I have the paper version of the first D&D edition in my hands right now. Have you read the sample scenario provided in the manual? Evil villain in a multi-floor dungeon.
The RPG genre came from D&D Chainmail, which was a skirmish board game (with limited char advancement). Naturally, there was some background information, but it was not part of the gameplay. The gameplay was solely about combat.
At the same time, video RPGs - the dungeons (Pool of Radiance series, Eye of Beholder, Dungeon Master...) were all characterized by multi-floor dungeon with very little story behind it.
Man you missed the mark there, at least in my experience. I will agree that Chainmail was a different game. It was really a skirmish miniature game, a predecessor to all the games out there now like 40k and Warmachine.
But I have been playing pen and paper games since 1981, mostly D&D but a lot of others too. I play once a week, even today. Even when I was a kid, running a game, I used story. Lots of it. Now my games are mostly story. Combats are meaningful, fun events, and part of the story. Dungeon crawls are just one way to play a game, but a pen and paper game without story and character development is like a book or movie without a plot, it SUCKS.
And it applies to SWTOR and other MMORPGs for me as well. I like the story. If the game didn't have one, I would roleplay more with other roleplayers and provide a bit of my own.
In point of fact, these games are either enjoyed or they are not. I will never understand why folks who do not like a game seem to feel it neccessary to try to dirty the experience for those that do. I am not singling out SWTOR, but pretty much every forum on this site. This particular community is filled with venom, which is too bad. Its changed a lot over the years.
Who would have thought that a single player story might not be the best thing to base a massively multiplayer game around....
Now don't get me wrong, I think story is one of the things that the MMO genre needs to improve, but copy/pasting the system from single player RPG's is not the way to do it.
A scripted cutscene might be more engaging than a wall of text but that doesn't mean it is great, it just makes it less bad.
Originally posted by Naral
And it applies to SWTOR and other MMORPGs for me as well. I like the story. If the game didn't have one, I would roleplay more with other roleplayers and provide a bit of my own.
In point of fact, these games are either enjoyed or they are not. I will never understand why folks who do not like a game seem to feel it neccessary to try to dirty the experience for those that do. I am not singling out SWTOR, but pretty much every forum on this site. This particular community is filled with venom, which is too bad. Its changed a lot over the years.
Nobody (worth listening to) is arguing that story isn't part of RPG's. What people are trying to say is that you can't focus on story at the expense of everything else, which is exactly what SWTOR has done.
Not necessarily, you might check the history of the genre. The story was minimal (sort of an evil villain occupying a dungeon), and it was all about combat and character advancement.
You never played pen and paper games I take it?
You don't tell stories in pen & paper, you play games, both the GM and the player actually play the game. In fact the GM have a scenario and the player act in this scenario. It was never about story telling.
Well I guess my experience with it is a little different, perhaps, but I do remember story telling being a big part of it. They may not have been the most advanced stories ever created with tons of writers and whatnot, but my friends came up with some good stories for their scenarios. Either way, I'm willing to admit that I may have spoken too soon on that because it's been a long time, and I am not that experienced at it. I'm glad that we have RPG's with extensive stories today, however.
Honestly Story is just a big word used by Bioware but it just doesn't make a lot of sense imo. Role playing games are about role playing, not about story telling. Stories are just like a consequences, not the source. I just don't think its very good to define role playing games with story. It is as if acting in a theater was about story telling, i mean you could probably say it is about story for sure, and claim actor tell you "stories", i mean it would be stretched, but you probably could claim it. But imo its just not the proper way to define it. The Gm play the role of the world and the encounters and the players play the role of their characters. Now for an outsider it may look like story telling, but not for the players for sure. That's how i see it personally.
The best story-delivery system in the world, by definition, is the written word.
Anyone who relies too much on story as the prime attraction of their product in any other medium is playing with fire. It is true with films and it is true with video games which have interactivity as their prime appeal - and the concept of story is directly opposed to interactivity. Bioware put too much emphasis on story and too little on anything else, especially interactivity (read freedom, open-endedness whatever). No, this is not the game we're looking for. I sense a great disturbance in the force coming quite soon...
Or let me put it this way. You can play a great board game, such as chess or go, your whole life and never grow tired of it. Why? Because of the self-generating-content mechanics great games have. Every good chess game is a whole new story in itself. You cannot say the same for a book or a movie. You can't read the same book every day of your life while true gamers play their games of choice exactly like that.
And that is why relying on stories in games is a dreadfully shortsighted viewpoint. It might work for one-off console or single player games but it is deadly poison for games that rely on longevity (aka retention) for their success. I think Bioware made a terrible miscalculation with their approach to mmo design.
I agree with this.
Sound, environment, openness, exploration plus imagination make for a much greater story-telling experience than standing still in front of a clunkily animated NPC mouthing clunky TV movie dialog.
Who would have thought that a single player story might not be the best thing to base a massively multiplayer game around....
Now don't get me wrong, I think story is one of the things that the MMO genre needs to improve, but copy/pasting the system from single player RPG's is not the way to do it.
