So this article is implying that ToR will revolutionize MMO's because Biowares previous games have good ratings? I don't exactly follow this logic. A game can have high ratings and not drastically change the way future games are made.
It wont change the industry ... its warcraft in space with light sabers. I see very little that is revolutionary or industry changing if anything.
Actually, it already has. Do you think its a mere coincidence that almost every major MMO coming out in the next year has a heavy storyline basis?
Most people have grown to hate leveling via textbox popups. Most are extremely pleased w/ the "revolutionary" change of making it a storyline sequence with cinematics, voiceovers, and storyline choices.
I can pretty much guarentee you that I will never accept anything less from my MMOs after SWTOR.
You actually think TOR started the storyline craze? What are you smoking? Every game has had a storyline bent ever since the release of Lord of the Rings Online, and that game has been out since 2007. Its time to get in touch with modern MMO's. Just because TOR is new doesn't mean anything. Almost everything in TOR has been done before.
LOTRO is no different than WoW in storyline, its a bunch of pop up text boxes using a handful of voiceovers. As I said, storyline is worthless when you wrap it in the production value of a can of dogpoo
It may come as a shock to you, but there are a significant number of people out there who actualy enjoy the written word. That's why there are these things called "books" that have actualy been around for awhile and seem to persist in popularity even in this age of technology.
I'm sorry if you can't see it but video/cinematics is hardly the only/best way to present narrative. There are as many crappy movies as there are crappy novels. The quality of the narrative (for most people) has very little to do with the medium of presentation.
Personaly, I think LOTRO narrative is pretty well done (obviously it can't compare to the actual work of Proffesor Tolkien, but that's an aside). Personaly I consider it the equal of anything I've experienced in a Bioware game to date. They obviously put alot of effort into the presentation of thier stories, but I've never regarded the quality of thier narratives themselves as anything better then decent.
Please stop trying to project your own personal bias on the entire MMO audience. Bioware SPRPG's sell well and they certainly have a fan base....but whether cinematics & VO's become significantly popular for an MMO audience is a fact not yet in evidence. So far, the most popular MMO in existance doesn't have any...and continues to be quite popular. The largest experiment with inclusion of such to date in an MMO (AOC) hasn't done all that well. While the VO aspect of it was well recieved by the critics, it quite clearly didn't make enough of an impression to overcome the other short comings of the game. So I'd hardly call that solid evidence that cinematics & VO will revolutionize the industry in futrure offerings, if anything it would seem to suggest the reverse is true.
A de-emphasis on crafting, lack of customizable player housing, and rich storytelling are hardly revolutionary. Also, try proofreading your opening paragraph.
I've noticed that, recently, most of the articles here have been very badly written, with spelling mistakes, lack of proof-reading and even glaring internet vices ("there" instead of "their" when referring to possession, excessive use or lack of necessary apostrophes, etc).
MMORPG.com really needs to up the quality of its editors. And of its writers.
I completely agree. I yearn for the days of he old MMORPG where you could get good solid news on MMO games without all of the poor writing and intentionally inflammitory stories.
This story is just another example of that unfortunately. Come on guys give us REAL information, your opinions are not desired.
It wont change the industry ... its warcraft in space with light sabers. I see very little that is revolutionary or industry changing if anything.
Actually, it already has. Do you think its a mere coincidence that almost every major MMO coming out in the next year has a heavy storyline basis?
Most people have grown to hate leveling via textbox popups. Most are extremely pleased w/ the "revolutionary" change of making it a storyline sequence with cinematics, voiceovers, and storyline choices.
I can pretty much guarentee you that I will never accept anything less from my MMOs after SWTOR.
You actually think TOR started the storyline craze? What are you smoking? Every game has had a storyline bent ever since the release of Lord of the Rings Online, and that game has been out since 2007. Its time to get in touch with modern MMO's. Just because TOR is new doesn't mean anything. Almost everything in TOR has been done before.
LOTRO is no different than WoW in storyline, its a bunch of pop up text boxes using a handful of voiceovers. As I said, storyline is worthless when you wrap it in the production value of a can of dogpoo
It may come as a shock to you, but there are a significant number of people out there who actualy enjoy the written word. That's why there are these things called "books" that have actualy been around for awhile and seem to persist in popularity even in this age of technology.
I'm sorry if you can't see it but video/cinematics is hardly the only/best way to present narrative. There are as many crappy movies as there are crappy novels. The quality of the narrative (for most people) has very little to do with the medium of presentation.
Personaly, I think LOTRO narrative is pretty well done (obviously it can't compare to the actual work of Proffesor Tolkien, but that's an aside). Personaly I consider it the equal of anything I've experienced in a Bioware game to date. They obviously put alot of effort into the presentation of thier stories, but I've never regarded the quality of thier narratives themselves as anything better then decent.
Please stop trying to project your own personal bias on the entire MMO audience. Bioware SPRPG's sell well and they certainly have a fan base....but whether cinematics & VO's become significantly popular for an MMO audience is a fact not yet in evidence. So far, the most popular MMO in existance doesn't have any...and continues to be quite popular. The largest experiment with inclusion of such to date in an MMO (AOC) hasn't done all that well. While the VO aspect of it was well recieved by the critics, it quite clearly didn't make enough of an impression to overcome the other short comings of the game. So I'd hardly call that solid evidence that cinematics & VO will revolutionize the industry in futrure offerings, if anything it would seem to suggest the reverse is true.
Stupid argument is stupid. Games =/= books. Sure, some flavor text is fine, but when I want to play a game, the last thing I want to do is read hundreds of pages of text. If I wanted to do that, I would actually pick up a book.
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It wont change the industry ... its warcraft in space with light sabers. I see very little that is revolutionary or industry changing if anything.
Actually, it already has. Do you think its a mere coincidence that almost every major MMO coming out in the next year has a heavy storyline basis?
Most people have grown to hate leveling via textbox popups. Most are extremely pleased w/ the "revolutionary" change of making it a storyline sequence with cinematics, voiceovers, and storyline choices.
