Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Is SWTOR designed to be expanded
mgilbrtsn
Member EpicPosts: 3,430
I don't think the title of the thread is what I'm looking for, but I can't think of anyway to ask my question.
My question is this. From what we know about SWTOR is it designed to add new features or is it designed to basically stay in its current format. For instance, there is a lot of clammer for there to be space combat. It the game designed in such a way that it would be relatively easy for them to add an XWING style gameplay in the future. Also, is the design open enough to add player houseing, more exploration, more PvP, more crafting complexity/options etc.
I know that few people have real experience with the game, but there seems to be enough to speculate on this. Many games come out with features that are planned, or at least open to the potential for additional features.
I self identify as a monkey.
Comments
Well the best answer I can give is look up info on the hero engine.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
I don't know, but with Biowares track record on this generation of console games, I would think it's a safe that it has been designed with this in mind. Sort of like how all their other games of recently have been designed with DLC in mind, some even somewhat of an abused/chopped up original product or just flatout purposely missing key story elements simply for selling DLC purposes later on.
Personally I wouldn't be at all surprized if they don't already have an expansion in the works before the original game releases.
The engine that they use is flexible and can handle space combat similar to x-wing. Below is a link.
add player houseing
- Once you get your ship you have player housing. They have also said that ships will have customisation options later on.
more exploration, more PvP, more crafting complexity/options etc.
- These could mean anything, but yeah, I think we will see more frequent, but smaller, content updates than with many other titles. They have already mentioned that the post-release content is being produced for the following 6 moths from the launch.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
With a project of this magnitude expansion would have been one of the foremost thoughts in their minds when designing the game. This is the first MMO truly trying to become one of the giants like WoW and it's a safe bet that they have all sorts of things planned for the future, not just new areas. All of it assuming the game does well of course, which i think it will.
cool. I don't want anyone to think I'm complaining about the current options. Its just that for me, more options in a game the better. I'm a sandbox player by nature and expanded options make me happy. I know its not a sandbox and I'm not expecting it to be. But things like expanded crafting, additional combat options, etc, make for a more immersive world in my opinion and with the lore of SW, I think the game can definitely continue to grow (mechanics wise) if the system was so designed.
I self identify as a monkey.
I still think you should read up on the engine to get a better idea of how expandable TOR will be, better yet they can add things to a live server environment with this engine, meaning while we're playing they can be adding things. The engine is very adaptable.
As others have said they seem to have a decent plan in place for offering new things to the mix, couple that with the engine and you have a pretty good recipe for expansion of the overall experience.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
It's a pay every month MMORPG right?
If a pay to play mmorpg doesn't get frequent updates then it's not bound to keep it's subscribers and bound to shut down.
I say it again i'm 90% sure they ran out of budget and could not expand space combat as much as they wanted to. I'm sure when they get the money they will give an expansion or a major update which is all about upgrading space combat.
Bioware has no choice but to keep the game expanded otherwise there was no point for them to make this game an MMORPG to begin with.
I'll definitely look up the engine. I'm interested to see its capabilities. Also, with said intentions of already preparing on expansions/updates, leads me to believe that the game will grow in complexity. I just can't wait for the game to be out already.
I self identify as a monkey.
They have to expand (updates/expansions, etc). It will get stale in a few months if they don't and lose their player base.
And WTH is star wars without... wars; specifically space combat?
One of the difficult things about expansion for this game is all of the voice dialogue and scene direction that will have to happen. They have to provide acting for any new content that is not just incidental questing (and I think even that gets a voice over from the quuestgiver). I fear the new content in this game will come slower than most for this reason, but it's just a fear, could go the other way too.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
It better be designed for cross server LFG because people can not seem to live without it anymore. There better be cross server war fronts and Bioware better change their minds on this one or welcome to a pretty epic fail decision. They better put dual spec in the game and make it cheap to do or that is another epic fail.
There are minor conviniences this game will need. As far as an expansion this game takes place a 1,000 years before episode 1 correct? So even if they made an expansion 200 years in the future it would still work.
Lot's of posibilities there actually.