A scripted cutscene might be more engaging than a wall of text but that doesn't mean it is great, it just makes it less bad.
Ye i think that's the point here. Cut scenes are great for solo games because nobody is supposed to be part of those scene except the player. But in a mmo everyone is supposed to be able to be part of this scene and even act on it, so the cut scene scenario is just not the proper way to do it at all. It just doesn't work. Bioware can make multiplayer conversation it's just bad bandage for a system that doesn't fit the purpose.
Who would have thought that a single player story might not be the best thing to base a massively multiplayer game around....
Now don't get me wrong, I think story is one of the things that the MMO genre needs to improve, but copy/pasting the system from single player RPG's is not the way to do it.
A scripted cutscene might be more engaging than a wall of text but that doesn't mean it is great, it just makes it less bad.
Ye i think that's the point here. Cut scenes are great for solo games because nobody is supposed to be part of those scene except the player. But in a mmo everyone is supposed to be able to be part of this scene and even act on it, so the cut scene scenario is just not the proper way to do it at all. It just doesn't work. Bioware can make multiplayer conversation it's just bad bandage for a system that doesn't fit the purpose.
more I play honestly more I agree.. KOTOR 3 is what they should of put there money on not this... it's not a bad game but getting near 20 now and its just all to familiar. I really can't see this lasting unless they get a TON of new players who aren't long time MMO addicts and I don't feel the PVP crowd is going to stick around any longer than they did in rift... sad cause over the years I was really hoping on the next big MMO set in star wars...
Cutscenes and dialogue screens arent the only way to tell a story in a videogame. Tbh, i much more prefer the storytelling of Bioshock for example. That game takes the control from you like two times in total, yet it tells one of the most complex and intelligent stories ever told in a videogame. And it does that by letting the player explore - Audiologs, posters, commercials, graffiti..
Three of us played the open bata. I dropped out from playing SWTOR because of the Voice acting. I could not take Bioware playing the game for me any longer.
Both friends were playing the pre-release on Friday and admit that they are already hitting the space bar and are getting annoyed with the Voice acting. Both are StarWars fans and trying there hardest to like the game. But you could tell that something is wrong. I'm sure you know the look on someones face when they are hiding disappointment.....I would probably be with them if I were a hard core StarWars fan, but I'm not.
What do you think, honestly ?
Yeah I have to agree. While the VO is interesting, and more than welcome for my main class quests, I do not need it for every quest. I have to say that it made the first Heroic instance, Essles drag on as well. Having to stop every few minutes during a 30+ minute instance grew old really fast. I just wanted to play. I'd rather they just have the VO content for class and epic quests.
This game, on the whole, feels like the most dry and simple MMO ever made. I've been trying to put it into word over the last two days, and I finally nailed it. This game HAS NO SOUL. It's just an empty husk of a game for me.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Yeah I have to agree. While the VO is interesting, and more than welcome for my main class quests, I do not need it for every quest. I have to say that it made the first Heroic instance, Essles drag on as well. Having to stop every few minutes during a 30+ minute instance grew old really fast. I just wanted to play. I'd rather they just have the VO content for class and epic quests.
I agree. It would help with those complaints about people wanting ot listen to the entire VO in the instances.
In EQ2, with their VO's back in 2004, it drove me nuts.
I was fine with the WoW audio salutations, for all the lessor content.
I for one love it, RPG's are suposed to be about story's and this is the first MMO to actually make you feel like a quest is a quest. (AoC had it for the first 20 lvl's).
So to each is own i guess.
Common myth!
AoC has it from about level 8-20... the first 7 or 8 levels of AoC are generic junk.
Three of us played the open bata. I dropped out from playing SWTOR because of the Voice acting. I could not take Bioware playing the game for me any longer.
Both friends were playing the pre-release on Friday and admit that they are already hitting the space bar and are getting annoyed with the Voice acting. Both are StarWars fans and trying there hardest to like the game. But you could tell that something is wrong. I'm sure you know the look on someones face when they are hiding disappointment.....I would probably be with them if I were a hard core StarWars fan, but I'm not.
What do you think, honestly ?
I think you are trying too hard to prove to people that voice acting doesn't work in an MMO. Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't care about your opinon, nor that of your friends, regarding the voice acting. I joined this game with two of my raiding buddies from WoW, and all three of us were what I would consider hardcore players. The type of guys that would rush to level cap by not reading the quest text so that they could begin the endgame stuff as soon as possible.
We've been playing TOR for four days now. I played in beta. The other two guys just played for the first time the this week. We LOVE the voice overs. Both of my friends commented that for the first time in an MMO, they don't care about the experience bar. The voice acting has taken the level grind away from them altogether.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, your opinion isn't shared by all. And it's most likely not shared by the majority of players that play this game. So enjoy your text base quests in whatever other game you play. We'll stick with the good stuff.
[mod edit] at the end of the day some people love audiobooks wheras others love paperbacks/hardbacks and some love videobooks (well movies but hey) so i can see how some hate the voiceacting and would quit over it.
TOR has the best audio/cutscene of any mmorpg but then bioware have had a ton of practice at it..did i like it ? not at all i prefer to read text and can immerse myself with my own imagination and so used subtitles and the spacebar but i can fully respect why others prefer TORs way of doing it...like anything in any game some will hate others will love different features.
As for bioware playing the game for you i do agree..with other themeparks like WoW i felt less constricted prolly because it was/is text based and my imagination just seemed a little more free to roam whereas with the cutscene method it felt like an interactive movie..but hey each to their own
It took me a while to figure out why TOR didn't win me over.
Then it hit me. It was the same reason the 3 new movies didn't appeal to me.
The prequels weren't terrible, but they were forced into being Star Wars. For the younger crowd, that probably wasn't the case.
TOR on it's own is a great game. The prequels on their own are good movies (minus the absolutely ponderous scenes with Anikin and Padme, ooof). The could have stood the test of time better with new characters and a new franchise.
I was a huge Star Wars fan. Lucas has milked a great story and cultural phenom to the point of exaustion.
I couldn't stand the voice acting. it was so bad to me....after 3 hours of beta testing i deleted the game. i suppose if the game itself was great i would have stuck around but it feels like MMO's took several steps backwards with SWTOR.
Three of us played the open bata. I dropped out from playing SWTOR because of the Voice acting. I could not take Bioware playing the game for me any longer.
Both friends were playing the pre-release on Friday and admit that they are already hitting the space bar and are getting annoyed with the Voice acting. Both are StarWars fans and trying there hardest to like the game. But you could tell that something is wrong. I'm sure you know the look on someones face when they are hiding disappointment.....I would probably be with them if I were a hard core StarWars fan, but I'm not.
What do you think, honestly ?
Best quest delivery system up to date in mmorpgs for me, as I dont like reading much. In other mmorpgs I never had any clue what was going on when I just accepted and completed the objectives, now I do know what's going on and love it. I only skip the beggars/commoners who gives quests, I couldnt care less about their whining, just like IRL :P
But then again, I watch movies rather than read, and I feel no sympathy for the "readers" who dont like the VO's or story in games, just go find another game and get over it, it does not make the game bad if you dont like certain features in it
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
The best story-delivery system in the world, by definition, is the written word.
Anyone who relies too much on story as the prime attraction of their product in any other medium is playing with fire. It is true with films and it is true with video games which have interactivity as their prime appeal - and the concept of story is directly opposed to interactivity. Bioware put too much emphasis on story and too little on anything else, especially interactivity (read freedom, open-endedness whatever). No, this is not the game we're looking for. I sense a great disturbance in the force coming quite soon...
Speak for yourself mister self righteous hater. This IS the game some hundreds of thousans of people where waiting for according to the status of TOR's realms right now.
As for your "open-endedness, freedom" BS i'll think about it and have a good laugh while i explore Balmorra.
Of course they were waiting for it. I wish them all the best and I really don't doubt they'll all have a good time. SW:TOR is a great game and I'm sure there'll be a lot of very happy and satisfied SW fans and gamers in general.
Now how's that for a "hater?" And no, I'm not ironic. SW:TOR is an excellent and fun game. It's got rich story, great production value and a lot of content to make everbody very happy for quite some time.
Now read my post again and understand.
I do not worry about players. They'll have their fun. I worry about Bioware because they're counting on retention to be profitable. And that's exactly what they've kicked out of the window by bullishly sticking to their known story-concept without understanding how it works in the mmo space.
In a month or two you'll see a massive drop in subs, possibly even server merges. The vast majority of players leaving will say something like "It is a fantastic game and I love it but for some reason I just don't feel like playing it anymore. I can't explain it." Well I just explained it for you.
I for one love it, RPG's are suposed to be about story's and this is the first MMO to actually make you feel like a quest is a quest. (AoC had it for the first 20 lvl's).
So to each is own i guess.
The RPGs are about story, I grant you that. However the question is "who writes the story?" The game master or the players?
Believe it or not, this same discussion is at least 30 years old. In the 80s I remember pen-and-paper RPGers were pretty much divided on that question. Many of them were favoring the on-the-rails TSR's D&D modules while there was quite a substantial minority who liked the open-endedness of MERP, GURPS and Ars Magica for example. The D&D folks were "uncouth consumer rabble without true creativity" and open-ended folks were "efete humour-less snobs with too much free time." Sounds familiar? Oh yess it does sound a bit like that "themepark" vs "sandbox" thing now doesn't it?
I see exactly the same kind of arguments bandied in these forums as were thrown around in those days... and pretty much the same type of people defending one or the other position.
Frankly, I don't think this dispute will ever be concluded...
In the end you're back at sandbox VS. directed MMORPG. They are 2 different things apparently. Some like either or, some like both, some like neither.