I can pretty much guarentee you that I will never accept anything less from my MMOs after SWTOR.
You actually think TOR started the storyline craze? What are you smoking? Every game has had a storyline bent ever since the release of Lord of the Rings Online, and that game has been out since 2007. Its time to get in touch with modern MMO's. Just because TOR is new doesn't mean anything. Almost everything in TOR has been done before.
LOTRO is no different than WoW in storyline, its a bunch of pop up text boxes using a handful of voiceovers. As I said, storyline is worthless when you wrap it in the production value of a can of dogpoo
It may come as a shock to you, but there are a significant number of people out there who actualy enjoy the written word. That's why there are these things called "books" that have actualy been around for awhile and seem to persist in popularity even in this age of technology.
I'm sorry if you can't see it but video/cinematics is hardly the only/best way to present narrative. There are as many crappy movies as there are crappy novels. The quality of the narrative (for most people) has very little to do with the medium of presentation.
Personaly, I think LOTRO narrative is pretty well done (obviously it can't compare to the actual work of Proffesor Tolkien, but that's an aside). Personaly I consider it the equal of anything I've experienced in a Bioware game to date. They obviously put alot of effort into the presentation of thier stories, but I've never regarded the quality of thier narratives themselves as anything better then decent.
Please stop trying to project your own personal bias on the entire MMO audience. Bioware SPRPG's sell well and they certainly have a fan base....but whether cinematics & VO's become significantly popular for an MMO audience is a fact not yet in evidence. So far, the most popular MMO in existance doesn't have any...and continues to be quite popular. The largest experiment with inclusion of such to date in an MMO (AOC) hasn't done all that well. While the VO aspect of it was well recieved by the critics, it quite clearly didn't make enough of an impression to overcome the other short comings of the game. So I'd hardly call that solid evidence that cinematics & VO will revolutionize the industry in futrure offerings, if anything it would seem to suggest the reverse is true.
Stupid argument is stupid. Games =/= books. Sure, some flavor text is fine, but when I want to play a game, the last thing I want to do is read hundreds of pages of text. If I wanted to do that, I would actually pick up a book.
By that same token Games =/= movies either. If I wanted to see LONG cinematics and hear tons of pre-canned NPC voice acting...I would go watch a movie...not play a game
Point is, nothing about cinematics or voice acting inherently make for a better storyline/narrative. A simple sampling of "Made for TV" movies should be enough to bring that point home.
Whether people prefer text or video/audio (or some combination of the above) to introduce story elements in a game is a matter of personal preference and people will differ on it. In neither case does it dictate the quality of the narrative. A good quality story presented in text snippets is a good story....a bad story presented in Voice Acting and Cinematics is still a bad story.... no matter how much audio/visual you throw at it.
WoW-Rift-TOR-WAR and so many others all look the same to me ive watch some videos of TOR-WoW-Rift-Allods-RoM and some others they all have same kind of graphics and similar gameplay plus quests and hubs and how you proceed in those games.
When you look at TOR gameplay walkthrough videos you realy get dejavu feeling its all done before. TOR change nothing.
Only becouse of IP with many starwars fans around world and fanbois of bioware game prolly will have succes but that dont mean game change industrie, its all done before only instead fantasy its " World Of Starwars " Sy Fy mmo for casual who seek ease mode hold hands gameplay in a themepark:P
"I'm fairly confident in saying a very small percentage of the population would be interested in playing a Star Wars MMO in the Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen style of owning and operating a moisture farm on Tattooine."
I disagree ser. Many of us have been waiting for "Moisture Farmers: Online" for years. In fact, I preordered to get the 10% Jawa driod sales discount.
Band together with your most trusted allies to undertake some of the most dangerous missions in the galaxy! Flashpoints are action-packed, story-driven adventures that test a group of players to their limits, putting them up against difficult foes in volatile situations. You and your group need your wits, your skills, and all your resources to emerge victorious. Every Flashpoint begins with an exciting story and contains difficult decisions – choose carefully, because your group’s choices have a meaningful impact on the challenges you’ll face, the enemies you’ll fight, and the outcome of the story! All the danger is certainly worthwhile; the rewards from Flashpoints are some of the most powerful you’ll find.
Getting back to the multiplayer side of things, it’s true that there isn’t much reason to tag along to many of the class quests given early on. Entering your groupmates’ phases often doesn’t give you much to do as you cannot participate in the conversations. There are a good deal of phases that result in combat and having a friend along can sure be helpful, but without knowing which is which ahead of time your friends are often left basically dancing around waiting for you to finish your conversations should they decide to tag along. If you’re feeling disappointed by this fact, fear not, your starting world is actually a fairly short jaunt that really serves to set up your class storyline and get you used to the game mechanics.
Despite the aforementioned issues, grouping on Hutta was actually still quite fun. Sidequest dialogue can all be done in multiplayer and so you can start earning your Dark Side and Light Side points along with your friends while having to suffer the consequences of their choices if they make a decision you didn’t want to and win the conversation roll. This may sound like a negative, but it’s actually incredibly social and fun; there’s a kind of “party game” element to it. One example involved a side-quest bounty where we were given the option of taking the target dead or alive. We found the mark imprisoned along with a few others, all of whom were wearing explosive slave collars. Refusing to come with us unless we freed the other slaves as well, three of us chose to make use of the whole “dead” bit of the contract and kill the guy, however, one member of the group decided to comply and free the other slaves. Guess who won? While we all lost out, we all laughed it up and found the result quite amusing anyways.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the way multiplayer dialogue works, basically each player involved in the scene selects their dialogue choice (or chooses to skip) and then a roll is made for each player (the roll value for each player is shown on the bottom left of the screen). The winning choice determines who responds and what is said (or decided), though alignment points such as Dark Side and Light Side points are awarded based on intentions and not what actually results. If you choose to kill someone (Dark Side points), and your friend chooses to spare them (Light Side points), you’ll still get your Dark Side points if the spare decision wins out. In addition to Dark Side and Light Side points, players earn “Social Points” for participating in multiplayer dialogue. BioWare wouldn’t get into the sort of things one can redeem with social points other than that they’d be of interest to those who are, well, social!