Allthough alot of peope don't like the hero-engine for whatever reasons, the engine allows for basically everything you want it to do.
Space-combat can be redone into a more open sim-style combat like Freelancer if Bioware wants to do it.
Territorial warfare could be aswell added later on for guild vs. guild or faction vs. faction battles.
Multi-passenger-vehicles are possible for transportation of groups and even housing with multiplayer-aspects is not impossible to do.
What I'd like to see being done after release is more open-end content aka territorial warfare. It's one of those things that keeps me personally interested the most after I've reached max-level and played through the PvE-content. Raiding dungeons repeatetly is very boring in that regard and adding new dungeons every month or two isn't going to happen, as dungeons need lot's of time to be made, especially with the multiple-choice thingy found in SWTOR.
Another thing is obviously the freestyle space-combat. This is actually something they should've done right from the beginning. The rail-system is anice mini-game, but it's nothing really too exciting and doesn't allow for lots of player-interaction. Playerinteraction is the premisse of a MMORPG tho.
Last but not least there's allways the possibility to write more storyline-content and add missions etc.
So yeah, there's lot's of possibilities to expand the game later on, but it depends on Bioware what they'll do. Just adding new story and dungeons every year with an expansion like it's been done in WoW for the last years is sure the wrong direction, but I don't think that Bioware intends to do something else.
I think every MMORPG is designed to be expanded. This genre is all about games that are constantly evolving to meet the demands and expectations of the players. The only way to do that is to make changes as you go and constantly add content and features to the game.
I know for a fact that Bioware and Lucasarts hope that this game will be a success for years to come, so I have no doubt in my mind that they intend for it to change and expand quite a bit over that time.
Well i'm sure at the release of the game there is already enough voice overs that you wont be needing a update for a few months.
I mean they said it would take a total of 200 hours to finish the entire game. I assume they ment with one class. Considering there are serveral classes that would mean an insane amount of hours. They wont need to update the game with any major voice overs for a year at least.
But i don't expect them to release any more voice overs. From the looks of things it seems that there is quests/storyline all the way until max level.
So if they are planning on making max level higher then they are going to have to make new quests/storyline and that means more voice overs. I'm expecting them to give new planets along with this.
I would expect an major update after 1 year after its release containing this. Then maybe a expansion somewhere there.
They also said they have many hours of VO they still have yet to use, which they can add in later with content updates.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
I hope with all my heart that they DO NOT introduce the "epic fail" that is a cross realm instance finder. The biggest turn off WoW did was to give the annoying troll like scrotes with no sense of morality or social graces the ability to group up and behave however they wanted without consiquence.
Gimmie gimmie gimmie players can be tolerated when each server is a community, you quickly figure out who to avoid and who is good to play with, cross realm group finders RUIN ANY PROSPECT OF A COMMUNITY within a game.
If they introduce them it would be the one thing that could seriously make me reconsider my pre-order.
Don't have the quote and i simply don't have the time to find it (going to work) but somewhere they said (maybe Gaou can find it) that they wouldn't do cross server dugeon finder as it wouldn't do anything but hurt the community. It was a little while ago in a interview. But no so far as i know cross server dungeon finder is not in and i don't think they plan to put it in either, seemed like they were kinda against it.
If this doesn't get a quote behind it when i come home (in about 9 hours from now) i'll dig up the quote for you.
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.
If you think for a second that a game that relies on the trinity will not have qq'rs pissed they have to wait more then 5min for a tank/healer then I do not know what to tel you.
This falls under the "Just because Blizzard screwed it up means noone else can have it" thought process people seem to be under in MMORPG's.
I mean they said it would take a total of 200 hours to finish the entire game. I assume they ment with one class. Considering there are serveral classes that would mean an insane amount of hours. They wont need to update the game with any major voice overs for a year at least.
But i don't expect them to release any more voice overs. From the looks of things it seems that there is quests/storyline all the way until max level.
So if they are planning on making max level higher then they are going to have to make new quests/storyline and that means more voice overs. I'm expecting them to give new planets along with this.
I would expect an major update after 1 year after its release containing this. Then maybe a expansion somewhere there.