I for one love it, RPG's are suposed to be about story's and this is the first MMO to actually make you feel like a quest is a quest. (AoC had it for the first 20 lvl's).
So to each is own i guess.
The RPGs are about story, I grant you that. However the question is "who writes the story?" The game master or the players?
Believe it or not, this same discussion is at least 30 years old. In the 80s I remember pen-and-paper RPGers were pretty much divided on that question. Many of them were favoring the on-the-rails TSR's D&D modules while there was quite a substantial minority who liked the open-endedness of MERP, GURPS and Ars Magica for example. The D&D folks were "uncouth consumer rabble without true creativity" and open-ended folks were "efete humour-less snobs with too much free time." Sounds familiar? Oh yess it does sound a bit like that "themepark" vs "sandbox" thing now doesn't it?
I see exactly the same kind of arguments bandied in these forums as were thrown around in those days... and pretty much the same type of people defending one or the other position.
Frankly, I don't think this dispute will ever be concluded...
In the end you're back at sandbox VS. directed MMORPG. They are 2 different things apparently. Some like either or, some like both, some like neither.
Well, I'm a bit older and tolerant now and I'll say both have their place. However, when you bought a D&D module you could use it only once with your rpg group. On the other hand, a MERP (Middle-Earth role-playing) area book would provide you with raw setting, including history, npcs, geography etc which a game-master could use almost indefinitely, weaving his own and his players stories into.
See the point? D&D module = throwaway product (read single-purchase game). MERP area book = permanent product (read subscription-based game). And that is why I think Bioware made a mistake by their decision to pursure story-based model. I still think they would profit much more if they sold SW:TOR as a B2P game with additional DLC rather than a sub-based game. That's all that I'm really saying.
I for one love it, RPG's are suposed to be about story's and this is the first MMO to actually make you feel like a quest is a quest. (AoC had it for the first 20 lvl's).
So to each is own i guess.
The RPGs are about story, I grant you that. However the question is "who writes the story?" The game master or the players?
Believe it or not, this same discussion is at least 30 years old. In the 80s I remember pen-and-paper RPGers were pretty much divided on that question. Many of them were favoring the on-the-rails TSR's D&D modules while there was quite a substantial minority who liked the open-endedness of MERP, GURPS and Ars Magica for example. The D&D folks were "uncouth consumer rabble without true creativity" and open-ended folks were "efete humour-less snobs with too much free time." Sounds familiar? Oh yess it does sound a bit like that "themepark" vs "sandbox" thing now doesn't it?
I see exactly the same kind of arguments bandied in these forums as were thrown around in those days... and pretty much the same type of people defending one or the other position.
Frankly, I don't think this dispute will ever be concluded...
In the end you're back at sandbox VS. directed MMORPG. They are 2 different things apparently. Some like either or, some like both, some like neither.
Well, I'm a bit older and tolerant now and I'll say both have their place. However, when you bought a D&D module you could use it only once with your rpg group. On the other hand, a MERP (Middle-Earth role-playing) area book would provide you with raw setting, including history, npcs, geography etc which a game-master could use almost indefinitely, weaving his own and his players stories into.
See the point? D&D module = throwaway product (read single-purchase game). MERP area book = permanent product (read subscription-based game). And that is why I think Bioware made a mistake by their decision to pursure story-based model. I still think they would profit much more if they sold SW:TOR as a B2P game with additional DLC rather than a sub-based game. That's all that I'm really saying.
Perhaps the plan is to churn out mass amounts of additional content on a consistent basis, only way this model could ever stay viable.
and me and my gf are loving this game. Then again i dont skip the vo, Come on the vo is awesome, ive got a 22 agent, a 7 trooper and a 4 couselor.
The 7 and 4 i play with gf, shes been sick not able to play much but teh vo is the best thing about this game. If u arent gonna watch the story why did u even buy tor?
We all knew it was full of cutscenes when picking up and turning in quess if that didnt appeal to u i dont understand buying the game.
That said try actually doing the cutscenes. They are really well done . I cant belive ud skip them if u hadnt dont them before.
If u had done them a few times id understand but if u havent seen them it makes no sense to skip them.
It doesn't even have to be a freaking sandbox. Quit acting like there is SWTOR and Sandbox games with nothing in between. Let's face facts here. Bioware has been telling us for a long time now, indirectly, that this game was made to be a WoW-clone cash cow. These companies aren't making games for gamers. They are making games that make maxium profit for their executives and investors. McDonalds makes billions per year, and there is nothing good about their food. "Artists" like Gaga are making a fortune but that doesn't mean her music has any redeeming value other than being trendy. Frankly if you point at something and tell me it is awesome because the masses love it, I will run the other direction as fast as I can because I have learned that there will invariable be nothing of substance there. So here we are. Gamers who used to demand an intelligent product, stuck with the mundane.
