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Star Wars: The Old Republic: SWTOR's Story Will Change Questing Forever
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Exclamation points and walls of text are the standard for quests in MMOs today. In his latest column, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Bill Murphy takes a look at innovative new quest features that Bioware is bringing to the table with Star Wars: The Old Republic. See why Bill thinks questing will change forever and then let us know what you think in the comments.
I have played BioWare's first MMORPG several times at trade shows now, and each time I do coming back to my other games feels a bit different... A bit lesser. I've seen oodles of videos and heard plenty of firsthand accounts. Questing to save a world when the world's characters and heroes are represented only through text feels empty once you've done even the simplest of quests in SWTOR.
Read more of Bill Murphy's SWTOR's Story Will Change Questing Forever.
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Comments
All i have to say is...
I agree.
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.
gonna be an epic ride
can't wait it's gonna be epic, MMO of 2011-2012 easily, only rivalled by GW2 which I can't see it losing to
Yet another thing I'm really looking forward to with TOR. I'll be the first to admit that rarely do I bother with the quest text in MMO's, as it's just a bunch of bla, mixed in with go kill this, deliver that, and return. Actually putting a voice with emotions behind the quest will make them feel more important and indepth than what we're used to, so I can't wait to play.
I hate being negative on these articles or being the lone voice of criticism, but tell me this. How long was the developement between DA1 and DA2? More then a year correct?
Blizzard a company a LOT of people respect as a dev came out and said that doing this would dramatically slow down the pace at which they can release new content. Voicing over content is not easy and is nowhere near cheap.
If this becomes standard then kiss every new developer good bye because their games will be written off from day 1. Making broad statements like this will be "required" is dangerous. If voice overs were "required" then games like Rift and Guild Wars 2 would automatically fail.
GW2 actually got heavily criticized because they put more emphasis on dynamic events and making pvp work. I am sorry to ToR fans, but everyone I have talked to in my guild has said if they pick up ToR they are not playing it like a MMO. I have no intention on doing that either.
First thing I will do in ToR is turn off the chat channels, so I do not have to talk to anyone and go do the storyline for each class.
I agree on how VO brings a level of greater sense of immersion. EQ2 i thought did this very well. When it launched and I logged in for the first time, hearing Cristopher Lee as Lucan D'Lere was awesome.
Bioware always does good games, it is just that they shoehorn you into a role and you have no choice but to play it. This game will be very successful because that is what many people want. The questing will be very good because Bioware spends a lot of time on the details and the voice acting will just enhance that.
I respectfully disagree.
{mod edit - NDA is still in effect, guys}
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions
in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem.
-Glen Cook
I would tend to agree. It seems this is how most of the single player RPG quests are related and it works a lot better (imo) than skipping a block of text and reading a summary.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Voice questing is great.
I just wish that there was a way to have it without everything having to be locked in and linear.
If you read the article, then you'll see GW2 is mentioned among the upcoming MMO's that have invested a considerable part of their gameplay in VO/cutscene stuff, for GW2 this comes in the form of its Personal Story.
{mod edit} But you're right in that you'll never fully satisfy 100% of all people with any feature, there'll be people for whom SWTOR's cinematic questing is meaningless and 'meh', maybe as much as as questing in MMO's in general is meaningless and 'meh' to them.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
yes
yes
and yes
{mod edit} spoonfeeding spoonfeeding...
Thanks but no thanks.
I'm going to disagree with you.
I speak from my WoW experience, but as anyone who played that game knows the questing style changed dramatically between Burning Crusade and Wrath and finally Cataclysm from mostly picking up kill quests with rare questlines to almost completly storyline progression, truely a theme ride MMO.
And it seemed fun at first. But the problem is that style of questing has zero replayability and that's a bad thing in a MMO. People played WoW for years because they could reroll another character, another faction and have a different experience picking new zones, new quests each time and just grinding if they felt like it.
But now the second time and every time after is a chore. And that's why i don't play WoW anymore.
And it's not like it's the first game to try it. AoC did, for the whole start of the game it was voiced and fat good that did them. Just because it's voiced and has a storyline it dosen't mean you want to do it again, in fact the opposite the second time around, it feels forced.
And it's not just about rerolling here, who wants to run an instance 20 times for the Laser Rifle of Sith Slaying and go through the same dialog options 20 times ? Ugh..
