It is...I can show you plenty of examples from games like WoW, Rift, Aion, and Vanguard that shows how poorly Bioware did when it comes to creating a non-lifeless world.
Sorry... those game are just as lifeless and dull.
NPC's standing around doing nothing. If they are talking it's on a loop.
Same NPC's fighting in the same area everyday. To the extent that they are used a directions! "go to where this guy and that guy are fighting and hook a left and youll see it"
My personal favorite - NPC's are fighting at the edge of town... the guard kills the mob, sheathes his sword and walks away... and 30 seconds later... THE MOBS TWIN COMES FOR VENGEANCE!!!!!
maybe im a bit harder to "immerse" than most of you... but i kind of never forget that im playing a game and it aint real! i dont expect the little digital characters to do something amazing just cause i decide to stand around for 20 minutes watching them as i E-RP. theyre meant to be background... thats all they are. put too much thought into it and you get what we have here. lol.
My point is this - you call it an immersion killer. whatever. ...but with all the issues that TOR has... NPC's that are less than "dynamic" really are the least of their concerns. and honestly... to pick THIS as something to bitch about... something that is present in damn near EVERY MMO out now... well now youre just try to find new ways of beating a dead horse.
Compared to reality, absolutely. All MMORPGs are dull and lifeless when compared to the real world.
But these are games and expectations are formed based on past experiences. The problem is not that SWTOR is dull or lifeless compared to reality, the problem is that SWTOR is dull and lifeless compared to past MMORPGs. People have already given plenty examples of why other MMORPGs seem more lifelike.
Yep, I remember some of this on Taris. Planet was the worst linear, lifeless, most poorly created place I have ever came across in any game - ever. I do not know what Bioware was thinking. I know what I was thinking - is this a joke?
You can't be serious, Taris is one of the nicest and most interestingly designed places I have seen in mmos. I love it.
I liked the Mirror's Edge platforming bullshit I had to do to get my datacrons.. Lol
I'm serious, I DID like it. WoW has nothing comparable. Closest thing is Rift's puzzles for loot.
Its to be expected, their target audiance was WOW players, and the modern WOW player is pushed/rushes through the world and there is 0 focus on the life of that virtual world so it does not make sense to heavily invest in the virtual world from that perspective. Blizzard does not value immersion anymore and I think BIO copied the latter blizzard model without considering the route that blizzard took to get there, but to be fair they can fix it over time. Although WOW virtual world is now dead, in the first few years while the game grew the virtual world and story telling was a huge part of the developer focus and it did suck millions into the game. So even though the virtual world is a minor side-dish in modern themeparks before the first 6 months it still has a purpose. SWTOR has the storytelling albeit through cutscenes, it just needs a bit of incvestment in the other areas - and SWTOR is in its infancy so it deserves its chance to evolve, question is will Bio understand the subtleties involved in building a living virtual world..Keeps us occupied in these forums at least
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Yep, I remember some of this on Taris. Planet was the worst linear, lifeless, most poorly created place I have ever came across in any game - ever. I do not know what Bioware was thinking. I know what I was thinking - is this a joke?
You can't be serious, Taris is one of the nicest and most interestingly designed places I have seen in mmos. I love it.
Wait what? We talking about the same place? The world that was like Coruscant but all ruined - right? The world with this creature things that they forced you to kill over and over and over again. Oh and that forward outpost bonus area where there is a firefight between pirates and Republic forces and the stim med guy that sells med kits is getting hit by laser blast and oh yeah, there are quest givers standing out in the open as if it is a nice shiny day. Forget all the laser blast going off all around them and that they are in the middle of a firefight! That same Taris? LOL!
People stopping at coke machines and news paper vendors to deposit a coin and get their item. Tourists taking pictures inside windows of shopping centers. Payphones getting used with really long voiced conversations being spoken into them, conversations that I... personally... never heard the same thing twice.
APB had a really great living city. It needed more, but the original minds behind it were taking it into awesome places.
SW:TOR world? Pathetic. Bad sound effects (if there's ever any at all). Worthless villages and towns that have no purpose and serve no sense of a living world. Wildlife? Non existant in any believable way. Bioware has never made a believable world in ANY of their video games, and they don't care to either. That much is quite obvious.
Yep, I remember some of this on Taris. Planet was the worst linear, lifeless, most poorly created place I have ever came across in any game - ever. I do not know what Bioware was thinking. I know what I was thinking - is this a joke?
You can't be serious, Taris is one of the nicest and most interestingly designed places I have seen in mmos. I love it.
I liked the Mirror's Edge platforming bullshit I had to do to get my datacrons.. Lol
I'm serious, I DID like it. WoW has nothing comparable. Closest thing is Rift's puzzles for loot.
You may want to look into Super Mario Brothers .
I have, and I've beat it :P And the crossover. I've beat most of them actually, even the GB ones. I love platforming, so I also love it when I get to experience it elsewhere.
Nobody is beating a dead horse. Players of MMO'RPG's expect to see at least some attempt from the developer to not make a world seem lifeless and dead. Even Rift with its poorly animated critters attempted to add some life to their world, SWTOR has zero. Show me one bug, one bird, a snake...fish in the water(oh that's right - SWTOR doesn't ahve anything but wading pools!). Stop trying to spin this. This is one of the biggest on going complaints of players from the game - the lifeless, dead worlds. You can try to deny it, spin it, sprinkle it with gum drops and have prancing unicorns - it doesn't change the way the game worlds are - dead.
There are birds flying in the distance (as in lotro) on several planets (Alderaan, Tatooine... perhaps all of them? Not sure, but several of them for certain).
In Alderaan there are also the big flying animals (the same ones as the mounts), roaming freely around in several places.
On Tatooine there are small Cameleon like creatures, but these are mobs also.
Anyway, world life in swtor is not exceptional, they could of course improve it, but it is good enough compared to other games. It never really hit me that it was missing (as it did in Vanguard for one).
Many NPC activity sounds are really missing though.
Nobody is beating a dead horse. Players of MMO'RPG's expect to see at least some attempt from the developer to not make a world seem lifeless and dead. Even Rift with its poorly animated critters attempted to add some life to their world, SWTOR has zero. Show me one bug, one bird, a snake...fish in the water(oh that's right - SWTOR doesn't ahve anything but wading pools!). Stop trying to spin this. This is one of the biggest on going complaints of players from the game - the lifeless, dead worlds. You can try to deny it, spin it, sprinkle it with gum drops and have prancing unicorns - it doesn't change the way the game worlds are - dead.
I'm not spinning anything. TOR at it's very core is dull and lifeless. If ANYTHING else had released at the same time it would have been utterly crushed. But to say that other MMO's are dynamic? ...sorry, they're not. What shocks me the most about this thread... that you guys actually expected it to be otherwise. Some of you were in the beta... YOU KNEW!! and yet here you are... playing the game, paying their bills, funding this endeavor and all the while bitching about it.
When you do it too much though, VO just becomes common-place, expected. And I found myself skipping the VO for my class quest as often as I skipped it when rancher Bob asked me to get back his lost gravel maggots. I STILL remember Jon Irenicus going on a rampage at the beginning of Baldur's Gate 2...but I hardly remember anything from Mass Effect.
Yeah. Making me want to play Baldur's Gate 2 again ,even though I did full run like a year ago
When cutscene and voice over happened you KNEW that there is something important happening. For all other dialogues - silent was ok , It even had advantage of giving devs and writers freedom to create nice, complex dialogues with many options cause no full VO + cusscene costs were holding it back.
In ME ,DA2 and Swtor they don't have freedom like that. One of reason that all dialoges have always 3 similar dialogue options and many feel bit shallow...
Some dialogues in BG2, Fallout 2 and especially Planescape:Torment were unforgetable ,even though it was just text...
When you do it too much though, VO just becomes common-place, expected. And I found myself skipping the VO for my class quest as often as I skipped it when rancher Bob asked me to get back his lost gravel maggots. I STILL remember Jon Irenicus going on a rampage at the beginning of Baldur's Gate 2...but I hardly remember anything from Mass Effect.
Yeah. Making me want to play Baldur's Gate 2 again ,even though I did full run like a year ago
When cutscene and voice over happened you KNEW that there is something important happening. For all other dialogues - silent was ok , It even had advantage of giving devs and writers freedom to create nice, complex dialogues with many options cause no full VO + cusscene costs were holding it back.
In ME ,DA2 and Swtor they don't have freedom like that. One of reason that all dialoges have always 3 similar dialogue options and many feel bit shallow...
Some dialogues in BG2, Fallout 2 and especially Planescape:Torment were unforgetable ,even though it was just text...
Completely agree. I know I'm going to sound like a nostalgic old fogey here, but I really think that the late nineties to the early 2000's were the golden age of the Black-Isle/Bioware style RPG. With BG2 and PS:T being the penultimate games. Back then, it was all about writing an awesome complex story with tons of character development and great dialog options.
Now?
It seems like it's more about having a cinematic experience. Which can be cool, don't get me wrong, but I think these games lost a lot of their "magic," when full-VO became a requirement. It really limits what you can do. Instead of an extra dialog option costing under a dollar (just need the writer), it now probably costs tens of dollars (need to have it fully voiced).
In fact they did attempt to add ambience to the game, and I when I say attempt to add some ambience they failed meserably, is when you land on Taris and you are greeted by the holographic image of the Twi-lek that is runningthe show there. She greets you with a welcoming message. Then you know what, every time, or almost every time you come and go to your ship, she repeats the welcome message about creating a new world for all. The problem is, that even after you leave the building you can hear her as if you are standing right in front of her.