You *can* build a deep and interesting themepark game you know. The best upcoming example is The Secret World. The raved previews it got a couple weeks back from every large gaming website that reviews MMO's prove it. I posted links to many of the previews in the TSW forums on this site. They talk about how rich the game world is and how alive everything feels. They talk about it being packed full of adventure and how the game world itself reveals the story because of how interesting it is. You don't just *want* to explore a game like this, you feel blissfully compelled to and there are interesting puzzles and clues all over the place. You LIVE the story, you don't just watch it.
By contrast, SWTOR throws you in this sterile, vanilla, contrived Star Wars setting and shoves a story made for 10-13 year olds down your throat. The world feels dead, and other than the occasional holocron you may find, there is no reason to explore. Often you are met with various invisible walls and on-rails map design when you explore anyway which is a huge turn-off. Look at crafting. What, crafting wasn't stupid-simple enough in previous themepark games that Bioware needed to make it even more trivial and mundane?
I would be prefectly happy with a themepark that wasn't insultingly shallow. The problem is that themeparks are just "dumb" now. I don't know how else to put it. SWTOR takes the themepark mindset to the ultimate conclusion. The only way it could be more themepark would be if you just strapped yourself into your chair at home, and watched the game play itself like some sort of virtual Disneyland ride. There is no substance, and I'm sorry to report that for many of us this "incredible story" people are bragging about is as deep as a children's short story book complete with simplistic art.
"There must be another way. We can't just let those people die!"
Someone here tell me that Essles was anything other than weak. Tell me that instance seemed like something worthy of a game that is marketed to an MMO audience in 2012 and made to last until 2017 (assuming a five year life span) or so. It sucked. The story slowed the whole thing down with mind-numbingly simple concepts, and mouth-breather dialog response choices. The combat? Oh look a complete and utterly static set of mobs to kill. And another, and another and another. Are these guys bolted to the floor?
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
It doesn't even have to be a freaking sandbox. Quit acting like there is SWTOR and Sandbox games with nothing in between. Let's face facts here. Bioware has been telling us for a long time now, indirectly, that this game was made to be a WoW-clone cash cow. These companies aren't making games for gamers. They are making games that make maxium profit for their executives and investors. McDonalds makes billions per year, and there is nothing good about their food. "Artists" like Gaga are making a fortune but that doesn't mean her music has any redeeming value other than being trendy. Frankly if you point at something and tell me it is awesome because the masses love it, I will run the other direction as fast as I can because I have learned that there will invariable be nothing of substance there. So here we are. Gamers who used to demand an intelligent product, stuck with the mundane.
You *can* build a deep and interesting themepark game you know. The best upcoming example is The Secret World. The raved previews it got a couple weeks back from every large gaming website that reviews MMO's prove it. I posted links to many of the previews in the TSW forums on this site. They talk about how rich the game world is and how alive everything feels. They talk about it being packed full of adventure and how the game world itself reveals the story because of how interesting it is. You don't just *want* to explore a game like this, you feel blissfully compelled to and there are interesting puzzles and clues all over the place. You LIVE the story, you don't just watch it.
By contrast, SWTOR throws you in this sterile, vanilla, contrived Star Wars setting and shoves a story made for 10-13 year olds down your throat. The world feels dead, and other than the occasional holocron you may find, there is no reason to explore. Often you are met with various invisible walls and on-rails map design when you explore anyway which is a huge turn-off. Look at crafting. What, crafting wasn't stupid-simple enough in previous themepark games that Bioware needed to make it even more trivial and mundane?
I would be prefectly happy with a themepark that wasn't insultingly shallow. The problem is that themeparks are just "dumb" now. I don't know how else to put it. SWTOR takes the themepark mindset to the ultimate conclusion. The only way it could be more themepark would be if you just strapped yourself into your chair at home, and watched the game play itself like some sort of virtual Disneyland ride. There is no substance, and I'm sorry to report that for many of us this "incredible story" people are bragging about is as deep as a children's short story book complete with simplistic art.
"There must be another way. We can't just let those people die!"
Someone here tell me that Essles was anything other than weak. Tell me that instance seemed like something worthy of a game that is marketed to an MMO audience in 2012 and made to last until 2017 (assuming a five year life span) or so. It sucked. The story slowed the whole thing down with mind-numbingly simple concepts, and mouth-breather dialog response choices. The combat? Oh look a complete and utterly static set of mobs to kill. And another, and another and another. Are these guys bolted to the floor?
There's probably too much truth in this post for most people to comprehend. Well said.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
The best story-delivery system in the world, by definition, is the written word.
Anyone who relies too much on story as the prime attraction of their product in any other medium is playing with fire. It is true with films and it is true with video games which have interactivity as their prime appeal - and the concept of story is directly opposed to interactivity. Bioware put too much emphasis on story and too little on anything else, especially interactivity (read freedom, open-endedness whatever). No, this is not the game we're looking for. I sense a great disturbance in the force coming quite soon...
Or let me put it this way. You can play a great board game, such as chess or go, your whole life and never grow tired of it. Why? Because of the self-generating-content mechanics great games have. Every good chess game is a whole new story in itself. You cannot say the same for a book or a movie. You can't read the same book every day of your life while true gamers play their games of choice exactly like that.
And that is why relying on stories in games is a dreadfully shortsighted viewpoint. It might work for one-off console or single player games but it is deadly poison for games that rely on longevity (aka retention) for their success. I think Bioware made a terrible miscalculation with their approach to mmo design.
You said it perfectly. Theres so many fanbois preaching how awesome the game is its scary. I found my self playing and geting board quickly. To new MMO players this game would be great, but god damn its boring to a MMO vet. I dont see the fanbois forcing themselfs to play much longer then 2 months. I want to see what LA does in a few months when subs decline. I already saved myself 60 bucks and canceled my pre order
It doesn't even have to be a freaking sandbox. Quit acting like there is SWTOR and Sandbox games with nothing in between. Let's face facts here. Bioware has been telling us for a long time now, indirectly, that this game was made to be a WoW-clone cash cow. These companies aren't making games for gamers. They are making games that make maxium profit for their executives and investors. McDonalds makes billions per year, and there is nothing good about their food. "Artists" like Gaga are making a fortune but that doesn't mean her music has any redeeming value other than being trendy. Frankly if you point at something and tell me it is awesome because the masses love it, I will run the other direction as fast as I can because I have learned that there will invariable be nothing of substance there. So here we are. Gamers who used to demand an intelligent product, stuck with the mundane.
You *can* build a deep and interesting themepark game you know. The best upcoming example is The Secret World. The raved previews it got a couple weeks back from every large gaming website that reviews MMO's prove it. I posted links to many of the previews in the TSW forums on this site. They talk about how rich the game world is and how alive everything feels. They talk about it being packed full of adventure and how the game world itself reveals the story because of how interesting it is. You don't just *want* to explore a game like this, you feel blissfully compelled to and there are interesting puzzles and clues all over the place. You LIVE the story, you don't just watch it.
By contrast, SWTOR throws you in this sterile, vanilla, contrived Star Wars setting and shoves a story made for 10-13 year olds down your throat. The world feels dead, and other than the occasional holocron you may find, there is no reason to explore. Often you are met with various invisible walls and on-rails map design when you explore anyway which is a huge turn-off. Look at crafting. What, crafting wasn't stupid-simple enough in previous themepark games that Bioware needed to make it even more trivial and mundane?
I would be prefectly happy with a themepark that wasn't insultingly shallow. The problem is that themeparks are just "dumb" now. I don't know how else to put it. SWTOR takes the themepark mindset to the ultimate conclusion. The only way it could be more themepark would be if you just strapped yourself into your chair at home, and watched the game play itself like some sort of virtual Disneyland ride. There is no substance, and I'm sorry to report that for many of us this "incredible story" people are bragging about is as deep as a children's short story book complete with simplistic art.
"There must be another way. We can't just let those people die!"
Someone here tell me that Essles was anything other than weak. Tell me that instance seemed like something worthy of a game that is marketed to an MMO audience in 2012 and made to last until 2017 (assuming a five year life span) or so. It sucked. The story slowed the whole thing down with mind-numbingly simple concepts, and mouth-breather dialog response choices. The combat? Oh look a complete and utterly static set of mobs to kill. And another, and another and another. Are these guys bolted to the floor?
good post.. honestly bioware really.. and I mean REALLY needs to step this game up fast if they want to keep long term MMO players cause right now I don't see it happening.. but they should make enough from box sales and first month to have enough people working on it to pump out some much needed additions fast.
Comments
Man you missed the mark there, at least in my experience. I will agree that Chainmail was a different game. It was really a skirmish miniature game, a predecessor to all the games out there now like 40k and Warmachine.
But I have been playing pen and paper games since 1981, mostly D&D but a lot of others too. I play once a week, even today. Even when I was a kid, running a game, I used story. Lots of it. Now my games are mostly story. Combats are meaningful, fun events, and part of the story. Dungeon crawls are just one way to play a game, but a pen and paper game without story and character development is like a book or movie without a plot, it SUCKS.
And it applies to SWTOR and other MMORPGs for me as well. I like the story. If the game didn't have one, I would roleplay more with other roleplayers and provide a bit of my own.
In point of fact, these games are either enjoyed or they are not. I will never understand why folks who do not like a game seem to feel it neccessary to try to dirty the experience for those that do. I am not singling out SWTOR, but pretty much every forum on this site. This particular community is filled with venom, which is too bad. Its changed a lot over the years.
Who would have thought that a single player story might not be the best thing to base a massively multiplayer game around....
Now don't get me wrong, I think story is one of the things that the MMO genre needs to improve, but copy/pasting the system from single player RPG's is not the way to do it.
A scripted cutscene might be more engaging than a wall of text but that doesn't mean it is great, it just makes it less bad.
Nobody (worth listening to) is arguing that story isn't part of RPG's. What people are trying to say is that you can't focus on story at the expense of everything else, which is exactly what SWTOR has done.
