware is tops on the list because they created what I consider the standard for Star Wars games, I enjoy "traditional" roleplaying games and could not care less if it plays like a single player mmo with a groups function tacked on, they make good engaging quality games and that's what I find important.
I played SWG from it's inception til just before the NGE came and I wouldn't want something that I found representative of my time in SOE's game world, yes you could spend hours playing that game but the problems that often popped up were numerous and quite simply an embarassment coming from a company with the stature of Sony.
Blizzard may be able to match the quality of a Bioware produced game but I would worry about the "disposable" nature of the game if they developed it, CCP another dev I respect I would prefer not to see do the game because the feel I get from playing EVE doesn't match what I want out of a Star Wars game either, NCSoft and Cryptic are non factors as developers for me, I've never had an interest in anything done by NCSoft and Cryptic makes terrible games.
I've passed on quite a few Bioware games so I am certainly not a blind fanboi but given what I know of them to be capable of in creating a gaming standard I couldn't think of any other dev I would trust to deliver to me what I felt should have been delivered when SWG was given to us.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I'd stick with Bioware. They've made awesome single player games so why couldn't they transfer that into an MMO? They may never of made one before but niether had blizzard before WoW. Loved the story in KOTOR, completed it about 10 times. Chucking in as many hours as i could into each playthrough. Not many RPG's make me play through again let alone 10 times. That means something in my book.
People saying CCP, just no to be honest. I'd have a feeling they would make it a far more complex game than it should be.
I get the feeling they could pull off making a very convincing, in depth, and enjoyable Star Wars universe. In addition, they already have the whole space engine from Eve to draw off of. A combination of Eve's space gameplay with a star wars flavor, tied in with a decent ground game would be exactly what the SWG vets have been pining for.
i second this.
mmorpgs should be about freedom, not following a story line as single player games might.
i really enjoy bioware games, but i fear they've taken the path of extending the content of a regular single player game and plug it into the internet. woohoo!
today, as far as mmorpgs are concerned, only CCP gets it.
That's kind of a blind view. Because a game is massively multiplayer it should not follow a storyline? Eve Online is a prime example of this. Very little story, the main reason why it just didnt grip me at all.
What if all the quest text in every past and current MMORPG was spoken audio by a voice actor? What is the point of any PVE part of a MMORPG, any NPCs, if the game is not about following a branching or completely linear storyline? Why have PvE or NPCs at all?
As MMORPGs have progressed since text MUDs and Ultima Online, gamers have gotten used to ignoring full quest text and just scanning for what the objective is. "OK I need to grab 8 troll toenails and bring them back to this guy." So the focus in the MMORPG has been about boring PvE MMO combat with other players. MMORPGs evolved from text to 3d graphics, people don't care about reading a quest text, which means the story is pretty much dead.
Making all quest text voiced by an actor allows to story to evolve from text to character audio, the same way combat evolved from text to 3d graphics. Saying "MMOs shouldn't follow a storyline" is like if MMO's were still stuck with text combat and saying "MMOs shouldn't follow new 3d graphics combat because it limits players creativity and imagination."
I'm sorry, but I want my multiplayer fully voice acted branched storyline. Just like I want my multiplayer 3d graphics combat with full lighting and 2.0 shaders. And technology and the MMO market are finally at a point that can support full voiced quest text in an MMO. Some don't want it, oh well. I do lol.
PvP, Fun PvE Combat, Puzzle Solving, Community, and Story. The story is critically important. It's been kind of anorexic in MMOs thanks to quest text not evolving with 3d graphics, but finally this will change.
Wouldn't CCP generate similar (or MORE) "hate" because they've never made a "ground game"?! I'd rather have a helluva good GROUND game than a killer space game for an MMO tbh. SWG still has a great space game, yet nobody plays for space.
when JTL launched i spent days in my Y-wing...Good times, i would sub a game that was only Star wars "the space game" a PvP centered game where ships were crazy customizable and your avatar was located on space stations or battleships.
Wouldn't CCP generate similar (or MORE) "hate" because they've never made a "ground game"?! I'd rather have a helluva good GROUND game than a killer space game for an MMO tbh. SWG still has a great space game, yet nobody plays for space.
when JTL launched i spent days in my Y-wing...Good times, i would sub a game that was only Star wars "the space game" a PvP centered game where ships were crazy customizable and your avatar was located on space stations or battleships.
Days? lol. I think Devs are going for MONTHS and YEARS, not days.