We beta testers told Bioware of the bug, because that same bug plagues many of the NPC's that do talk, and I bet(they didn't fix it when I was beta testing the game), I bet you $1000 US dollars that bug is still in the game isn't it?
I also bet you that the bug that makes you or one of the NPC's in the cutscene 6 inches tall is still in the game as well - isn't it?
When a game company doesn't take the time to fix the little things like this - how does that reflect on the bigger things in the game? If they do not care to fix the little things - then they really do not care about the big things either. All they want is your money. Most of you gladly handed over your money and you get what you deserve. A buggy game, half-baked, and not as good as games that came before it.
That is why I gave the game a 5/10 rating, because if the game releases with that many bugs, that poorly of designed levels, and that many basic MMO features missing(like guild banks and adjustable UI) they don't deserve a good score. Bioware could ahve done better - but clearly they didn't care...otherwise the game woiuld not be in as bad a shape as it is.
Nobody is beating a dead horse. Players of MMO'RPG's expect to see at least some attempt from the developer to not make a world seem lifeless and dead. Even Rift with its poorly animated critters attempted to add some life to their world, SWTOR has zero. Show me one bug, one bird, a snake...fish in the water(oh that's right - SWTOR doesn't ahve anything but wading pools!). Stop trying to spin this. This is one of the biggest on going complaints of players from the game - the lifeless, dead worlds. You can try to deny it, spin it, sprinkle it with gum drops and have prancing unicorns - it doesn't change the way the game worlds are - dead.
I'm not spinning anything. TOR at it's very core is dull and lifeless. If ANYTHING else had released at the same time it would have been utterly crushed. But to say that other MMO's are dynamic? ...sorry, they're not. What shocks me the most about this thread... that you guys actually expected it to be otherwise. Some of you were in the beta... YOU KNEW!! and yet here you are... playing the game, paying their bills, funding this endeavor and all the while bitching about it.
I'm not paying their bills, I'm not playing the game, for that very reason. I will not pay for a half-baked, poorly made game.
The argument that "this is how all mmo's are" doesn't work at all, as many AAA mmo's over the last 5-8 years have done an excellent job creating what feels like a living world through ambient atmosphere, npc acitivty, npc conversations, npc and mob scripted pathing / events, lots of creatures running around, etc.
then give us a few examples. i cant think of any...
I'll only focus on atmosphere as finding good videos of the rest is near impossible. I'd have to do the recording myself to show it.
This one is in a cantina. Imagine the music turned off. They are there but hardly audible.
Underwhelming.
P.S. I can totally see where the other camp is coming from. If how they play is with the horrid music turned on. Or all sounds completely off and listening to personal music.
When you do it too much though, VO just becomes common-place, expected. And I found myself skipping the VO for my class quest as often as I skipped it when rancher Bob asked me to get back his lost gravel maggots. I STILL remember Jon Irenicus going on a rampage at the beginning of Baldur's Gate 2...but I hardly remember anything from Mass Effect.
Yeah. Making me want to play Baldur's Gate 2 again ,even though I did full run like a year ago
When cutscene and voice over happened you KNEW that there is something important happening. For all other dialogues - silent was ok , It even had advantage of giving devs and writers freedom to create nice, complex dialogues with many options cause no full VO + cusscene costs were holding it back.
In ME ,DA2 and Swtor they don't have freedom like that. One of reason that all dialoges have always 3 similar dialogue options and many feel bit shallow...
Some dialogues in BG2, Fallout 2 and especially Planescape:Torment were unforgetable ,even though it was just text...
Completely agree. I know I'm going to sound like a nostalgic old fogey here, but I really think that the late nineties to the early 2000's were the golden age of the Black-Isle/Bioware style RPG. With BG2 and PS:T being the penultimate games. Back then, it was all about writing an awesome complex story with tons of character development and great dialog options.
Now?
It seems like it's more about having a cinematic experience. Which can be cool, don't get me wrong, but I think these games lost a lot of their "magic," when full-VO became a requirement. It really limits what you can do. Instead of an extra dialog option costing under a dollar (just need the writer), it now probably costs tens of dollars (need to have it fully voiced).
One of my best recent RPG experiences was in a game called Lost Odyssey.
It's an RPG on the 360 that was written and directed by the guy behind Squaresoft's most successful older titles.
The story is what got me, and while it had cinematics, it also had optional story elements that were memories your main character had experienced but forgotten (He's an immortal, been alive for centuries). All they were was a short story on a backdrop with the occasional accompanying sound effect or background transition. If it mentioned wind effects, you would hear a gust. If it talked about stepping outside into the sunlight, the backdrop changed to a brighter image. Very subtle, but amazingly well done, and without cinematics.