Honestly Story is just a big word used by Bioware but it just doesn't make a lot of sense imo. Role playing games are about role playing, not about story telling. Stories are just like a consequences, not the source. I just don't think its very good to define role playing games with story. It is as if acting in a theater was about story telling, i mean you could probably say it is about story for sure, and claim actor tell you "stories", i mean it would be stretched, but you probably could claim it. But imo its just not the proper way to define it. The Gm play the role of the world and the encounters and the players play the role of their characters. Now for an outsider it may look like story telling, but not for the players for sure. That's how i see it personally.
+ 1
Exaclty what I feel as well.
x 100 THIS.
Ye i think that's the point here. Cut scenes are great for solo games because nobody is supposed to be part of those scene except the player. But in a mmo everyone is supposed to be able to be part of this scene and even act on it, so the cut scene scenario is just not the proper way to do it at all. It just doesn't work. Bioware can make multiplayer conversation it's just bad bandage for a system that doesn't fit the purpose.
more I play honestly more I agree.. KOTOR 3 is what they should of put there money on not this... it's not a bad game but getting near 20 now and its just all to familiar. I really can't see this lasting unless they get a TON of new players who aren't long time MMO addicts and I don't feel the PVP crowd is going to stick around any longer than they did in rift... sad cause over the years I was really hoping on the next big MMO set in star wars...
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
Cutscenes and dialogue screens arent the only way to tell a story in a videogame. Tbh, i much more prefer the storytelling of Bioshock for example. That game takes the control from you like two times in total, yet it tells one of the most complex and intelligent stories ever told in a videogame. And it does that by letting the player explore - Audiologs, posters, commercials, graffiti..
Yeah I have to agree. While the VO is interesting, and more than welcome for my main class quests, I do not need it for every quest. I have to say that it made the first Heroic instance, Essles drag on as well. Having to stop every few minutes during a 30+ minute instance grew old really fast. I just wanted to play. I'd rather they just have the VO content for class and epic quests.
This game, on the whole, feels like the most dry and simple MMO ever made. I've been trying to put it into word over the last two days, and I finally nailed it. This game HAS NO SOUL. It's just an empty husk of a game for me.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I agree. It would help with those complaints about people wanting ot listen to the entire VO in the instances.
In EQ2, with their VO's back in 2004, it drove me nuts.
I was fine with the WoW audio salutations, for all the lessor content.
Common myth!
AoC has it from about level 8-20... the first 7 or 8 levels of AoC are generic junk.
I think you are trying too hard to prove to people that voice acting doesn't work in an MMO. Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't care about your opinon, nor that of your friends, regarding the voice acting. I joined this game with two of my raiding buddies from WoW, and all three of us were what I would consider hardcore players. The type of guys that would rush to level cap by not reading the quest text so that they could begin the endgame stuff as soon as possible.
We've been playing TOR for four days now. I played in beta. The other two guys just played for the first time the this week. We LOVE the voice overs. Both of my friends commented that for the first time in an MMO, they don't care about the experience bar. The voice acting has taken the level grind away from them altogether.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, your opinion isn't shared by all. And it's most likely not shared by the majority of players that play this game. So enjoy your text base quests in whatever other game you play. We'll stick with the good stuff.
[mod edit] at the end of the day some people love audiobooks wheras others love paperbacks/hardbacks and some love videobooks (well movies but hey) so i can see how some hate the voiceacting and would quit over it.
TOR has the best audio/cutscene of any mmorpg but then bioware have had a ton of practice at it..did i like it ? not at all i prefer to read text and can immerse myself with my own imagination and so used subtitles and the spacebar but i can fully respect why others prefer TORs way of doing it...like anything in any game some will hate others will love different features.
As for bioware playing the game for you i do agree..with other themeparks like WoW i felt less constricted prolly because it was/is text based and my imagination just seemed a little more free to roam whereas with the cutscene method it felt like an interactive movie..but hey each to their own
It took me a while to figure out why TOR didn't win me over.
Then it hit me. It was the same reason the 3 new movies didn't appeal to me.
The prequels weren't terrible, but they were forced into being Star Wars. For the younger crowd, that probably wasn't the case.
TOR on it's own is a great game. The prequels on their own are good movies (minus the absolutely ponderous scenes with Anikin and Padme, ooof). The could have stood the test of time better with new characters and a new franchise.
I was a huge Star Wars fan. Lucas has milked a great story and cultural phenom to the point of exaustion.
I couldn't stand the voice acting. it was so bad to me....after 3 hours of beta testing i deleted the game. i suppose if the game itself was great i would have stuck around but it feels like MMO's took several steps backwards with SWTOR.
Best quest delivery system up to date in mmorpgs for me, as I dont like reading much. In other mmorpgs I never had any clue what was going on when I just accepted and completed the objectives, now I do know what's going on and love it. I only skip the beggars/commoners who gives quests, I couldnt care less about their whining, just like IRL :P
But then again, I watch movies rather than read, and I feel no sympathy for the "readers" who dont like the VO's or story in games, just go find another game and get over it, it does not make the game bad if you dont like certain features in it
In my opinnion there are too many cutscenes
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Sorry for a self-quote but...