Comments
The "kiddie" TV series is one of the highest rated program on the cartoon network. This does not include the children's books and toys being some of the best sellers in their respective categories as well. Lucas is making a ton of money off of the Clone Wars series. Lucas is making money. Is that not what everybody is trying to do?
Edit: just checked a couple of the most popular shows on cable. The numbers are bigger than I remember.
Oh yeah, dry spells and lack of interest have happened a lot for the franchise in general. Before Phantom Menace is a good example. But long term? I'd put my money on this franchise being successful in many markets for a long, long time. The ebb and flow has been happening for a while. I'm sure Europe and the US will both be back at some point.
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It funny how many people think the same Bioware developers are making Tor that made the other games. Very few of Bioware developers are working on this title.
Most of the team is developers who made other mmos like SWG and WAR.
They are all working on making Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3.
Edit: What so good about today Bioware anyway? I dislick both Mass Effect and Dragon age. One was far to short for $60 dollar price. It took me 15 hours on hard and the next installment made me repeat the same shit to end when everything just got started!. Dragon Age felt "unbalance" and not even challenging. Also it didnt wow me like Valve or Blizzard games.
--
"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
True, the only numbers that I know about are US and Japan. The other hard part is measuring the downloads of the episodes from the site. Since, every episode is freely downloadable after few months after initial airing counting the numbers gets very hard. Honestly, I believe that Lucas is trying to widen his brand's (ala Star Wars) appeal by primarily focusing on children's series / books / toys. Lucas has seemed to have moved away from Comics as being a major venue to widen the brand's appeal. The reach of comics is fairly limited after all.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
I still don't get the "hand-holding linear storyline games lately" part in comparison to what other games recent games? Bioware seems to be doing the best out of any major developer in bringing open ended storylines (not sandbox). Sandboxes are nice, but they are very different from an engaging immersive open-ended storyline game.
What other developer does a good AAA open-ended storyline game? That's why I said ME2 and DA were the best to me lately, compared to other games. Is there room for improvement. Always, but what else is there? Who does it better than Bioware?
In Mass Effect/Dragon Age party members can be killed. You can be a hero, a villain, a corrupted hero, a redeemed villain, or something even grayer. You can make your companions hate you or love you. You can leave a path of destruction in your wake or be a beacon of growth and diplomacy. You can kill the storyline villain or let him live. Some of these choices can effect what happens in the sequel.
I don't see that much branching and end game effects in any other games. So how is it fair to say Bioware is making "rpgs on rails"... Compared to which other games? lol Seems like BW is doing more storyline branching then any other developer.
I'm just guessing but you sound like you enjoy the combat in the games, and not so much the story. I've played all of Bilzzard's games, most of Valve's, and all of Bioware's. And they excite me for different reasons.
With Valve I know I'm going to get awesome physics, awesome game mechanics, awesome graphics, awesome animations, good combat, great pvp, ok story.
With Blizzard I know I'm going to get awesome pvp, awesome addictive gameplay, great animations, great combat, good game mechanics, ok graphics, ok story, ok physics.
With Bioware I know I'm going to get awesome story, awesome graphics, awesome universe building/immersion, awesome voice acting/music, great game mechanics, good animations, good combat, ok physics, no pvp.
Their games have different strengths, different reasons to be excited. If you didn't like Mass Effect or Dragaon Age it's probably because you don't like deep involved story lines in your games. People who say "I don't want to sit here and listen to this dude talking about whatever he's talking about, I just wanna stab stuff." They probably aren't gonna be too excited by Bioware games.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
If the company is trying to create an exact or near exact duplicate of the KoToR games then really only BW will pull that off.
Reason: Everyone paints or does things differently, you'll lose the general feel of the game and it will "look" different if another company tries to recreate this near duplicate.
If your trying to create something similar, then you'll need people from BW on it to give advice and oversee the operation but really any sci-fi company could pull it off and do it well.
Reason: Sci-fi games have a unique look and way of going about things that don't really relate to fantasy style games well.
If your trying to create a star wars game in general then really any company can do it as long as they stay relatively true to the lore or in this case cannon of the story.
Reason: You really only have to stick to the cannon, once you do that you can kinda stumble your way through the rest and get a general star wars game.
Seeing as this is being made as almost a direct sequel to the KoToR games then really the only real choice for me would be the same people who thought up the idea, which is BW. Otherwise it's going to feel weird or wrong as things won't link up correctly (what i mean by this is when you look at something and it strikes you as odd, think of when a company tries to create a human with CGI and it looks odd, thats what i mean by that last statement).
After BW though, which is what the OP is asking, i would go with Funcom with BW overseeing to make sure they make it right.
A lot of people hate Funcom for various reasons of which are valid concerns, but they were involved in some interesting sci-fi type games in the past. I think most everyone agrees Anarchy online was a pretty good Sci-fi game and almost everyone agrees that the longest journey games were a good sci-fi game as well.
These are my opinions and views of course and i'm sure others will have differing views.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Well with BW games there is cutscene after cutscene, lots of talking, and conversation after conversation. BW is heavy on the story, Valve is not heavy on the story. You might like Valve's stories better but they put much less detail into their storylines, with more detail into the gamelay. Some people prefer that kind of storytelling.
I'm not rating the quality of the storylines when saying Valve is "ok on story" and BW is "awesome on story." It only means the amount of detail, depth, description of the people, the history, the lore, the land, the world of the story. It's the amount of focus and work they put into it. Most of the time I prefer BWs way.
For me Bioware is tops on the list because they created what I consider the standard for Star Wars games, I enjoy "traditional" roleplaying games and could not care less if it plays like a single player mmo with a groups function tacked on, they make good engaging quality games and that's what I find important.
I played SWG from it's inception til just before the NGE came and I wouldn't want something that I found representative of my time in SOE's game world, yes you could spend hours playing that game but the problems that often popped up were numerous and quite simply an embarassment coming from a company with the stature of Sony.
Blizzard may be able to match the quality of a Bioware produced game but I would worry about the "disposable" nature of the game if they developed it, CCP another dev I respect I would prefer not to see do the game because the feel I get from playing EVE doesn't match what I want out of a Star Wars game either, NCSoft and Cryptic are non factors as developers for me, I've never had an interest in anything done by NCSoft and Cryptic makes terrible games.
I've passed on quite a few Bioware games so I am certainly not a blind fanboi but given what I know of them to be capable of in creating a gaming standard I couldn't think of any other dev I would trust to deliver to me what I felt should have been delivered when SWG was given to us.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Rather impossible, but just for fun's sake:
For the next truly amazing Star Wars game? A love-child company between CCP, Anet, and Bioware.
This sounds too much like this "Cincinnati chilli" my wife makes, waaaay too much in it to sound very appealing.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I'd stick with Bioware. They've made awesome single player games so why couldn't they transfer that into an MMO? They may never of made one before but niether had blizzard before WoW. Loved the story in KOTOR, completed it about 10 times. Chucking in as many hours as i could into each playthrough. Not many RPG's make me play through again let alone 10 times. That means something in my book.
People saying CCP, just no to be honest. I'd have a feeling they would make it a far more complex game than it should be.
God, how obsessed are some of you guys with Bioware? Do you have anything accept them in youre life?
I seriousley getting scared of you, like a fricking Sect.
I've never had Cincinnati Chilli, but after a thorough google search, I might have to agree with you.
That's kind of a blind view. Because a game is massively multiplayer it should not follow a storyline? Eve Online is a prime example of this. Very little story, the main reason why it just didnt grip me at all.
What if all the quest text in every past and current MMORPG was spoken audio by a voice actor? What is the point of any PVE part of a MMORPG, any NPCs, if the game is not about following a branching or completely linear storyline? Why have PvE or NPCs at all?
As MMORPGs have progressed since text MUDs and Ultima Online, gamers have gotten used to ignoring full quest text and just scanning for what the objective is. "OK I need to grab 8 troll toenails and bring them back to this guy." So the focus in the MMORPG has been about boring PvE MMO combat with other players. MMORPGs evolved from text to 3d graphics, people don't care about reading a quest text, which means the story is pretty much dead.
Making all quest text voiced by an actor allows to story to evolve from text to character audio, the same way combat evolved from text to 3d graphics. Saying "MMOs shouldn't follow a storyline" is like if MMO's were still stuck with text combat and saying "MMOs shouldn't follow new 3d graphics combat because it limits players creativity and imagination."
I'm sorry, but I want my multiplayer fully voice acted branched storyline. Just like I want my multiplayer 3d graphics combat with full lighting and 2.0 shaders. And technology and the MMO market are finally at a point that can support full voiced quest text in an MMO. Some don't want it, oh well. I do lol.
PvP, Fun PvE Combat, Puzzle Solving, Community, and Story. The story is critically important. It's been kind of anorexic in MMOs thanks to quest text not evolving with 3d graphics, but finally this will change.
when JTL launched i spent days in my Y-wing...Good times, i would sub a game that was only Star wars "the space game" a PvP centered game where ships were crazy customizable and your avatar was located on space stations or battleships.
Days? lol. I think Devs are going for MONTHS and YEARS, not days.