This sounds fantastic of course. Indeed - it is exactly what many MMO players claim they want (you know: the ability to make real decisions with real consequences). But is it really? I say no.
But I have highlighted the areas that concern me.
Bioware is showing their in-experience here. Their MMO in-experience. If you think about it Bioware has never really had to be too concerned about people such as AFKers, Powerlevelers, Min-Maxers or griefers.
But with a system like this - all of these people will play an important role.
I think we all know that many people don't bother to read text - with a large number of players 'clicking' their way through MMOs by simply hitting [ACCEPT]...[OK]...[OK]...[OK]... and then following the map pointers. And that's fine in current MMOs where it really doesn't matter. The result is the same no matter who you are. Everyone on the same quest has the same goal.
But what happens in a game where a dialogue choice can make the difference between one outcome and another? One mob spawn vs another? One LOOT TABLE and another?
Bioware don't seem to understand that within a month walkthroughs with complete loot tables will be available and some players don't like 'random' or being at the mercy of others.
ie: Party: 1 x Bounty Hunter, 1 x Jedi, 2 x Troopers.
*** Game Dialogue: Ambassador: "So... you are here to threaten me?"
*** Dialogue choice: 1) "No, simply to deliver a friendly message." 2) "No. We are past threats. Consider this an ultimatum!"
Game Chat:
Bounty Hunter> Everyone go option 2 - then get ready to repel a bunch of droids...
Jedi> Um no... firstly that is darkside and secondly if you choose that option he fights and you lose the side quest later on and you can't get the +15 Light Saber.
Bounty Hunter> No. PICK OPTION 2. Yeah you lose the LS but the droids sometimes drop rare blasters and since there are more non-Jedi in this party pick 2.
Jedi> So what? I need the LS and the light side points. No way I will pick 2.
Trooper 1> You are being selfish ########. I want the rare blaster and this is my 20th go at getting it. Pick 2 ########.
Jedi> Oh nice.
Trooper 1> #######
Trooper 2> I don't care. I have never played this mission and want to see both outcomes.
Bounty Hunter> VOTE 2. Please. Really.
*** Dialogue roll.....
"No, simply to deliver a friendly message"
Trooper 1> You ####### #######
Jedi> #### you.
Trooper 1 has lost connection.
Bounty Hunter> oh ####### brilliant Jedi #######. And now we are a man down. We probably cannot complete the mission now and you won't get your LS anyway.
Jedi> LOL - it was worth it to ##### you.
Trooper 2 has left the party
Bounty Hunter> Fantastic - see? I hope you are happy Jedi. Thanks for wasting my time.
Bounty Hunter has left the party.
That may not be how it works of course. Wait and see.
We certainly won't see on the 'preview weekends' because the players will be in the honeymoon period and any new system will be considered 'fun' even if it is fatally flawed.
But my early perdiction is (if I am interpreting what I am reading correctly) that Bioware will get a hard lesson in MMO gamers with a system like this.
How it will change the industry?
Hopefully other companies will understand the mentality / psychology of MMO gamers a bit better as a result.
That may not be how it works of course. Wait and see.
We certainly won't see on the 'preview weekends' because the players will be in the honeymoon period and any new system will be considered 'fun' even if it is fatally flawed.
But my early perdiction is (if I am interpreting what I am reading correctly) that Bioware will get a hard lesson in MMO gamers with a system like this.
How it will change the industry?
Hopefully other companies will understand the mentality / psychology of MMO gamers a bit better as a result.
We can only speculate, but I doubt that dialogue options will have any effect on quest rewards and loot. And I tend to doubt those options will change the LEVEL of challenge, either; my guess is any decision will lead to a 6 of one, or half dozen of the other" outcome; maybe a different "title" reward of some kind. At most an "extra" encounter or two of equal difficulty to the rest of the mission. And if I recall correctly, you don't gain/lose "karma" due to another player's dialogue decisions.
But if I'm right, that's likely to disappoint the "there must be consequences" crowd. Methinx "consequences", at least for the actions of others in the group, will remain in the mission and won't come with you into the rest of the game.
Again, I could be wrong as Donkey Kong playing Ping Pong...
It wont change the industry ... its warcraft in space with light sabers. I see very little that is revolutionary or industry changing if anything.
Actually, it already has. Do you think its a mere coincidence that almost every major MMO coming out in the next year has a heavy storyline basis?
Most people have grown to hate leveling via textbox popups. Most are extremely pleased w/ the "revolutionary" change of making it a storyline sequence with cinematics, voiceovers, and storyline choices.
I can pretty much guarentee you that I will never accept anything less from my MMOs after SWTOR.
You actually think TOR started the storyline craze? What are you smoking? Every game has had a storyline bent ever since the release of Lord of the Rings Online, and that game has been out since 2007. Its time to get in touch with modern MMO's. Just because TOR is new doesn't mean anything. Almost everything in TOR has been done before.
LOTRO is no different than WoW in storyline, its a bunch of pop up text boxes using a handful of voiceovers. As I said, storyline is worthless when you wrap it in the production value of a can of dogpoo
It may come as a shock to you, but there are a significant number of people out there who actualy enjoy the written word. That's why there are these things called "books" that have actualy been around for awhile and seem to persist in popularity even in this age of technology.
I'm sorry if you can't see it but video/cinematics is hardly the only/best way to present narrative. There are as many crappy movies as there are crappy novels. The quality of the narrative (for most people) has very little to do with the medium of presentation.
Personaly, I think LOTRO narrative is pretty well done (obviously it can't compare to the actual work of Proffesor Tolkien, but that's an aside). Personaly I consider it the equal of anything I've experienced in a Bioware game to date. They obviously put alot of effort into the presentation of thier stories, but I've never regarded the quality of thier narratives themselves as anything better then decent.