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4627322#4627322
...it is already beginning to happen, along with "I can't really explain it but..." part.
In the end you're back at sandbox VS. directed MMORPG. They are 2 different things apparently. Some like either or, some like both, some like neither.
Well, I'm a bit older and tolerant now and I'll say both have their place. However, when you bought a D&D module you could use it only once with your rpg group. On the other hand, a MERP (Middle-Earth role-playing) area book would provide you with raw setting, including history, npcs, geography etc which a game-master could use almost indefinitely, weaving his own and his players stories into.
See the point? D&D module = throwaway product (read single-purchase game). MERP area book = permanent product (read subscription-based game). And that is why I think Bioware made a mistake by their decision to pursure story-based model. I still think they would profit much more if they sold SW:TOR as a B2P game with additional DLC rather than a sub-based game. That's all that I'm really saying.
Perhaps the plan is to churn out mass amounts of additional content on a consistent basis, only way this model could ever stay viable.
and me and my gf are loving this game. Then again i dont skip the vo, Come on the vo is awesome, ive got a 22 agent, a 7 trooper and a 4 couselor.
The 7 and 4 i play with gf, shes been sick not able to play much but teh vo is the best thing about this game. If u arent gonna watch the story why did u even buy tor?
We all knew it was full of cutscenes when picking up and turning in quess if that didnt appeal to u i dont understand buying the game.
That said try actually doing the cutscenes. They are really well done . I cant belive ud skip them if u hadnt dont them before.
If u had done them a few times id understand but if u havent seen them it makes no sense to skip them.
It doesn't even have to be a freaking sandbox. Quit acting like there is SWTOR and Sandbox games with nothing in between. Let's face facts here. Bioware has been telling us for a long time now, indirectly, that this game was made to be a WoW-clone cash cow. These companies aren't making games for gamers. They are making games that make maxium profit for their executives and investors. McDonalds makes billions per year, and there is nothing good about their food. "Artists" like Gaga are making a fortune but that doesn't mean her music has any redeeming value other than being trendy. Frankly if you point at something and tell me it is awesome because the masses love it, I will run the other direction as fast as I can because I have learned that there will invariable be nothing of substance there. So here we are. Gamers who used to demand an intelligent product, stuck with the mundane.
You *can* build a deep and interesting themepark game you know. The best upcoming example is The Secret World. The raved previews it got a couple weeks back from every large gaming website that reviews MMO's prove it. I posted links to many of the previews in the TSW forums on this site. They talk about how rich the game world is and how alive everything feels. They talk about it being packed full of adventure and how the game world itself reveals the story because of how interesting it is. You don't just *want* to explore a game like this, you feel blissfully compelled to and there are interesting puzzles and clues all over the place. You LIVE the story, you don't just watch it.
By contrast, SWTOR throws you in this sterile, vanilla, contrived Star Wars setting and shoves a story made for 10-13 year olds down your throat. The world feels dead, and other than the occasional holocron you may find, there is no reason to explore. Often you are met with various invisible walls and on-rails map design when you explore anyway which is a huge turn-off. Look at crafting. What, crafting wasn't stupid-simple enough in previous themepark games that Bioware needed to make it even more trivial and mundane?
I would be prefectly happy with a themepark that wasn't insultingly shallow. The problem is that themeparks are just "dumb" now. I don't know how else to put it. SWTOR takes the themepark mindset to the ultimate conclusion. The only way it could be more themepark would be if you just strapped yourself into your chair at home, and watched the game play itself like some sort of virtual Disneyland ride. There is no substance, and I'm sorry to report that for many of us this "incredible story" people are bragging about is as deep as a children's short story book complete with simplistic art.
"There must be another way. We can't just let those people die!"
Someone here tell me that Essles was anything other than weak. Tell me that instance seemed like something worthy of a game that is marketed to an MMO audience in 2012 and made to last until 2017 (assuming a five year life span) or so. It sucked. The story slowed the whole thing down with mind-numbingly simple concepts, and mouth-breather dialog response choices. The combat? Oh look a complete and utterly static set of mobs to kill. And another, and another and another. Are these guys bolted to the floor?
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
There's probably too much truth in this post for most people to comprehend. Well said.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
You said it perfectly. Theres so many fanbois preaching how awesome the game is its scary. I found my self playing and geting board quickly. To new MMO players this game would be great, but god damn its boring to a MMO vet. I dont see the fanbois forcing themselfs to play much longer then 2 months. I want to see what LA does in a few months when subs decline. I already saved myself 60 bucks and canceled my pre order
bars+girls+no condoms= babies
good post.. honestly bioware really.. and I mean REALLY needs to step this game up fast if they want to keep long term MMO players cause right now I don't see it happening.. but they should make enough from box sales and first month to have enough people working on it to pump out some much needed additions fast.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html