For the real casual players, those who only spent some 10-20 hours a week on the game will need 10 weeks (3 month) to play through, but the more active ones, who see playing MMOs as their hobby, it's actually not that much. 200 hours is done in a month for people who play 4 hours a day during the week and some more on the weekends.
So if we go with the middle between those two, we're looking at some 2 month per character, resulting in three maxed toons wihtin half a year. And seriously... who's going to have more then three toons? Tank, healer, DD and you're done, especially with the restriction to a single faction within guilds.
To make the game interesting for extended periods of time, they need to add other things then just storyline and questing/dungeons. They need to add worthwile open-ended content, like GvG, factional warfare, exploration content etc.
The majority of WoW-players I know for example play WoW for some few month after the latest exapnsion and then they go play other games while waiting for the next expansion. This is rubbish imho. There needs to be something to do that isn't tied to prescripted content.
The thing is you can ignore the hardcore players. So what if they leave. They are a tiny portion of the community. The casuals are the group you want to focus on. There are 10 times more of them and they require much less maintenance.
For the real casual players, those who only spent some 10-20 hours a week on the game will need 10 weeks (3 month) to play through, but the more active ones, who see playing MMOs as their hobby, it's actually not that much. 200 hours is done in a month for people who play 4 hours a day during the week and some more on the weekends.
So if we go with the middle between those two, we're looking at some 2 month per character, resulting in three maxed toons wihtin half a year. And seriously... who's going to have more then three toons? Tank, healer, DD and you're done, especially with the restriction to a single faction within guilds.
To make the game interesting for extended periods of time, they need to add other things then just storyline and questing/dungeons. They need to add worthwile open-ended content, like GvG, factional warfare, exploration content etc.
The majority of WoW-players I know for example play WoW for some few month after the latest exapnsion and then they go play other games while waiting for the next expansion. This is rubbish imho. There needs to be something to do that isn't tied to prescripted content.
The thing is you can ignore the hardcore players. So what if they leave. They are a tiny portion of the community. The casuals are the group you want to focus on. There are 10 times more of them and they require much less maintenance.
The 10% make 99% of the players in the forums.
For WoW it's irrelative at this point, because it had time to grow big, but for a new game, you don't want all this negative comments from these people so you're going to listen to them.
Good example in that reegard would be Tabula Rasa. A good game basically, but totally destroyed by the vocal majority in the forums telling everyone how bad the game is, while it wasn't even half that bad.
All they needed was some 6 month to apply patches and tweak their game, but by that point noone was interested in the game anymore because of all the negative comments.
Times have changed.
You really believe that vocal minority on a single forum can destroy any game? people who post on forums forms a very small portion of active gamers. Tabula Rasa was destroyed because of lack of any support by the development team and ncsoft not because a very vocal minority bad mouthed it.
If i go by your logic WOW should have been shut down a long time ago considering it gets flamed the most on forums.
You didn't understand what I was saying apparently. Back when WoW got released and started to grow big, there wasn't that much people around in forums to read about the games.
This way WoW had time to grow big to not care about when people started to talk negative about the game.
And yes, Tabula Rasa was actually affected by the vocal people in the forums talking negatively about the game. It hindered the game to grow bigger, even when the game got better and fun to play. The damage was allready done.
Without the forums and their vocal minorities people would atleast try the games and then decide by theselves, if the game is any good. This doesn't happen anymore tho and people only go by the reviews and ratings, especially in times when money is scarce.
Doubt it. The quests are written the same as any other game. Once the quest is written, they make an appointment for the voice actors to come in and say the lines. The same way it happens with tv shows like Family Guy, The Simpsons, Clone Wars, etc that have to get a show out each week. And there's probably an algorithm they use to auto-animate facial expressions and camera angles according to the pattern of speech, volume of speech, and who's speaking. It shouldn't take much longer than typical MMO quest updates.
If people are trashing the game in the their own public forums then the game just might deserve it. Star Trek Online had tons of players calling it a steaming pile mess in their forums. And it was...
On the other hand. Rift forums are usually positive about the game. Because it's actually a solid game. A vocal minority didn't destroy Tabula Rasa. It destroyed itself.