The argument that "this is how all mmo's are" doesn't work at all, as many AAA mmo's over the last 5-8 years have done an excellent job creating what feels like a living world through ambient atmosphere, npc acitivty, npc conversations, npc and mob scripted pathing / events, lots of creatures running around, etc.
then give us a few examples. i cant think of any...
I'll only focus on atmosphere as finding good videos of the rest is near impossible. I'd have to do the recording myself to show it.
This one is in a cantina. Imagine the music turned off. They are there but hardly audible.
Underwhelming.
P.S. I can totally see where the other camp is coming from. If how they play is with the horrid music turned on. Or all sounds completely off and listening to personal music.
Coruscant wasn't the worst offender though, Coruscant was actually pretty decent for ambience, it's everywhere else that seemed bad.
Nobody is beating a dead horse. Players of MMO'RPG's expect to see at least some attempt from the developer to not make a world seem lifeless and dead. Even Rift with its poorly animated critters attempted to add some life to their world, SWTOR has zero. Show me one bug, one bird, a snake...fish in the water(oh that's right - SWTOR doesn't ahve anything but wading pools!). Stop trying to spin this. This is one of the biggest on going complaints of players from the game - the lifeless, dead worlds. You can try to deny it, spin it, sprinkle it with gum drops and have prancing unicorns - it doesn't change the way the game worlds are - dead.
I'm not spinning anything. TOR at it's very core is dull and lifeless. If ANYTHING else had released at the same time it would have been utterly crushed. But to say that other MMO's are dynamic? ...sorry, they're not. What shocks me the most about this thread... that you guys actually expected it to be otherwise. Some of you were in the beta... YOU KNEW!! and yet here you are... playing the game, paying their bills, funding this endeavor and all the while bitching about it.
Here some of you go again thinking you know how others should react to something. I was in the beta and wasn't even going to get the game until convinced by some friends. So I did and you know what I enjoy it. Do I agree though that the world(s) feel a bit stale and need more life? Definitely. Is it gamebreaking enough for me to not enjoy the game presently? Not at all. That's why some folks are complaining about it yet still playing. Because...god forbid...they are enjoying themselves and that is what matters. It doesn't mean you don't complain about something in hopes that something changes or is update. This is the core, foundation of the game to be built upon. If you enjoy the foundation, you play and you wait to see how the developers respond to certain issues and their timetable.
So I am just as shocked as you. Shocked that folks that those who don't like the game take so much time and energy to divulge this over and over and shocked you can't understand that your mileage may vary in comparison to another that is simply enjoying what they played for. Doesn't mean they can't see things needing to be fixed. Despite beliefs it did not get released in a poor state especially compared to many releases in this industry. It wasn't perfect neither though not many (if any) ever are.
Here some of you go again thinking you know how others should react to something. I was in the beta and wasn't even going to get the game until convinced by some friends. So I did and you know what I enjoy it. Do I agree though that the world(s) feel a bit stale and need more life? Definitely. Is it gamebreaking enough for me to not enjoy the game presently? Not at all. That's why some folks are complaining about it yet still playing. Because...god forbid...they are enjoying themselves and that is what matters. It doesn't mean you don't complain about something in hopes that something changes or is update. This is the core, foundation of the game to be built upon. If you enjoy the foundation, you play and you wait to see how the developers respond to certain issues and their timetable.
So I am just as shocked as you. Shocked that folks that those who don't like the game take so much time and energy to divulge this over and over and shocked you can't understand that your mileage may vary in comparison to another that is simply enjoying what they played for. Doesn't mean they can't see things needing to be fixed. Despite beliefs it did not get released in a poor state especially compared to many releases in this industry. It wasn't perfect neither though not many (if any) ever are.
No one said it was gamebreaking, just lacking as you pointed out. Don't be shocked about people pointing out features that should have shipped with the game at launch.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Nobody is beating a dead horse. Players of MMO'RPG's expect to see at least some attempt from the developer to not make a world seem lifeless and dead. Even Rift with its poorly animated critters attempted to add some life to their world, SWTOR has zero. Show me one bug, one bird, a snake...fish in the water(oh that's right - SWTOR doesn't ahve anything but wading pools!). Stop trying to spin this. This is one of the biggest on going complaints of players from the game - the lifeless, dead worlds. You can try to deny it, spin it, sprinkle it with gum drops and have prancing unicorns - it doesn't change the way the game worlds are - dead.
I'm not spinning anything. TOR at it's very core is dull and lifeless. If ANYTHING else had released at the same time it would have been utterly crushed. But to say that other MMO's are dynamic? ...sorry, they're not. What shocks me the most about this thread... that you guys actually expected it to be otherwise. Some of you were in the beta... YOU KNEW!! and yet here you are... playing the game, paying their bills, funding this endeavor and all the while bitching about it.
Here some of you go again thinking you know how others should react to something. I was in the beta and wasn't even going to get the game until convinced by some friends. So I did and you know what I enjoy it. Do I agree though that the world(s) feel a bit stale and need more life? Definitely. Is it gamebreaking enough for me to not enjoy the game presently? Not at all. That's why some folks are complaining about it yet still playing. Because...god forbid...they are enjoying themselves and that is what matters. It doesn't mean you don't complain about something in hopes that something changes or is update. This is the core, foundation of the game to be built upon. If you enjoy the foundation, you play and you wait to see how the developers respond to certain issues and their timetable.
So I am just as shocked as you. Shocked that folks that those who don't like the game take so much time and energy to divulge this over and over and shocked you can't understand that your mileage may vary in comparison to another that is simply enjoying what they played for. Doesn't mean they can't see things needing to be fixed. Despite beliefs it did not get released in a poor state especially compared to many releases in this industry. It wasn't perfect neither though not many (if any) ever are.
We're on it like white on rice. But I suspect many don't even realize why it is they're not -connecting- with the world and after one or two weeks /unsub.
The argument that "this is how all mmo's are" doesn't work at all, as many AAA mmo's over the last 5-8 years have done an excellent job creating what feels like a living world through ambient atmosphere, npc acitivty, npc conversations, npc and mob scripted pathing / events, lots of creatures running around, etc.
then give us a few examples. i cant think of any...
You only need to look two posts back to see Rift used as an excellent example for comparison.
Sometimes it seems like people demand examples as a sort of cheap debate tactic?
It is...I can show you plenty of examples from games like WoW, Rift, Aion, and Vanguard that shows how poorly Bioware did when it comes to creating a non-lifeless world.
Sorry... those game are just as lifeless and dull.
NPC's standing around doing nothing. If they are talking it's on a loop.
Same NPC's fighting in the same area everyday. To the extent that they are used a directions! "go to where this guy and that guy are fighting and hook a left and youll see it"
My personal favorite - NPC's are fighting at the edge of town... the guard kills the mob, sheathes his sword and walks away... and 30 seconds later... THE MOBS TWIN COMES FOR VENGEANCE!!!!!
maybe im a bit harder to "immerse" than most of you... but i kind of never forget that im playing a game and it aint real! i dont expect the little digital characters to do something amazing just cause i decide to stand around for 20 minutes watching them as i E-RP. theyre meant to be background... thats all they are. put too much thought into it and you get what we have here. lol.
My point is this - you call it an immersion killer. whatever. ...but with all the issues that TOR has... NPC's that are less than "dynamic" really are the least of their concerns. and honestly... to pick THIS as something to bitch about... something that is present in damn near EVERY MMO out now... well now youre just try to find new ways of beating a dead horse.
That's not true, Aion has an npc race that attacks towers held by players, if you look in the water you see fish. if you look on the bark of a tree you see bugs. wow has wildlife running across the plains and the cities are full of npcs doing activities. swtor is completely devoid of life, flying mobs just flap their wings and stay static in the same place some npc have as much movement as a statue. swtor is a load of crap with too much voice overs and very little world design..just look at that casino on nar shaddaa..its pathetic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8DX7PdiyZg
In fact they did attempt to add ambience to the game, and I when I say attempt to add some ambience they failed meserably, is when you land on Taris and you are greeted by the holographic image of the Twi-lek that is runningthe show there. She greets you with a welcoming message. Then you know what, every time, or almost every time you come and go to your ship, she repeats the welcome message about creating a new world for all. The problem is, that even after you leave the building you can hear her as if you are standing right in front of her.
Strange, I found this welcome message very immersive and had no problem at all with it.
We beta testers told Bioware of the bug, because that same bug plagues many of the NPC's that do talk, and I bet(they didn't fix it when I was beta testing the game), I bet you $1000 US dollars that bug is still in the game isn't it?
Yes, perhaps the volume should go down as you walk away to make it more realistic. But I don't remember having an issue with this. If they fixed it, it would be the cream on top of the icecake for me.
I also bet you that the bug that makes you or one of the NPC's in the cutscene 6 inches tall is still in the game as well - isn't it?
I have never seen this (I am lvl 33, finished Alderaan, was back in Narshadaa on the lvl30+ quests and now I'm back on Tatooine.
When a game company doesn't take the time to fix the little things like this - how does that reflect on the bigger things in the game? If they do not care to fix the little things - then they really do not care about the big things either. All they want is your money. Most of you gladly handed over your money and you get what you deserve. A buggy game, half-baked, and not as good as games that came before it.
As you can see above, I am surprised you are having such a big issue with these things?
Of course everything can always be better. But buggy? Half-baked? (yeah many NPC sounds are missing this I agree).
That is why I gave the game a 5/10 rating, because if the game releases with that many bugs, that poorly of designed levels, and that many basic MMO features missing(like guild banks and adjustable UI) they don't deserve a good score. Bioware could ahve done better - but clearly they didn't care...otherwise the game woiuld not be in as bad a shape as it is.
Bugs? I don't see it.
Poorly designed levels? I don't see it.
Guild banks? Ok. A minor issue, hope it will come soon (it's announced). Not a big problem meanwhile.
Ajustable UI? Ok this is missing. It's announced as coming. A minor issue for now (but annoying, yes).
Yes, they could have done better with such a big budget. But still, it's a great game with a solid foundation. The minor issues you are talking about are easy to improve; it isn't like the serious flaws we have seen in some other games. I am looking forward to the future. (especially the announced PVP improvements). They have the cash and the developers. This is no DF or MO.
now im no fan of the game, but giving a low score for bugs is a bit short sighted perhaps, the game has a target life of what 5 years, so its worth giving it time to bed in. Either that or they delay release for another year while they get that bug level down to 1%, lose lose.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
now im no fan of the game, but giving a low score for bugs is a bit short sighted perhaps, the game has a target life of what 5 years, so its worth giving it time to bed in. Either that or they delay release for another year while they get that bug level down to 1%, lose lose.
I think people either have too high of expectations or have just become entitled. Typically bugs destroying a review of a newly released MMO only happens when said bugs make the game LITERALLY unplayable. Mass crashes, can't progress, etc.
Didn't AoC release with a bug where stats didn't do jack?
now im no fan of the game, but giving a low score for bugs is a bit short sighted perhaps, the game has a target life of what 5 years, so its worth giving it time to bed in. Either that or they delay release for another year while they get that bug level down to 1%, lose lose.
I would agree. Big games have bugs, it's just a fact of life. Look at Skyrim for example. It dosn't mean they are terrible games.
That said there is a difference between a bug and a problem. A bug is normally some kind of malfunction that can be fixed. Like game crashes, duping exploits, pathing issues...all these are bugs.
Then you have problems. Problems are just things that are wrong with the game without being a bug. A problem can really be due to anything, but I think that the overarching theme is that they are not easily fixed.
I would call the fact that the world in SWTOR is fairly static a problem. Same with the ability delay. Both of these issues probably cannot be fixed easily and thus will likely be a permanent part of the game. To fix the static world, BW would have to go into each and every zone and add stuff to make it seem more alive...not likely. And AFAIK, the ability delay problem has to do with the engine the game runs on, so that's probably not an easy fix either.
Problems are things a game should really get dinged for, but bugs should be less impactful to a review...so long as there aren't too many of them.
Comments
Compared to reality, absolutely. All MMORPGs are dull and lifeless when compared to the real world.
But these are games and expectations are formed based on past experiences. The problem is not that SWTOR is dull or lifeless compared to reality, the problem is that SWTOR is dull and lifeless compared to past MMORPGs. People have already given plenty examples of why other MMORPGs seem more lifelike.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
You may want to look into Super Mario Brothers
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Its to be expected, their target audiance was WOW players, and the modern WOW player is pushed/rushes through the world and there is 0 focus on the life of that virtual world so it does not make sense to heavily invest in the virtual world from that perspective. Blizzard does not value immersion anymore and I think BIO copied the latter blizzard model without considering the route that blizzard took to get there, but to be fair they can fix it over time. Although WOW virtual world is now dead, in the first few years while the game grew the virtual world and story telling was a huge part of the developer focus and it did suck millions into the game. So even though the virtual world is a minor side-dish in modern themeparks before the first 6 months it still has a purpose. SWTOR has the storytelling albeit through cutscenes, it just needs a bit of incvestment in the other areas - and SWTOR is in its infancy so it deserves its chance to evolve, question is will Bio understand the subtleties involved in building a living virtual world..Keeps us occupied in these forums at least
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Wait what? We talking about the same place? The world that was like Coruscant but all ruined - right? The world with this creature things that they forced you to kill over and over and over again. Oh and that forward outpost bonus area where there is a firefight between pirates and Republic forces and the stim med guy that sells med kits is getting hit by laser blast and oh yeah, there are quest givers standing out in the open as if it is a nice shiny day. Forget all the laser blast going off all around them and that they are in the middle of a firefight! That same Taris? LOL!
I love the APB world.
People stopping at coke machines and news paper vendors to deposit a coin and get their item. Tourists taking pictures inside windows of shopping centers. Payphones getting used with really long voiced conversations being spoken into them, conversations that I... personally... never heard the same thing twice.
APB had a really great living city. It needed more, but the original minds behind it were taking it into awesome places.
SW:TOR world? Pathetic. Bad sound effects (if there's ever any at all). Worthless villages and towns that have no purpose and serve no sense of a living world. Wildlife? Non existant in any believable way. Bioware has never made a believable world in ANY of their video games, and they don't care to either. That much is quite obvious.
I have, and I've beat it :P And the crossover. I've beat most of them actually, even the GB ones. I love platforming, so I also love it when I get to experience it elsewhere.
.. But in a good way.
There are birds flying in the distance (as in lotro) on several planets (Alderaan, Tatooine... perhaps all of them? Not sure, but several of them for certain).
In Alderaan there are also the big flying animals (the same ones as the mounts), roaming freely around in several places.
On Tatooine there are small Cameleon like creatures, but these are mobs also.
Anyway, world life in swtor is not exceptional, they could of course improve it, but it is good enough compared to other games. It never really hit me that it was missing (as it did in Vanguard for one).
Many NPC activity sounds are really missing though.
I'm not spinning anything. TOR at it's very core is dull and lifeless. If ANYTHING else had released at the same time it would have been utterly crushed. But to say that other MMO's are dynamic? ...sorry, they're not. What shocks me the most about this thread... that you guys actually expected it to be otherwise. Some of you were in the beta... YOU KNEW!! and yet here you are... playing the game, paying their bills, funding this endeavor and all the while bitching about it.
Yeah. Making me want to play Baldur's Gate 2 again ,even though I did full run like a year ago
When cutscene and voice over happened you KNEW that there is something important happening. For all other dialogues - silent was ok , It even had advantage of giving devs and writers freedom to create nice, complex dialogues with many options cause no full VO + cusscene costs were holding it back.
In ME ,DA2 and Swtor they don't have freedom like that. One of reason that all dialoges have always 3 similar dialogue options and many feel bit shallow...
Some dialogues in BG2, Fallout 2 and especially Planescape:Torment were unforgetable ,even though it was just text...
Completely agree. I know I'm going to sound like a nostalgic old fogey here, but I really think that the late nineties to the early 2000's were the golden age of the Black-Isle/Bioware style RPG. With BG2 and PS:T being the penultimate games. Back then, it was all about writing an awesome complex story with tons of character development and great dialog options.
Now?
It seems like it's more about having a cinematic experience. Which can be cool, don't get me wrong, but I think these games lost a lot of their "magic," when full-VO became a requirement. It really limits what you can do. Instead of an extra dialog option costing under a dollar (just need the writer), it now probably costs tens of dollars (need to have it fully voiced).
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
In fact they did attempt to add ambience to the game, and I when I say attempt to add some ambience they failed meserably, is when you land on Taris and you are greeted by the holographic image of the Twi-lek that is runningthe show there. She greets you with a welcoming message. Then you know what, every time, or almost every time you come and go to your ship, she repeats the welcome message about creating a new world for all. The problem is, that even after you leave the building you can hear her as if you are standing right in front of her.
We beta testers told Bioware of the bug, because that same bug plagues many of the NPC's that do talk, and I bet(they didn't fix it when I was beta testing the game), I bet you $1000 US dollars that bug is still in the game isn't it?
I also bet you that the bug that makes you or one of the NPC's in the cutscene 6 inches tall is still in the game as well - isn't it?
When a game company doesn't take the time to fix the little things like this - how does that reflect on the bigger things in the game? If they do not care to fix the little things - then they really do not care about the big things either. All they want is your money. Most of you gladly handed over your money and you get what you deserve. A buggy game, half-baked, and not as good as games that came before it.
That is why I gave the game a 5/10 rating, because if the game releases with that many bugs, that poorly of designed levels, and that many basic MMO features missing(like guild banks and adjustable UI) they don't deserve a good score. Bioware could ahve done better - but clearly they didn't care...otherwise the game woiuld not be in as bad a shape as it is.
I'm not paying their bills, I'm not playing the game, for that very reason. I will not pay for a half-baked, poorly made game.
I'll only focus on atmosphere as finding good videos of the rest is near impossible. I'd have to do the recording myself to show it.
Do you hear it?
Más. Listen closely. Notice anything? The music is turned off but it doesn't hurt the surroundings one bit.
In SWTOR you turn off the music and it's *splat*. Focus on the atmosphere in the following videos.
In Coruscant. This is a Spaceport btw.
The senate building.
This one is in a cantina. Imagine the music turned off. They are there but hardly audible.
Underwhelming.
P.S. I can totally see where the other camp is coming from. If how they play is with the horrid music turned on. Or all sounds completely off and listening to personal music.
One of my best recent RPG experiences was in a game called Lost Odyssey.
It's an RPG on the 360 that was written and directed by the guy behind Squaresoft's most successful older titles.
The story is what got me, and while it had cinematics, it also had optional story elements that were memories your main character had experienced but forgotten (He's an immortal, been alive for centuries). All they were was a short story on a backdrop with the occasional accompanying sound effect or background transition. If it mentioned wind effects, you would hear a gust. If it talked about stepping outside into the sunlight, the backdrop changed to a brighter image. Very subtle, but amazingly well done, and without cinematics.
Here:
.. But in a good way.
Coruscant wasn't the worst offender though, Coruscant was actually pretty decent for ambience, it's everywhere else that seemed bad.
Here some of you go again thinking you know how others should react to something. I was in the beta and wasn't even going to get the game until convinced by some friends. So I did and you know what I enjoy it. Do I agree though that the world(s) feel a bit stale and need more life? Definitely. Is it gamebreaking enough for me to not enjoy the game presently? Not at all. That's why some folks are complaining about it yet still playing. Because...god forbid...they are enjoying themselves and that is what matters. It doesn't mean you don't complain about something in hopes that something changes or is update. This is the core, foundation of the game to be built upon. If you enjoy the foundation, you play and you wait to see how the developers respond to certain issues and their timetable.
So I am just as shocked as you. Shocked that folks that those who don't like the game take so much time and energy to divulge this over and over and shocked you can't understand that your mileage may vary in comparison to another that is simply enjoying what they played for. Doesn't mean they can't see things needing to be fixed. Despite beliefs it did not get released in a poor state especially compared to many releases in this industry. It wasn't perfect neither though not many (if any) ever are.
No one said it was gamebreaking, just lacking as you pointed out. Don't be shocked about people pointing out features that should have shipped with the game at launch.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
We're on it like white on rice. But I suspect many don't even realize why it is they're not -connecting- with the world and after one or two weeks /unsub.
That's not true, Aion has an npc race that attacks towers held by players, if you look in the water you see fish. if you look on the bark of a tree you see bugs. wow has wildlife running across the plains and the cities are full of npcs doing activities. swtor is completely devoid of life, flying mobs just flap their wings and stay static in the same place some npc have as much movement as a statue. swtor is a load of crap with too much voice overs and very little world design..just look at that casino on nar shaddaa..its pathetic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8DX7PdiyZg
Strange, I found this welcome message very immersive and had no problem at all with it.
Yes, perhaps the volume should go down as you walk away to make it more realistic. But I don't remember having an issue with this. If they fixed it, it would be the cream on top of the icecake for me.
I have never seen this (I am lvl 33, finished Alderaan, was back in Narshadaa on the lvl30+ quests and now I'm back on Tatooine.
As you can see above, I am surprised you are having such a big issue with these things?
Of course everything can always be better. But buggy? Half-baked? (yeah many NPC sounds are missing this I agree).
Bugs? I don't see it.
Poorly designed levels? I don't see it.
Guild banks? Ok. A minor issue, hope it will come soon (it's announced). Not a big problem meanwhile.
Ajustable UI? Ok this is missing. It's announced as coming. A minor issue for now (but annoying, yes).
Yes, they could have done better with such a big budget. But still, it's a great game with a solid foundation. The minor issues you are talking about are easy to improve; it isn't like the serious flaws we have seen in some other games. I am looking forward to the future. (especially the announced PVP improvements). They have the cash and the developers. This is no DF or MO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhSb9TTuGLg
now im no fan of the game, but giving a low score for bugs is a bit short sighted perhaps, the game has a target life of what 5 years, so its worth giving it time to bed in. Either that or they delay release for another year while they get that bug level down to 1%, lose lose.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
look at that mob its pathetic, the rancors in swg looked better and that game came out in 2003.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpxEr4b1kFE
I think people either have too high of expectations or have just become entitled. Typically bugs destroying a review of a newly released MMO only happens when said bugs make the game LITERALLY unplayable. Mass crashes, can't progress, etc.
Didn't AoC release with a bug where stats didn't do jack?
.. But in a good way.
I would agree. Big games have bugs, it's just a fact of life. Look at Skyrim for example. It dosn't mean they are terrible games.
That said there is a difference between a bug and a problem. A bug is normally some kind of malfunction that can be fixed. Like game crashes, duping exploits, pathing issues...all these are bugs.
Then you have problems. Problems are just things that are wrong with the game without being a bug. A problem can really be due to anything, but I think that the overarching theme is that they are not easily fixed.
I would call the fact that the world in SWTOR is fairly static a problem. Same with the ability delay. Both of these issues probably cannot be fixed easily and thus will likely be a permanent part of the game. To fix the static world, BW would have to go into each and every zone and add stuff to make it seem more alive...not likely. And AFAIK, the ability delay problem has to do with the engine the game runs on, so that's probably not an easy fix either.
Problems are things a game should really get dinged for, but bugs should be less impactful to a review...so long as there aren't too many of them.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?