Please stop trying to project your own personal bias on the entire MMO audience. Bioware SPRPG's sell well and they certainly have a fan base....but whether cinematics & VO's become significantly popular for an MMO audience is a fact not yet in evidence. So far, the most popular MMO in existance doesn't have any...and continues to be quite popular. The largest experiment with inclusion of such to date in an MMO (AOC) hasn't done all that well. While the VO aspect of it was well recieved by the critics, it quite clearly didn't make enough of an impression to overcome the other short comings of the game. So I'd hardly call that solid evidence that cinematics & VO will revolutionize the industry in futrure offerings, if anything it would seem to suggest the reverse is true.
Stupid argument is stupid. Games =/= books. Sure, some flavor text is fine, but when I want to play a game, the last thing I want to do is read hundreds of pages of text. If I wanted to do that, I would actually pick up a book.
By that same token Games =/= movies either. If I wanted to see LONG cinematics and hear tons of pre-canned NPC voice acting...I would go watch a movie...not play a game
Point is, nothing about cinematics or voice acting inherently make for a better storyline/narrative. A simple sampling of "Made for TV" movies should be enough to bring that point home.
Whether people prefer text or video/audio (or some combination of the above) to introduce story elements in a game is a matter of personal preference and people will differ on it. In neither case does it dictate the quality of the narrative. A good quality story presented in text snippets is a good story....a bad story presented in Voice Acting and Cinematics is still a bad story.... no matter how much audio/visual you throw at it.
you must not be a mass effect fan if you dont like the game then fine dont play it. i am sure the game has plenty of people who like it and stick to it unlike you seem to hate it. thats why mass effect won so many awards because of its story and choices. tor is just like mass effect and some people like making choices in there story if you like plain games with tons of text go play those, dont touch tor if you dont like it
Player housing has been already done in Ultima Online to a degree that no other MMO has even gotten close to. Nothing new.
SWTOR has player ship.
GW2 has entire home instance with houses npc etc serving as your home. I dont see why would the author attribute it to SWTOR specifically instead of GW2 [not that he should but why one over the other?]
SWTOR storytelling with voice overs and supposedly branching story.
GW2 also has personal story with voice overs and branching story. If it werent TOR it would be GW2 and other way as well.
All in all i cant see the "how TOR will change industry".
I think that people are placing a bigger importance on TOR's dialogue than they should. In an MMO you spend less time talking to NPCs and more time doing rather lengthy fetch this, kill him, investigate point A, destroy point B types of things. TOR is not an exception to this. You have great characters/dialogue, yes. But in every other way it is an incredibly standard MMO.
I think that people are placing a bigger importance on TOR's dialogue than they should. In an MMO you spend less time talking to NPCs and more time doing rather lengthy fetch this, kill him, investigate point A, destroy point B types of things. TOR is not an exception to this. You have great characters/dialogue, yes. But in every other way it is an incredibly standard MMO.
By "people" I hope you are also including Bioware?
This is my point.
Bioware are really good at making story driven single player games. In single player games that works and dialogue is important. In those games you are telling a story - for one person.
But MMOs are a different animal and MMO players have different expectations. Not to mention the difficulty of integrating thousands of individual 'stories' into one overall experience.
Other MMOs have tried and had some success - but ultimately it is technically very difficult.
As an example: Lord of the Rings Online attempts to integrate the player's story with the tale of Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring... and it does a pretty good job. But, it is not seemless. It can't be. In my last play session I have a toon scouting behind the Fellowship as they march south from Rivendell on the road to Moria... but then the same toon travels to Rivendell to complete an outstanding quest with Legolas - who is still in Rivendell?? So this breaks the continuity of the story. If they wanted to preserve the continuity of the storyline then the only way to do this would be to clear defunct quests from the quest log. This could be done - but it would be something that many MMO gamers would not appreciate as quest chains and grind for those quests would be 'wasted'.
So, Bioware will need to appreciate this and adjust for it. It will mean that sometimes they will have to sacrifice the continuity of their storylines and focus less on story and dialogue. We will have to wait and see what they have done and if it works.
I think that people are placing a bigger importance on TOR's dialogue than they should. In an MMO you spend less time talking to NPCs and more time doing rather lengthy fetch this, kill him, investigate point A, destroy point B types of things. TOR is not an exception to this. You have great characters/dialogue, yes. But in every other way it is an incredibly standard MMO.
By "people" I hope you are also including Bioware?
This is my point.
Bioware are really good at making story driven single player games. In single player games that works and dialogue is important. In those games you are telling a story - for one person.
But MMOs are a different animal and MMO players have different expectations. Not to mention the difficulty of integrating thousands of individual 'stories' into one overall experience.
Other MMOs have tried and had some success - but ultimately it is technically very difficult.
As an example: Lord of the Rings Online attempts to integrate the player's story with the tale of Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring... and it does a pretty good job. But, it is not seemless. It can't be. In my last play session I have a toon scouting behind the Fellowship as they march south from Rivendell on the road to Moria... but then the same toon travels to Rivendell to complete an outstanding quest with Legolas - who is still in Rivendell?? So this breaks the continuity of the story. If they wanted to preserve the continuity of the storyline then the only way to do this would be to clear defunct quests from the quest log. This could be done - but it would be something that many MMO gamers would not appreciate as quest chains and grind for those quests would be 'wasted'.
So, Bioware will need to appreciate this and adjust for it. It will mean that sometimes they will have to sacrifice the continuity of their storylines and focus less on story and dialogue. We will have to wait and see what they have done and if it works.
There aren't any other games doing what Bioware does with story to suggest whether that single player game element will work or not, until someone creates a polished game with such a well crafted story that lasts throughout the game we can't say how it will be taken.
I recall alot of the complaints about AOC is how the immersion ended with Tortage and very few people I saw argued that the lack of story following Tortage was a good thing.
LOTRO is the only mmorpg I play right now because I enjoy the story, the story was also why I played WOW for as long as I did I think there are many more mmo players who don't care whether the story is that of a common moisture farmer or a hero as much as they care that the games they are asked to pay for are good fun games.
I agree with Mr. Wood on the likelihood that the story will be excellent. I'm looking forward to that.
I don't agree on the housing and crafting. I enjoy decorating my house in LOTRO, and I do crafting when I want to be in game but don't feel like doing a bunch of pew-pew that night. I've read that even GW 2 is going to add some housing after having none in GW, so it's clear that players enjoy it. I don't think Bioware's approach is going to be an improvement. It looks like they're taking the STO approach on player housing (you can put a few trophies up on your ship) and I'm not thrilled with that idea.
I also smell a microtransaction possibility there--"hey, we won't build any customizable ships in at game start, we'll just add it later. People will pay 5 bucks to customize their ships! Ooh, shiny!"
Just a note: Kotor II was made by Obsidian, not Bioware.
OK, let's look at real life story telling. How long does it take to write a pulitzer prize winning story. (For the unliterate, for instance, To Kill a Mockingbird, that Jeopardy favorite). A LONG time. And it takes, oh a couple days to read? What's the point?
It takes a LOT longer to create content (story, whatever) than it takes to consume it. To make a year's worth of genuinely new, engaging content would take X times 1 year, where X is a very big number. True for Bioware as anyone else. How long did it take to write Mass Effect? Dragon Age? etc....and how long to play it?
RULE OF THE UNIVERSE: Content creation time >>>> Content consumption time. Not to mention it is a lot harder, also, but I digress.
How have MMO's dealt with this drastic inequality? By making content that is repetitive, in many ways (such as letting a player build an alt with really different capabilties so he/she can experience the same content in a slightly different way, and extend the players' interest, and so forth, and so on). What other choice is there? So the key is to make the grind palatable to enough people to make money. That's what EQ1 and UO managed to do. And really started the whole thing. WoW nearly perfected it.
The other option is to have the player interactions determine the experience, not primarily the content. But in this column the argument is being made about content itself.
If we expand to games in general, we see some games are popular for centuries. Like chess, for example. Content created once but enjoyed over and over for a long time. Tremendous replayability. But... a chess game is not a persistent world. It starts and ends, in time on the order of an hour. Not the MMO feel at all, of course.
To break out of this thing requires breaking a rule of the universe. So, my suggestion is, the MMO community should just switch to a parallel universe where different rules apply. Bon voyage.
I actually look forward to TOR. And GW2. But they are games created in this universe, TBH.
A de-emphasis on crafting, lack of customizable player housing, and rich storytelling are hardly revolutionary. Also, try proofreading your opening paragraph.
I've noticed that, recently, most of the articles here have been very badly written, with spelling mistakes, lack of proof-reading and even glaring internet vices ("there" instead of "their" when referring to possession, excessive use or lack of necessary apostrophes, etc).
MMORPG.com really needs to up the quality of its editors. And of its writers.
You may want to up your writing skills! You never use the word "and" when starting a sentence.
I would just like to point out why WoW is viewed as the industry standard. BC it is the only "real" game in the market. You see, when a "real" mmo hit the market, it got millions of subscribers. It became more than the MMO's before it with pre-orders. And it looks as if ST:ToR will knock it from it's perch.
You see, Star Wars got the "sandbox" treatment first. A failure so bad, that SOE should not have been able to acquire licensed material ever again. What suprises me is how long it took to make another. It's Star Wars, if the game is half as good as WoW, there will be nerds who will never leave their basements again.
Fans of non "theme park" mmo's, YOU ARE THE MINORITY. Deal with it. All these "sandbox" mmo's and such, are boring bc they have no content. Entire worlds with no story and nothing to do, what fun. If I want to "make my own content", I write, not play video games. If my words should add up to a book, I can sell it, and pay my bills. Or maybe create my own "theme park" mmo to entertain others.
Excuses like its "Star Wars / Bioware" mean nothing, the game will not life up to the hype. It will be an ok game for die hard Star Wars fans sure but after the hundred cutscene people will get tired of hearing some cartoony looking npc talking 5 minutes just telling them, they'll have to slay 10 jedis or sith *lol*
Judging by the videos the combat looks extremely boring even the nice explode effects don't help much it will be a very linearic questgrind game bringing nothing new to the table {mod edit}
Sometimes people posting in these forums amaze me. Five minutes of research would have shown this guy he does not know what he is talking about, but rather than do that he lets himself look foolish. {mod edit}
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Excuses like its "Star Wars / Bioware" mean nothing, the game will not life up to the hype. It will be an ok game for die hard Star Wars fans sure but after the hundred cutscene people will get tired of hearing some cartoony looking npc talking 5 minutes just telling them, they'll have to slay 10 jedis or sith *lol*
Judging by the videos the combat looks extremely boring even the nice explode effects don't help much it will be a very linearic questgrind game bringing nothing new to the table {mod edit}
Sometimes people posting in these forums amaze me. Five minutes of research would have shown this guy he does not know what he is talking about, but rather than do that he lets himself look foolish.
{mod edit}
Fanboi much?
Its my opinion based on what I've seen so far nothing you say will change it. Maybe you should gets your facts straight, Bioware admitted the game will linear (just like all recent bioware games only an interactive movie) fine for those who like it. Doubt it will work in a mmorpg enviroment though.
You don't have to agree but facts are facts.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Excuses like its "Star Wars / Bioware" mean nothing, the game will not life up to the hype. It will be an ok game for die hard Star Wars fans sure but after the hundred cutscene people will get tired of hearing some cartoony looking npc talking 5 minutes just telling them, they'll have to slay 10 jedis or sith *lol*
Judging by the videos the combat looks extremely boring even the nice explode effects don't help much it will be a very linearic questgrind game bringing nothing new to the table
{mod edit}
Sometimes people posting in these forums amaze me. Five minutes of research would have shown this guy he does not know what he is talking about, but rather than do that he lets himself look foolish.
{mod edit}
Fanboi much?
Its my opinion based on what I've seen so far nothing you say will change it. Maybe you should gets your facts straight, Bioware admitted the game will linear (just like all recent bioware games only an interactive movie) fine for those who like it. Doubt it will work in a mmorpg enviroment though.
Comments
So this article is implying that ToR will revolutionize MMO's because Biowares previous games have good ratings? I don't exactly follow this logic. A game can have high ratings and not drastically change the way future games are made.
"It'll be this! It'll be that!
It won't be this! It won't be that!"
Don't care what it is, what it will or what it won't be.
So long as it's fun, that's all I care about.
It may come as a shock to you, but there are a significant number of people out there who actualy enjoy the written word. That's why there are these things called "books" that have actualy been around for awhile and seem to persist in popularity even in this age of technology.
I'm sorry if you can't see it but video/cinematics is hardly the only/best way to present narrative. There are as many crappy movies as there are crappy novels. The quality of the narrative (for most people) has very little to do with the medium of presentation.
Personaly, I think LOTRO narrative is pretty well done (obviously it can't compare to the actual work of Proffesor Tolkien, but that's an aside). Personaly I consider it the equal of anything I've experienced in a Bioware game to date. They obviously put alot of effort into the presentation of thier stories, but I've never regarded the quality of thier narratives themselves as anything better then decent.
Please stop trying to project your own personal bias on the entire MMO audience. Bioware SPRPG's sell well and they certainly have a fan base....but whether cinematics & VO's become significantly popular for an MMO audience is a fact not yet in evidence. So far, the most popular MMO in existance doesn't have any...and continues to be quite popular. The largest experiment with inclusion of such to date in an MMO (AOC) hasn't done all that well. While the VO aspect of it was well recieved by the critics, it quite clearly didn't make enough of an impression to overcome the other short comings of the game. So I'd hardly call that solid evidence that cinematics & VO will revolutionize the industry in futrure offerings, if anything it would seem to suggest the reverse is true.
I completely agree. I yearn for the days of he old MMORPG where you could get good solid news on MMO games without all of the poor writing and intentionally inflammitory stories.
This story is just another example of that unfortunately. Come on guys give us REAL information, your opinions are not desired.
Stupid argument is stupid. Games =/= books. Sure, some flavor text is fine, but when I want to play a game, the last thing I want to do is read hundreds of pages of text. If I wanted to do that, I would actually pick up a book.
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
By that same token Games =/= movies either. If I wanted to see LONG cinematics and hear tons of pre-canned NPC voice acting...I would go watch a movie...not play a game
Point is, nothing about cinematics or voice acting inherently make for a better storyline/narrative. A simple sampling of "Made for TV" movies should be enough to bring that point home.
Whether people prefer text or video/audio (or some combination of the above) to introduce story elements in a game is a matter of personal preference and people will differ on it. In neither case does it dictate the quality of the narrative. A good quality story presented in text snippets is a good story....a bad story presented in Voice Acting and Cinematics is still a bad story.... no matter how much audio/visual you throw at it.
so tired of hearing this crap... TOR is not gonna change the industry.
It is nothing more than a wow clone, with voice overs and that is it. That is all.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
Your in denial
WoW-Rift-TOR-WAR and so many others all look the same to me ive watch some videos of TOR-WoW-Rift-Allods-RoM and some others they all have same kind of graphics and similar gameplay plus quests and hubs and how you proceed in those games.
When you look at TOR gameplay walkthrough videos you realy get dejavu feeling its all done before. TOR change nothing.
Only becouse of IP with many starwars fans around world and fanbois of bioware game prolly will have succes but that dont mean game change industrie, its all done before only instead fantasy its " World Of Starwars " Sy Fy mmo for casual who seek ease mode hold hands gameplay in a themepark:P
"I'm fairly confident in saying a very small percentage of the population would be interested in playing a Star Wars MMO in the Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen style of owning and operating a moisture farm on Tattooine."
I disagree ser. Many of us have been waiting for "Moisture Farmers: Online" for years. In fact, I preordered to get the 10% Jawa driod sales discount.
I am going to stick my neck out at this point and make a prediction about SW:TOR:
The dailogue system I have read about will fail. That's a big claim from a nobody I realise - so let me explain
http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/flashpoints
Band together with your most trusted allies to undertake some of the most dangerous missions in the galaxy! Flashpoints are action-packed, story-driven adventures that test a group of players to their limits, putting them up against difficult foes in volatile situations. You and your group need your wits, your skills, and all your resources to emerge victorious. Every Flashpoint begins with an exciting story and contains difficult decisions – choose carefully, because your group’s choices have a meaningful impact on the challenges you’ll face, the enemies you’ll fight, and the outcome of the story! All the danger is certainly worthwhile; the rewards from Flashpoints are some of the most powerful you’ll find.
And from here http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/5176/Bounty-Hunter-Multiplayer-Preview.html/page/1
Getting back to the multiplayer side of things, it’s true that there isn’t much reason to tag along to many of the class quests given early on. Entering your groupmates’ phases often doesn’t give you much to do as you cannot participate in the conversations. There are a good deal of phases that result in combat and having a friend along can sure be helpful, but without knowing which is which ahead of time your friends are often left basically dancing around waiting for you to finish your conversations should they decide to tag along. If you’re feeling disappointed by this fact, fear not, your starting world is actually a fairly short jaunt that really serves to set up your class storyline and get you used to the game mechanics.
Despite the aforementioned issues, grouping on Hutta was actually still quite fun. Sidequest dialogue can all be done in multiplayer and so you can start earning your Dark Side and Light Side points along with your friends while having to suffer the consequences of their choices if they make a decision you didn’t want to and win the conversation roll. This may sound like a negative, but it’s actually incredibly social and fun; there’s a kind of “party game” element to it. One example involved a side-quest bounty where we were given the option of taking the target dead or alive. We found the mark imprisoned along with a few others, all of whom were wearing explosive slave collars. Refusing to come with us unless we freed the other slaves as well, three of us chose to make use of the whole “dead” bit of the contract and kill the guy, however, one member of the group decided to comply and free the other slaves. Guess who won? While we all lost out, we all laughed it up and found the result quite amusing anyways.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the way multiplayer dialogue works, basically each player involved in the scene selects their dialogue choice (or chooses to skip) and then a roll is made for each player (the roll value for each player is shown on the bottom left of the screen). The winning choice determines who responds and what is said (or decided), though alignment points such as Dark Side and Light Side points are awarded based on intentions and not what actually results. If you choose to kill someone (Dark Side points), and your friend chooses to spare them (Light Side points), you’ll still get your Dark Side points if the spare decision wins out. In addition to Dark Side and Light Side points, players earn “Social Points” for participating in multiplayer dialogue. BioWare wouldn’t get into the sort of things one can redeem with social points other than that they’d be of interest to those who are, well, social!
This sounds fantastic of course. Indeed - it is exactly what many MMO players claim they want (you know: the ability to make real decisions with real consequences). But is it really? I say no.
But I have highlighted the areas that concern me.
Bioware is showing their in-experience here. Their MMO in-experience. If you think about it Bioware has never really had to be too concerned about people such as AFKers, Powerlevelers, Min-Maxers or griefers.
But with a system like this - all of these people will play an important role.
I think we all know that many people don't bother to read text - with a large number of players 'clicking' their way through MMOs by simply hitting [ACCEPT]...[OK]...[OK]...[OK]... and then following the map pointers. And that's fine in current MMOs where it really doesn't matter. The result is the same no matter who you are. Everyone on the same quest has the same goal.
But what happens in a game where a dialogue choice can make the difference between one outcome and another? One mob spawn vs another? One LOOT TABLE and another?
Bioware don't seem to understand that within a month walkthroughs with complete loot tables will be available and some players don't like 'random' or being at the mercy of others.
ie: Party: 1 x Bounty Hunter, 1 x Jedi, 2 x Troopers.
*** Game Dialogue: Ambassador: "So... you are here to threaten me?"
*** Dialogue choice: 1) "No, simply to deliver a friendly message." 2) "No. We are past threats. Consider this an ultimatum!"
Game Chat:
Bounty Hunter> Everyone go option 2 - then get ready to repel a bunch of droids...
Jedi> Um no... firstly that is darkside and secondly if you choose that option he fights and you lose the side quest later on and you can't get the +15 Light Saber.
Bounty Hunter> No. PICK OPTION 2. Yeah you lose the LS but the droids sometimes drop rare blasters and since there are more non-Jedi in this party pick 2.
Jedi> So what? I need the LS and the light side points. No way I will pick 2.
Trooper 1> You are being selfish ########. I want the rare blaster and this is my 20th go at getting it. Pick 2 ########.
Jedi> Oh nice.
Trooper 1> #######
Trooper 2> I don't care. I have never played this mission and want to see both outcomes.
Bounty Hunter> VOTE 2. Please. Really.
*** Dialogue roll.....
"No, simply to deliver a friendly message"
Trooper 1> You ####### #######
Jedi> #### you.
Trooper 1 has lost connection.
Bounty Hunter> oh ####### brilliant Jedi #######. And now we are a man down. We probably cannot complete the mission now and you won't get your LS anyway.
Jedi> LOL - it was worth it to ##### you.
Trooper 2 has left the party
Bounty Hunter> Fantastic - see? I hope you are happy Jedi. Thanks for wasting my time.
Bounty Hunter has left the party.
That may not be how it works of course. Wait and see.
We certainly won't see on the 'preview weekends' because the players will be in the honeymoon period and any new system will be considered 'fun' even if it is fatally flawed.
But my early perdiction is (if I am interpreting what I am reading correctly) that Bioware will get a hard lesson in MMO gamers with a system like this.
How it will change the industry?
Hopefully other companies will understand the mentality / psychology of MMO gamers a bit better as a result.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
We can only speculate, but I doubt that dialogue options will have any effect on quest rewards and loot. And I tend to doubt those options will change the LEVEL of challenge, either; my guess is any decision will lead to a 6 of one, or half dozen of the other" outcome; maybe a different "title" reward of some kind. At most an "extra" encounter or two of equal difficulty to the rest of the mission. And if I recall correctly, you don't gain/lose "karma" due to another player's dialogue decisions.
But if I'm right, that's likely to disappoint the "there must be consequences" crowd. Methinx "consequences", at least for the actions of others in the group, will remain in the mission and won't come with you into the rest of the game.
Again, I could be wrong as Donkey Kong playing Ping Pong...
you must not be a mass effect fan if you dont like the game then fine dont play it. i am sure the game has plenty of people who like it and stick to it unlike you seem to hate it. thats why mass effect won so many awards because of its story and choices. tor is just like mass effect and some people like making choices in there story if you like plain games with tons of text go play those, dont touch tor if you dont like it
.....
Player housing has been already done in Ultima Online to a degree that no other MMO has even gotten close to. Nothing new.
SWTOR has player ship.
GW2 has entire home instance with houses npc etc serving as your home. I dont see why would the author attribute it to SWTOR specifically instead of GW2 [not that he should but why one over the other?]
SWTOR storytelling with voice overs and supposedly branching story.
GW2 also has personal story with voice overs and branching story. If it werent TOR it would be GW2 and other way as well.
All in all i cant see the "how TOR will change industry".
I think that people are placing a bigger importance on TOR's dialogue than they should. In an MMO you spend less time talking to NPCs and more time doing rather lengthy fetch this, kill him, investigate point A, destroy point B types of things. TOR is not an exception to this. You have great characters/dialogue, yes. But in every other way it is an incredibly standard MMO.
By "people" I hope you are also including Bioware?
This is my point.
Bioware are really good at making story driven single player games. In single player games that works and dialogue is important. In those games you are telling a story - for one person.
But MMOs are a different animal and MMO players have different expectations. Not to mention the difficulty of integrating thousands of individual 'stories' into one overall experience.
Other MMOs have tried and had some success - but ultimately it is technically very difficult.
As an example: Lord of the Rings Online attempts to integrate the player's story with the tale of Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring... and it does a pretty good job. But, it is not seemless. It can't be. In my last play session I have a toon scouting behind the Fellowship as they march south from Rivendell on the road to Moria... but then the same toon travels to Rivendell to complete an outstanding quest with Legolas - who is still in Rivendell?? So this breaks the continuity of the story. If they wanted to preserve the continuity of the storyline then the only way to do this would be to clear defunct quests from the quest log. This could be done - but it would be something that many MMO gamers would not appreciate as quest chains and grind for those quests would be 'wasted'.
So, Bioware will need to appreciate this and adjust for it. It will mean that sometimes they will have to sacrifice the continuity of their storylines and focus less on story and dialogue. We will have to wait and see what they have done and if it works.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
There aren't any other games doing what Bioware does with story to suggest whether that single player game element will work or not, until someone creates a polished game with such a well crafted story that lasts throughout the game we can't say how it will be taken.
I recall alot of the complaints about AOC is how the immersion ended with Tortage and very few people I saw argued that the lack of story following Tortage was a good thing.
LOTRO is the only mmorpg I play right now because I enjoy the story, the story was also why I played WOW for as long as I did I think there are many more mmo players who don't care whether the story is that of a common moisture farmer or a hero as much as they care that the games they are asked to pay for are good fun games.
I agree with Mr. Wood on the likelihood that the story will be excellent. I'm looking forward to that.
I don't agree on the housing and crafting. I enjoy decorating my house in LOTRO, and I do crafting when I want to be in game but don't feel like doing a bunch of pew-pew that night. I've read that even GW 2 is going to add some housing after having none in GW, so it's clear that players enjoy it. I don't think Bioware's approach is going to be an improvement. It looks like they're taking the STO approach on player housing (you can put a few trophies up on your ship) and I'm not thrilled with that idea.
I also smell a microtransaction possibility there--"hey, we won't build any customizable ships in at game start, we'll just add it later. People will pay 5 bucks to customize their ships! Ooh, shiny!"
Just a note: Kotor II was made by Obsidian, not Bioware.
Unique Content , blah blah blah, Story, blah blah blah, Dynamic Events blah blah blah.
OK, let's look at real life story telling. How long does it take to write a pulitzer prize winning story. (For the unliterate, for instance, To Kill a Mockingbird, that Jeopardy favorite). A LONG time. And it takes, oh a couple days to read? What's the point?
It takes a LOT longer to create content (story, whatever) than it takes to consume it. To make a year's worth of genuinely new, engaging content would take X times 1 year, where X is a very big number. True for Bioware as anyone else. How long did it take to write Mass Effect? Dragon Age? etc....and how long to play it?
RULE OF THE UNIVERSE: Content creation time >>>> Content consumption time. Not to mention it is a lot harder, also, but I digress.
How have MMO's dealt with this drastic inequality? By making content that is repetitive, in many ways (such as letting a player build an alt with really different capabilties so he/she can experience the same content in a slightly different way, and extend the players' interest, and so forth, and so on). What other choice is there? So the key is to make the grind palatable to enough people to make money. That's what EQ1 and UO managed to do. And really started the whole thing. WoW nearly perfected it.
The other option is to have the player interactions determine the experience, not primarily the content. But in this column the argument is being made about content itself.
If we expand to games in general, we see some games are popular for centuries. Like chess, for example. Content created once but enjoyed over and over for a long time. Tremendous replayability. But... a chess game is not a persistent world. It starts and ends, in time on the order of an hour. Not the MMO feel at all, of course.
To break out of this thing requires breaking a rule of the universe. So, my suggestion is, the MMO community should just switch to a parallel universe where different rules apply. Bon voyage.
I actually look forward to TOR. And GW2. But they are games created in this universe, TBH.
---------------------------
Rose-lipped maidens,
Light-foot lads...
“The only thing revolutionary that I really see about it (SWTOR) is that it will bring in even more non-gamers.”
And we have seen how badly that has gone for MMO’s so many times before.
I would just like to point out why WoW is viewed as the industry standard. BC it is the only "real" game in the market. You see, when a "real" mmo hit the market, it got millions of subscribers. It became more than the MMO's before it with pre-orders. And it looks as if ST:ToR will knock it from it's perch.
You see, Star Wars got the "sandbox" treatment first. A failure so bad, that SOE should not have been able to acquire licensed material ever again. What suprises me is how long it took to make another. It's Star Wars, if the game is half as good as WoW, there will be nerds who will never leave their basements again.
Fans of non "theme park" mmo's, YOU ARE THE MINORITY. Deal with it. All these "sandbox" mmo's and such, are boring bc they have no content. Entire worlds with no story and nothing to do, what fun. If I want to "make my own content", I write, not play video games. If my words should add up to a book, I can sell it, and pay my bills. Or maybe create my own "theme park" mmo to entertain others.
Sometimes people posting in these forums amaze me. Five minutes of research would have shown this guy he does not know what he is talking about, but rather than do that he lets himself look foolish. {mod edit}
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Fanboi much?
Its my opinion based on what I've seen so far nothing you say will change it. Maybe you should gets your facts straight, Bioware admitted the game will linear (just like all recent bioware games only an interactive movie) fine for those who like it. Doubt it will work in a mmorpg enviroment though.
You don't have to agree but facts are facts.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Your argument in video form.
I mean, c'mon. Interactive movies? And then you go on about how facts are facts? What reality are you living in?
<childish, provocative and highly speculative banner about your favorite game goes here>