This style of questing may be the norm for single player games but MMOs need to provide content and keep player attention for months and years. I think a year down the line it's problems and limitations will become clear or the devs will stand there scratching their hads wondering why everyone is bored and quiting all of a sudden.
***LOL by the tiem i posted this someone had posted nearly exactly the same thing about AOC**
its not like this will be the first MMO that has voice acting on quests LOL..
AOC done it ages ago, sure they didnt have it on every quest but there was voice acting all the way through the game on the main sotry quests.. After the first time of doing them all you do is press escape so you dont have to listen to it all over again..
its going to be basically the same with this other than you press excape then press a number or whatever then escape aain and so on until you have the quest..
First time around or maybe even the second you might listen to it juSt to make the choice or whatever but thats it..
The same as AOC this wont put me off playing games with just text in them, if the quest is not interesting then no matter whos donig the voice over im not gonna listen to it more than a couple of times anyway...
I also dont believe many other MMOs will follow suit with voice acting as it just costs too much, i remember when it was really big in the late 90s to have full motion video in games, sure it was awesome but it jsut cost too much to do all the time..
I dont hold out much hope for this game, but i could be wrong
they shoehorn you into a role.....so....you have to play a role.....role playing....hmmm. I'm not seeing the controversy there.
The issue is ok voice acting is great, but what about the other stuff. Day/Night, cross server lfd and war fronts, add ons, swimming, pve and pvp damage separated. I can play this game too of things that are required.
Day/night: you got weather, but not this. It seems so simple to put in.
x-server LFD and warfronts: queue times need I say more. How many trinity game have we seen this help in? ToR is no exception here.
Addons: Personally that UI is terrible and I can not stand it. Addons fix this problem.
Swimming: It is 2011 seriously people seriously
pve and pvp damage: you are insane or this will be your first mmo if you do not expect nerfs. Has this even been talked about?
The OP talks about "things being required" and fails to mention other things. Voice acting is great, but what else did they sacrifice in this game to do it. The real question is was there too much focus on it.
Will this be another one of those "man if they had just waited another 6 months to put that feature in that would have been so huge" game that focuses too much on one thing.
The personal story stuff is cool, and it's something I would actually listen to.
The other quests, are just your same run of the mill go kill 10 this and pick up 15 of that from the ground. I stopped listening to those.
It works, but less then half the time.
Haters gonna hate, but Bioware is the best storyteller in the biz, no argument can downgrade that fact.
Only time will tell. Most of the things you mentioned weren't required for the success of other MMO's though, or merely a trivial nice-to-have thing.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yeah I dont think so. Just like now there will be companies that simply cant afford to use voiceovers for all quests. And definately Bioware style questdialogue wont become standard. I do like it, but I do know that many players find it too slow.
I really dilike the whole "Meh" mentality. People who say meh, are usually the type of people who will not be impressed with, or show emotion at somthing that other think is great or impressive. They think that by being artificially stoic about something, they will be better than the people who find it impressive. Instead, I just see them as artificial and unimaginative. You can show them the greatest video ever caught on tape. Meh. Clips of the newest most inovative game. Meh. Apathy dosn't equal perspective. Being unimpressed with something doesn't equal being better than that object, or the person who showed it to you. It just means that you are a continual ney sayer, that has to feel like you are above the hype. Nope, your just a ney sayer. Meh.
As soon as I realised 99.9% of grouchy responses are disgruntled wow players (the other .1% the sandbox crew who is too pansy to play an indie game) I stopped worrying.
Disgruntled wow players and sandboxers will never be satisfied, so their opinion is about as useful as a pale of horse apples.
bioware lets you pick your role and then presents you with epic content that makes that role feel as it should be. Plus it pulls you in to make you feel as though you have contributed in a meaningful way. further making you feel as though you have been part of a true epic tale. This is what true RPGs are meant to do
All bioware had to figure out is how to put the MMO in their RPGs
and I believe they will succeed where many have failed. including Blizzard...
It's the evolution of thing's. Video games basically were made in people's basements, very small business's, 2 or 3 devoloper's. Over time they have matured into things that require boat loads of people and money to produce.
When things stand still they grow stagnant. What wowed us 5 years ago is blah today. This is just the natural evolution of the quest system in the mmo and it will be much more entertaining, compared to what we have played in the past, as far as questing is concerned.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee