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TOR story and gameplay mechanics do not mix
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Every MMO I've played has had a story. It was your choice to skip all the texts and lore that is in every MMO. Just because Bioware made those texts stories turn into VO stories does not mean TOR has more story than other MMOs. I'm sure there will be plenty of players that will use the spacebar and bypass all that wonderful VO Bioware spent so much time on, and to those players, the story is non-excistent. Them hitting spacebar is = to you hitting accept without reading the text.
You're last two paragraphs I totally disagree with you on. Mechanics can IMPROVE the story and over-all theme (in TOR it's empire versus republic). Right now the story is telling me I'm apart of the republic fighting the empire and sepretists, and yet they have mechanics where I am competing with my own team mates and not doing what the story is telling me to do which is fight with my fellow republic players against the empire and all that ally with them.
Now they do have group content. Each planet is broken up into zones. Each zone has at least one group area, but because of the grouping mechanic, and tagging mechanic, the flow of the game does not match the flow of the story. I have to stop what I'm doing, get a group together, find the appropriate classes, and then head on in and compete with other groups for mobs and quest items.
Instead why not have a mechanic that flows with the story? Instead of forcing players to manually set up groups and find those rare healers you just run into the group zone and the content scales depending on how many people are inolved. So 1 person can do it or 100. Everyone gets experience for kills, quest items completed because after all we are all apart of the republic and we all have the same goals of destroying the empire. If you want to have a private group area with just your friends you have dungeons for that.
Bioware put in the VO in MMORPG but took out the MM part.
Exactly. I'm being told a story but I can't be apart of that war story because of mechanics.
Every MMO I've played has had lot of story and lore. If TOR replaced VO with text it would be just like any other MMO out there, and people would skip the text and complain that TOR has no story.
Still doesn't change the fact that story is still a content whether other MMOS had it for years or not. But any kind of improvement is plus in my book. And if Bioware is replacing reading text with V.O and making story part more engaging and interactive, i have no complaints. Listening to NPC gives a personal touch to everything you do and is a step up from reading text.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
What these die-hard haters fail to understand (because they don't want to understand) is that while having a story is one thing, presenting that story is totally different...
Everything on the planet has a story, especially when it comes to video games. For fuck sake Q-bert had a story but that doesn't mean it was presented well or mattered at all.
Presentation is everything for a gaming story and ToR DWARFS all other mmo's in that presentation. And would you look at that, people actually care about what's happening instead of caring where the accept button is. I played through the the beta with extremely high expectations and I'm not an easy person to please, but I have to say I was totally thrown back by how much this MMO made me care.
Kudos bioware and welcome to MMO king status. No matter how many haters present themselves and talk about how badly swtor is going to fail. They are wrong the game already has the highest subscriber base for a launch in history.
Haters gonna hate, and I would say that's awesome because we don't want those people in our game anyways. But the sad truth is that the haters will be playing SW: ToR as well because when it comes down to it, they just want something to be angry about, and that alone speaks for the power of this game. If you don't like the game then simply don't play it (but we all know you're all gonna be here anyways, so stop kidding yourselves).
Story's impact is minimal to mechanics in content. You're playing a game first story second. If you are so interested in story I'm sure a lot of people can point you to a lot of Star Wars books/ comics/ fan fiction/ movies / tv shows that are better than what Bioware has made.
I agree VO is a step up from text, but story does not make your games content. Content makes your content. Things to do, make, etc. Take Skyrim for example (oh no, I went there), I clocked 15 to 20 hours just exploring that world, not doing any quests or being led along a linear path. Why did I spend 15 to 20 hours just playing the game? Because the mechanics, exploration, being part of story I'm making (not being told about one), fighting, dynamic events, etc was a lot of fun. The sotry was the icing on the cake.
I don't know about the other games listed, but GW2 actually addresses two of OP's points.
Mob tagging - can't say about random mobs wandering around, but GW2's big deal are dynamic events, where actually every participant gets credit based on their participation.
Training - your combat skills, like swinging a sword, improves with doing it and you learn new ways of sword swinging as you keep swinging your sword.
Now, as to OP's supposition that you don't help with killing a grey mob I'd say that's not universally true. I did that often during my two beta stints. Sometimes I got to salvage the destroyed droid, sometimes the other player stuck around to help me when I had my go at it, once I got invited to the group doing the heroic in the area. The game itself may not reward you for killings greys, but decent players will.
I totally disagree with that last statement, in fact, imho I find it complete and utter nonsense.
SWTOR has as much the MM part as any other themepark MMO, saying otherwise is in my eyes blatant ignorance or disregard to an objective view on the state of current (themepark) MMO's.
Bioware put the VO/cutscenes in MMORPG and took out the textbased, decisionless traditional questing, to replace it with its story enhanced questing.
Nice for you. But I explore in any MMO world I play in in all kinds of ways, which is especially fulfilling if a world is big. Rift is nice, but too small. I already started exploring in SWTOR, so this one is entirely subjective, if you don't like to explore in SWTOR, doesn't mean others won't as well.
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."
I have given some suggestions in my replies on what can be done differently. I'm surprised really when Bioware absorbed Mythic and yet I dont' see any Mythic touches in this game. Warhammer online had something similiar to GW2 dynamic group quest system. Warhammer had group quests where you didn't have to gorup to share the rewards, but the conent didnt' scale so unless you saw a lot of people there or got people to go there it was usually deserted, a shame.
And how do you know exactly what am i playing the game for? i could very well be playing a game just for story because i find it engaging. Good story is meaningless if it is not presented well. So maybe it has been that 'presentation' part lacking for all this time that i didn't care much for the story part?
I don't even know what 'content makes content' means. For me personal storyline is a content because it is an activity i am actively participating in and enjoying. For me it is as much content as what ever you consider to be real content. But only because i am enjoying story doesn't mean i am ignoring everything else.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
*Small story spoiler
Content = content. Things to do, people to kill. If story = content then would people be satisified if one of the NPC's just played a book on tape, like a star wars book. You can have 50 NPCs using audio books with 50 different stories, but if you don't have the content (the mobs, the mechanics to take on mobs, the setting to kill those mobs) that story is just that, story. I can get story from many sources. If you like the Bioware story so much, I'm sure they have books in that universe.
Building your character is content, yes. Story is just telling you why you're doing whatever your doing. A story is there to help the mechanics of the game, in my opinion. This story is very linear and just sets you up on a linear path through all the planets. My choice of killing one of my former teammates (as a trooper story line) did not effect my story at all. I still ended up in he same place and no mention of that character was ever made again. If I would have chose to arrest him instead, I would have came to the same outcome, I'd never hear from that character again and I'm still going to planet B next to follow that linear path.
Let me clear something up, becuse I think this thread has turned into "story vs no story" when it's really about " this story does not work with these mechanics"
hit reply not edit : delete this post?
Exploring in this game involves finding a way to get the datacrons. Which comes back to why the gameplay mechanics and story don't mix. Why is a datacron, some highly prized artifact on one of the buildings at the spaceport on Tat? Why isn't it hidden away like any normal artifact? Well, they did it that way so you can spot them and it becomes a game of trying to figure out how to get up to those pesky datacrons. When you look at it from a story perspective, it makes no sense. Why is that datacron (a valueable artifact) just sitting on top of that building? Why don't any one of these citizens here use a latter and sell that thing. So, in my mind datacrons helped errode my emersion in the game because Bioware through in this wierd mechanic that does not blend with their story.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
Let's back up....we're talking about way too many things here. My orginal arguement is that their story does not fit their mechanics. Yes, story is great and it creates content because story is a form of content (it has you engaged in the game). I'm just saying that all their mechanical desicsions conflict with their story. I'm afraid we got off track.
So, I guess bottem line. I agree that story is a form (one of many) of content but I still stand by my original arguement about their mechanics not blending with their story.
Pros and cons to this idea. Pro you get a lot of players in one space working cooperatively... in a perfect world. Con, in reality you're going to have people who don't want to participate, but want the easy experience or items just sort of sitting there taking up space.
When your event scales to the players that can be a potentially devastating con. If you have 10 guys doing nothing and only 30 people in the zone a full third of the group is not cooperating, and that would make that content incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to complete. Then you're in to the solution of WoW's batteground reporting and the abuse that follows with that.
So do you prefer kill stealing assholes or leaching assholes?
We can have a work around. If character is afk for 1 minute ; content scales to exclude him. If character is just moving back and forth to appear not afk; having system check if player is doing dmg, healing, or any particapation; if character is not particapating in battle; conent scales down to exclude character not helping.
I agree with the op that the story does not aid the combat. What is more is that....
Having leveled two classes to max level (SI & BH) the game has many elements that are standard to the AAA mmo industry (e.g., combat, questing, and crafting are equal to or better than wow and rift). Dodging the character creation, ship combat, and pvp complaints, I focus on the real problem of swtor.
The problem is the story that the game really revolves around and is what the typical gamer will experience (i.e., typical gamer based on industry standards will not likely reach max level). Objectively based reviews have diagnosed the stories problem as an identity crisis; the game cannot decide if it is a "sporpg" or a mmorpg (i.e., single player online role playing game vs. massively multiplayer online...etc). What is more is that the systems the op is refering to are poor game design; mob tagging, mob spacing, and mobs 30 yards away watching you pew pew their allies.
This role confusion (story, combat) is biowares attempt to change the mmo industry. The problem with this is that the role-playing elements are more akin to narrow tracking then a full range of variables. This range of options is what I contend made prior bioware games successful. Swtor instead is more apparition of choice and this fault I believe will in the long term (max level) cause the game to give up the ghost.
Sounds like a lot of critical knitpicking. I can honestly say neither of the things you brought up were even remote concerns of mine, even with the big red letters.
It's cool. Not everyone will agree with my opinions. These were just a few of the things that were slapping me in the face while I played and it took away from my overall enjoyment of their product.
Respectfully, this seems like nothing more than a quibble. While I can appreciate that this may be a gamebreaker or spoiler for you, it's just one of any number of inconsistencies that every game has and must be overcome by a measure of suspension-of-disbelief. In my opinion, those datacrons do more for the story since they give you stats and reveal some backstory via the codex.
Back on-topic, I can only speak from my experience when it comes to the effectiveness of Bioware's VO in elevating the story. The lackluster, blandly presented flavor text from most MMOs generally provides only a pretext for going off and killing stuff to level. During my (limited) playtime with SWTOR, however, I found myself not worrying at all about levelling, XP, gear, or much of anything. The thing that kept me playing was the knowledge that when I'd completed my mission I'd get to move along to the next step or resolution of the story. No MMO I've ever played over the years (and I started with Earth and Beyond) has ever given me that feeling. So, despite the argument over whether the story meshes with the gameplay and which is more important, I find that the story itself becomes a key part of the gameplay mechanics.
That's my arguement right there. One should not domniate over the other. It shouldn't be either great story medicore mechanics or great mechanics and mdicore story. They should blend to help each other expand the players immersion in the game.
VO helps a lot in getting players into the story but I'm going to go back to my arguement about the tag system. The story is telling me about an ongoing war between the empire and republic and how it invovles everyone from both sides to work together to overcome the opposition, but yet the mechanics are telling me that I need to work against all my other allies to tag my mobs, click my quest thing before they do, get my rewards, advance my character. It becomes...do I dare say it? A single player rpg almost. I know I will get flamed for that.
Story is saying one thing, mechanics are telling me something else. Why do they have to fight? Why can't they blend?
Mob tagging: the alternative is very much worse and would be a huge step backwards to the MMOs of the late '90s. Was there, did that, cussed many people out for kill-stealing and was cussed right back
The idea that we're all one big happy family on the same side just never works when the competitive juices start flowing...drive in rush hour traffic much?
Changing sides: I admit I also thought that this would be a cool thing to be able to do--especially for those who like to play Empire with light side choices or Republic with dark side. But definitely not a huge deal that I would waste space compalining about.
Retraining higher level versions of know skills. I'm with you there and agree that most MMOs are getting away from that tedium. And the opposite also bothers me: learning a brand new ability out in the middle of nowhere by spending a point in your spec tree. You should only have to go to the trainer to learn new skills and you should need to go there to learn ALL new skills. The other stuff should naturally scale with level.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Why is the alternative worse? I'm not saying don't use the tagging system so revert back to '90s mechanics. No. I'm saying build a mechanic that works with the story. The group areas on each planet could have been programmed differently. Instead of manually finding a group and forming it with the correct classes; you just go in to the group area and your contrubution to achieving that group goal is rewarded. You can heal if you're a healer and get points, dmg as a dps and get points, absorb damage as a tank and get points. Even have the content scale depending on how many people are there. With companions tanks can go in alone and have their companion healer out. If more people come, the content gets a little harder and you have to start focusing on working as a group even though you didn't manually make one. The system is set up to give you a reward based on how much you contributed.
(the above system also keeps the competitive edge; as you want to stay on top in points and be the best in the area)
Now doesn't the above sound more like the star wars story of the republic coming to work together without the hinderence of gameplay mechanics?
As for training, Bioware has stated that they want your character to a hero. Now, you can argue both ways that heros needs training. Batman for example had a lot of training. Or you can argue that heros don't need training; Spider-man makes shit up on the fly and calls it his own.
If you really want to think about it, my trooper really doesn't need training but experience. One of my skills as a trooper is using a sticky grenade. I'm pretty sure I can figure that out on my own, and get better at it with the more I use it. Same with the grenade launcher, I point and shoot. I'm not taking calculus here, I'm shooting a gun.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED