Originally posted by Serelisk I don't understand. TOR's servers partition players into phases of set amounts of players within the servers themselves? Because that's what it sounds like, and I don't want to harp on possible misinformation. Not really finding any concrete answers on the interwebz. If I'm in a zone, there could possibly be multiple layers of players playing in the exact same area that I'll never see? Will I be in the same phase as one of my friends if we are or are not grouped? Is this a barrier to playing with friends? Something that might be a part of TOR was introduced to me in this thread that I had no idea about and I need someone to purge me of my ignorance.
If you're in a zone, there are phases of that zone with players in each phase. It's not a barrier to playing with friends, and it's not a barrier to grouping with people. In the beta, there were a LOT of phases for each zone. In release, it doesn't look like there are many phases. For instance, in one zone, I saw 600 phases in beta. In release, it's more like 2 or 3 (from what I've heard).
The actual number of players per phase isn't known. The number '100' is being used, but I haven't seen any confirmation on this and that seems kind of low given the number of pre-orders and the number of servers.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It makes me cringe when I see comments here from people who are completely ok with never seeing another player unless they have to group up for an instance. This is what MMORPGs have come to.
You apperently do not know the history then. It started out that way. In EQ, I could and DID go hours without interacting with others. I explored many areas without ever seeing another person. I grouped for certain quests/areas and had fun doing so, but mostly soloed. It wasn't until later that MMO's started being released that were aimed (I would say forced, but that's a bit harsh) at forming groups (EQ2, WOW, LotRO to name a couple). You still didn't have to group, but you had to wait and level before attempting it solo (so why not group ).
Point is, it's not your version of "MMO" that is correct. MMO is just "Massive Multiplayer Online". Nothing more or less to read into it. If it is massive, is multiplayer, and is online...well?
I hope Bioware will remove the need of other players and just give me an option to solo everything with 3 companions.
Bots listen to commands a lot better than people anyways.
Also make the combat pauseable so i can issue orders, it just works better that way.
For example you could still group for flashpoints or sth, but just give me 3 companions.
And... here you go. This poster WANTS an RPG with a chat room. He is clearly playing in the wrong genre, and it's people like him that are ruining what MMORPG games are supposed to be. It's nothing personal against him or anyone else who thinks like him, but the fact that people like him are hanging out on the MMORPG site and believe they are in the right place just shows how far these games are straying away from their original intent ~ virtual worlds.
I was pretty sure he was being sarcastic, lol
If he is, then his comment still represents what a lot of people who like SWTOR are saying. They couldn't care less if other people were in the game with them. Joining a guild represents very occasional grouping and a chat window to them. (in other words, co-op gameplay).
not exactly unexpected, the multiplayer part of it is strictly optional, one of the reasons i think why it was necessary to have companions as part of the game. without companions it would probably be unplayable.
It makes me cringe when I see comments here from people who are completely ok with never seeing another player unless they have to group up for an instance. This is what MMORPGs have come to.
You apperently do not know the history then. It started out that way. In EQ, I could and DID go hours without interacting with others. I explored many areas without ever seeing another person. I grouped for certain quests/areas and had fun doing so, but mostly soloed. It wasn't until later that MMO's started being released that were aimed (I would say forced, but that's a bit harsh) at forming groups (EQ2, WOW, LotRO to name a couple). You still didn't have to group, but you had to wait and level before attempting it solo (so why not group ).
Point is, it's not your version of "MMO" that is correct. MMO is just "Massive Multiplayer Online". Nothing more or less to read into it. If it is massive, is multiplayer, and is online...well?
Yeah, I've only been gaming online for about 17 years now, and offline for a lot longer. I have no idea about the history of the genre....
The difference between the older MMOs, the ones that were built for interactivity and interdependence of players, and the ones built now is that going solo was an interesting gameplay choice that went against the grain of the design. One of my favorite characters in Star Wars Galaxies was a Ranger for this very reason. Now we have games that are focused on solo players, and include a few reasons to group here and there, if you want to. The current MMO game design is almost a complete 180 degree turn in core values and design. This is why I believe they deserve their own genre rather than being lumped in with MMORPG games. Yes, your genre may be more popular, but then so is FARMVILLE.
That 180 degree turn around is also why there's hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled into the genre. It's the reason that it's possible to develop a game that costs $50 million to produce. It's the reason the genre still exists as a genre and not as an odd blip in the history of gaming.
Untrue. The problem is that game developers all want to have WoW's success. They are developing these dumbed-down games to appeal to the masses for maximum profit. The only proof you need is EVE. EVE Online is infinitely more complex, deep and expandable than SWTOR, and sustains a very healthy and profitable population somewhere around 300,000 players. CCP is not hurting for cash. The idea that you must have millions of players in your game is nothing more than a corporate marketing plan for a get-rich-quick scheme. These are games made for investors, not games made for gamers.
Check out this upcoming indy game using the Hero engine. The screenshots look a hell of a lot better than anything I have seen in SWTOR, the feature list blows TOR away in pure game complexity. They have a tiny budget and a handful of developers: http://www.therepopulation.com
I look at TOR and I wonder where the hell exactly did $150M go into this game. Games with much smaller budgets have a lot more depth to them. If they spent most of their money on VO quests, they missed the whole point of making an MMO game. If Bioware didn't have the Star Wars IP to rely on, would anyone have given them $150M to build this game? I think not.
I have to say this too.... The whole idea of a "Collector's Edition" has to be the best marketing idea on the planet. Here you get players to spend $150+ on a box with some cheap trinkets in it and some unlockable in-game junk. No one will *ever* be collecting these things. If they do it will be because someone has a box, still wrapped up, sitting on a shelf 50 years from now at a time when there are only a handful in existence. There is nothing collectable about it, yet people line up to throw money at this stuff. I crack up everytime I see a thread posted where someone is disappointed in the CE vendor.
If only someone had the ballsack to throw even a paltry $10 million at The Repopulation we would really have something interesting.
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.
By massive, it is meant as a massive amount of players.
So where are you all ?
Where is the massive populated launch festivities in all the cantinas over the universe ?
We have confirmed millions of players, we have FULL servers but when you join in, you barely see more then 5 players at one place.
So, where is the crowd ?
Massive Multiplayer ONLINE came from a time when there were limited numbers of connections to servers. MMO is about networking not world size and only implies more players. But understand it is about networking.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
There are plenty of other comments here, some by me, that explain it quite well from the perspective of comparing the original design intent of virtual-world MMO games to games like TOR. They are almost *nothing* alike. There is nothing wrong with your gameplay choice. I just do not feel that it is an MMORPG. It deserves its own genre, IMO.
I'd say you are the one who has it somewhat backwards. "MMO" is a very broad group of games - "Virtual World" is a very specific subset of the genre.
SWTOR is an MMO - a different kind of MMO, but an MMO nonetheless.
There are plenty of other comments here, some by me, that explain it quite well from the perspective of comparing the original design intent of virtual-world MMO games to games like TOR. They are almost *nothing* alike. There is nothing wrong with your gameplay choice. I just do not feel that it is an MMORPG. It deserves its own genre, IMO.
I'd say you are the one who has it somewhat backwards. "MMO" is a very broad group of games - "Virtual World" is a very specific subset of the genre.
SWTOR is an MMO - a different kind of MMO, but an MMO nonetheless.
You can call it an MMO all you want. If by MMO you mean millions of people connect to hundreds of servers, and then barely interact... fine. I still do not believe it is an MMORPG. Call it an MMOG.
For the record, I was referring to how the genre was originally about having an interactive RPG game set in more of a living, breathing virtual world, whereas games like TOR feel more like being strapped into a rollercoaster and force-fed a scripted experience. I wasn't referring to worlds like SecondLife.
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 are plenty of other comments here, some by me, that explain it quite well from the perspective of comparing the original design intent of virtual-world MMO games to games like TOR. They are almost *nothing* alike. There is nothing wrong with your gameplay choice. I just do not feel that it is an MMORPG. It deserves its own genre, IMO.
What you're not considering is why many MMO Devs have done the things they have in recent years. Instances, and the like are a result of what? Instanced PVP is a result of what? Tutorials and starting zones are a result of what? Just about every change here is a direct result of what many viewed as problems long ago.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
TOR has phased instancing to handle crowds in a zone.
This.
Try hitting the who button up top screen. I had 130 instances of people last night in just one starter zone and the server was on heavy NOT full so yeah there are a shiton of people but you dont have to fight them al in the starting areas for quest mobs etc.
If you don't liek the game thats fine. But having to fight people at launch when they are all in the same area duh wont make you like it any better.
Sounds like people are running out of things to complain about since the world didn't explode on launch day from this terrible game.
And yeah I am surfing here while waiting in my hour long que to get into my server. You know all the NON people trying to get in.
There are plenty of other comments here, some by me, that explain it quite well from the perspective of comparing the original design intent of virtual-world MMO games to games like TOR. They are almost *nothing* alike. There is nothing wrong with your gameplay choice. I just do not feel that it is an MMORPG. It deserves its own genre, IMO.
What you're not considering is why many MMO Devs have done the things they have in recent years. Instances, and the like are a result of what? Instanced PVP is a result of what? Tutorials and starting zones are a result of what? Just about every change here is a direct result of what many viewed as problems long ago.
I understand instanced dungeons and have no problem with them. If by "problems" from long ago you mean it costs them more money (less profit) to make larger more interactive gameplay areas today, then yeah, looks like they solved it. They have scaled everything down, slammed everyone through on-rails gameplay, and instance it so they can rake in the profits from millions of players. From what I can see, most of these "problems" are directly related to how much more profit the investors can make from a dumbed down game experience.
It's a sign of the times though. We now live in a corporatacracy with a population of stupid consumers/wasters. Why should gaming be any different?
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 are plenty of other comments here, some by me, that explain it quite well from the perspective of comparing the original design intent of virtual-world MMO games to games like TOR. They are almost *nothing* alike. There is nothing wrong with your gameplay choice. I just do not feel that it is an MMORPG. It deserves its own genre, IMO.
I'd say you are the one who has it somewhat backwards. "MMO" is a very broad group of games - "Virtual World" is a very specific subset of the genre.
SWTOR is an MMO - a different kind of MMO, but an MMO nonetheless.
You can call it an MMO all you want. If by MMO you mean millions of people connect to hundreds of servers, and then barely interact... fine. I still do not believe it is an MMORPG. Call it an MMOG.
For the record, I was referring to how the genre was originally about having an interactive RPG game set in more of a living, breathing virtual world, whereas games like TOR feel more like being strapped into a rollercoaster and force-fed a scripted experience. I wasn't referring to worlds like SecondLife.
And on this one I am sure EA and bioware care about your opinion of what an MMO is or isn't. Don't play it if the acronym doesn't fit your definition correctly. I can see alot of reasons to not liek or play this but because the acronym isn't correct is a new one.
What do you play btw? I like sandboxes but the last one I purchased had no real sand so I threw a fit and snet it back.
Originally posted by MindTrigger Originally posted by lizardbones
Originally posted by MindTrigger
Originally posted by Kinchyle
Originally posted by MindTrigger
It makes me cringe when I see comments here from people who are completely ok with never seeing another player unless they have to group up for an instance. This is what MMORPGs have come to.
You apperently do not know the history then. It started out that way. In EQ, I could and DID go hours without interacting with others. I explored many areas without ever seeing another person. I grouped for certain quests/areas and had fun doing so, but mostly soloed. It wasn't until later that MMO's started being released that were aimed (I would say forced, but that's a bit harsh) at forming groups (EQ2, WOW, LotRO to name a couple). You still didn't have to group, but you had to wait and level before attempting it solo (so why not group ).
Point is, it's not your version of "MMO" that is correct. MMO is just "Massive Multiplayer Online". Nothing more or less to read into it. If it is massive, is multiplayer, and is online...well?
Yeah, I've only been gaming online for about 17 years now, and offline for a lot longer. I have no idea about the history of the genre.... The difference between the older MMOs, the ones that were built for interactivity and interdependence of players, and the ones built now is that going solo was an interesting gameplay choice that went against the grain of the design. One of my favorite characters in Star Wars Galaxies was a Ranger for this very reason. Now we have games that are focused on solo players, and include a few reasons to group here and there, if you want to. The current MMO game design is almost a complete 180 degree turn in core values and design. This is why I believe they deserve their own genre rather than being lumped in with MMORPG games. Yes, your genre may be more popular, but then so is FARMVILLE.
That 180 degree turn around is also why there's hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled into the genre. It's the reason that it's possible to develop a game that costs $50 million to produce. It's the reason the genre still exists as a genre and not as an odd blip in the history of gaming.
Untrue. The problem is that game developers all want to have WoW's success. They are developing these dumbed-down games to appeal to the masses for maximum profit. The only proof you need is EVE. EVE Online is infinitely more complex, deep and expandable than SWTOR, and sustains a very healthy and profitable population somewhere around 300,000 players. CCP is not hurting for cash. The idea that you must have millions of players in your game is nothing more than a corporate marketing plan for a get-rich-quick scheme. These are games made for investors, not games made for gamers. Check out this upcoming indy game using the Hero engine. The screenshots look a hell of a lot better than anything I have seen in SWTOR, the feature list blows TOR away in pure game complexity. They have a tiny budget and a handful of developers: http://www.therepopulation.com I look at TOR and I wonder where the hell exactly did $150M go into this game. Games with much smaller budgets have a lot more depth to them. If they spent most of their money on VO quests, they missed the whole point of making an MMO game. If Bioware didn't have the Star Wars IP to rely on, would anyone have given them $150M to build this game? I think not. I have to say this too.... The whole idea of a "Collector's Edition" has to be the best marketing idea on the planet. Here you get players to spend $150+ on a box with some cheap trinkets in it and some unlockable in-game junk. No one will *ever* be collecting these things. If they do it will be because someone has a box, still wrapped up, sitting on a shelf 50 years from now at a time when there are only a handful in existence. There is nothing collectable about it, yet people line up to throw money at this stuff. I crack up everytime I see a thread posted where someone is disappointed in the CE vendor. If only someone had the ballsack to throw even a paltry $10 million at The Repopulation we would really have something interesting.
WoW didn't start the trend, they were just the most successful at it. The trend towards something 'Not Ultima Online' started just after Ultima Online. Every game that came out after UO offered something geared towards easier game play. The games became less arcane and attracted more users. This would have happened with or without WoW. As more players entered the market, the games were geared more towards those players since they quickly outnumbered the people who originally started playing in the genre.
The money will follow the players because the players will speak with their wallets. Guess what the most financially successful games are? If you ignore WoW, the most successful game is Rift, followed by Guild Wars (not even an mmorpg) and Age of Conan. These are the games that are funding development of new games in the genre. This is where further high dollar development is going to happen.
That's why we have a genre. Money is being funneled into it. Without the ability to prove you can make money with one of these games, no money would be coming in and there would be nothing but indie games like The Repopupation*.
* This might not be a bad thing. It certainly wouldn't be a real profitable thing.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It makes me cringe when I see comments here from people who are completely ok with never seeing another player unless they have to group up for an instance. This is what MMORPGs have come to.
You apperently do not know the history then. It started out that way. In EQ, I could and DID go hours without interacting with others. I explored many areas without ever seeing another person. I grouped for certain quests/areas and had fun doing so, but mostly soloed. It wasn't until later that MMO's started being released that were aimed (I would say forced, but that's a bit harsh) at forming groups (EQ2, WOW, LotRO to name a couple). You still didn't have to group, but you had to wait and level before attempting it solo (so why not group ).
Point is, it's not your version of "MMO" that is correct. MMO is just "Massive Multiplayer Online". Nothing more or less to read into it. If it is massive, is multiplayer, and is online...well?
Yeah, I've only been gaming online for about 17 years now, and offline for a lot longer. I have no idea about the history of the genre....
The difference between the older MMOs, the ones that were built for interactivity and interdependence of players, and the ones built now is that going solo was an interesting gameplay choice that went against the grain of the design. One of my favorite characters in Star Wars Galaxies was a Ranger for this very reason. Now we have games that are focused on solo players, and include a few reasons to group here and there, if you want to. The current MMO game design is almost a complete 180 degree turn in core values and design. This is why I believe they deserve their own genre rather than being lumped in with MMORPG games. Yes, your genre may be more popular, but then so is FARMVILLE.
That 180 degree turn around is also why there's hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled into the genre. It's the reason that it's possible to develop a game that costs $50 million to produce. It's the reason the genre still exists as a genre and not as an odd blip in the history of gaming.
Untrue. The problem is that game developers all want to have WoW's success. They are developing these dumbed-down games to appeal to the masses for maximum profit. The only proof you need is EVE. EVE Online is infinitely more complex, deep and expandable than SWTOR, and sustains a very healthy and profitable population somewhere around 300,000 players. CCP is not hurting for cash. The idea that you must have millions of players in your game is nothing more than a corporate marketing plan for a get-rich-quick scheme. These are games made for investors, not games made for gamers.
Check out this upcoming indy game using the Hero engine. The screenshots look a hell of a lot better than anything I have seen in SWTOR, the feature list blows TOR away in pure game complexity. They have a tiny budget and a handful of developers: http://www.therepopulation.com
I look at TOR and I wonder where the hell exactly did $150M go into this game. Games with much smaller budgets have a lot more depth to them. If they spent most of their money on VO quests, they missed the whole point of making an MMO game. If Bioware didn't have the Star Wars IP to rely on, would anyone have given them $150M to build this game? I think not.
I have to say this too.... The whole idea of a "Collector's Edition" has to be the best marketing idea on the planet. Here you get players to spend $150+ on a box with some cheap trinkets in it and some unlockable in-game junk. No one will *ever* be collecting these things. If they do it will be because someone has a box, still wrapped up, sitting on a shelf 50 years from now at a time when there are only a handful in existence. There is nothing collectable about it, yet people line up to throw money at this stuff. I crack up everytime I see a thread posted where someone is disappointed in the CE vendor.
If only someone had the ballsack to throw even a paltry $10 million at The Repopulation we would really have something interesting.
WoW didn't start the trend, they were just the most successful at it. The trend towards something 'Not Ultima Online' started just after Ultima Online. Every game that came out after UO offered something geared towards easier game play. The games became less arcane and attracted more users. This would have happened with or without WoW. As more players entered the market, the games were geared more towards those players since they quickly outnumbered the people who originally started playing in the genre.
The money will follow the players because the players will speak with their wallets. Guess what the most financially successful games are? If you ignore WoW, the most successful game is Rift, followed by Guild Wars (not even an mmorpg) and Age of Conan. These are the games that are funding development of new games in the genre. This is where further high dollar development is going to happen.
That's why we have a genre. Money is being funneled into it. Without the ability to prove you can make money with one of these games, no money would be coming in and there would be nothing but indie games like The Repopupation*.
* This might not be a bad thing. It certainly wouldn't be a real profitable thing.
Companies and investors are measuring quality and success by units sold. I don't give a rip where the masses spend their money. I could make a mile-long list of garbage people buy simply because the marketing is good and people have been trained from birth via TV to buy inferior products and trinkets. My current favorite are those ludicrous "power bracelets" that magically give people more balance and strength! I was a surf shop yesterday and saw that even Billabong has their own power bracelet for sale now. Talk about snake oil! They are selling millions of these per year, and lemmings walk around proudly wearing them not knowing they were scammed because they couldn't be bothered to look into it first.
Investors aren't putting money into niche projects. They want the WoW numbers or nothing. I think this trend will have to end though. WoW-style wins are going to be a once in a decade rarity if anything. There is plenty of room for games that cater to smaller markets and still make great money as a small/med business. Having a smaller population makes no difference to me as a player at all. Especially given the fact that you only have a few thousand people per server in these MMO games anyway. EVE is the exception with a single server. What we need are smaller projects and more variety.
As a side note, the same problem is happening in the movie industry, only there are more avenues to get funding. Look at all the retarded movies that keep being remade over and over again, while there are millions of interesting books and stories out there that would make great movies. Investors want the sure thing, and we all suffer in the mundane because of it.
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.
Originally posted by MindTrigger Originally posted by lizardbones
Originally posted by MindTrigger
Originally posted by lizardbones
Originally posted by MindTrigger
Originally posted by Kinchyle
Originally posted by MindTrigger
That 180 degree turn around is also why there's hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled into the genre. It's the reason that it's possible to develop a game that costs $50 million to produce. It's the reason the genre still exists as a genre and not as an odd blip in the history of gaming.
Untrue. The problem is that game developers all want to have WoW's success. They are developing these dumbed-down games to appeal to the masses for maximum profit. The only proof you need is EVE. EVE Online is infinitely more complex, deep and expandable than SWTOR, and sustains a very healthy and profitable population somewhere around 300,000 players. CCP is not hurting for cash. The idea that you must have millions of players in your game is nothing more than a corporate marketing plan for a get-rich-quick scheme. These are games made for investors, not games made for gamers. Check out this upcoming indy game using the Hero engine. The screenshots look a hell of a lot better than anything I have seen in SWTOR, the feature list blows TOR away in pure game complexity. They have a tiny budget and a handful of developers: http://www.therepopulation.com I look at TOR and I wonder where the hell exactly did $150M go into this game. Games with much smaller budgets have a lot more depth to them. If they spent most of their money on VO quests, they missed the whole point of making an MMO game. If Bioware didn't have the Star Wars IP to rely on, would anyone have given them $150M to build this game? I think not. I have to say this too.... The whole idea of a "Collector's Edition" has to be the best marketing idea on the planet. Here you get players to spend $150+ on a box with some cheap trinkets in it and some unlockable in-game junk. No one will *ever* be collecting these things. If they do it will be because someone has a box, still wrapped up, sitting on a shelf 50 years from now at a time when there are only a handful in existence. There is nothing collectable about it, yet people line up to throw money at this stuff. I crack up everytime I see a thread posted where someone is disappointed in the CE vendor. If only someone had the ballsack to throw even a paltry $10 million at The Repopulation we would really have something interesting.
WoW didn't start the trend, they were just the most successful at it. The trend towards something 'Not Ultima Online' started just after Ultima Online. Every game that came out after UO offered something geared towards easier game play. The games became less arcane and attracted more users. This would have happened with or without WoW. As more players entered the market, the games were geared more towards those players since they quickly outnumbered the people who originally started playing in the genre.
The money will follow the players because the players will speak with their wallets. Guess what the most financially successful games are? If you ignore WoW, the most successful game is Rift, followed by Guild Wars (not even an mmorpg) and Age of Conan. These are the games that are funding development of new games in the genre. This is where further high dollar development is going to happen.
That's why we have a genre. Money is being funneled into it. Without the ability to prove you can make money with one of these games, no money would be coming in and there would be nothing but indie games like The Repopupation*.
* This might not be a bad thing. It certainly wouldn't be a real profitable thing.
Companies and investors are measuring quality and success by units sold. I don't give a rip where the masses spend their money. I could make a mile-long list of garbage people buy simply because the marketing is good and people have been trained from birth via TV to buy inferior products and trinkets. My current favorite are those ludicrous "power bracelets" that magically give people more balance and strength! I was a surf shop yesterday and saw that even Billabong has their own power bracelet for sale now. Talk about snake oil! They are selling millions of these per year, and lemmings walk around proudly wearing them not knowing they were scammed because they couldn't be bothered to look into it first. Investors aren't putting money into niche projects. They want the WoW numbers or nothing. I think this trend will have to end though. WoW-style wins are going to be a once in a decade rarity if anything. There is plenty of room for games that cater to smaller markets and still make great money as a small/med business. Having a smaller population makes no difference to me as a player at all. Especially given the fact that you only have a few thousand people per server in these MMO games anyway. EVE is the exception with a single server. What we need are smaller projects and more variety. As a side note, the same problem is happening in the movie industry, only there are more avenues to get funding. Look at all the retarded movies that keep being remade over and over again, while there are millions of interesting books and stories out there that would make great movies. Investors want the sure thing, and we all suffer in the mundane because of it.
I snipped some of the posts. This is getting long.
I wish, wish, wish I had thought of those power bracelets. They are a scam (it's muscle memory folks!) but at least I could be making money on it.
Movies are the one thing where they have to get better now. Think about it, how quickly do reviews for movies come out on Rotten Tomatoes? Instead of waiting for Monday's paper to see if a movie is good, you look at Rotten Tomatoes the night the movie releases. :-)
There are upsides and downsides to how things get funded. The upside is lots of money often turns into a better done product. The downside is that it's often a safer product to guarantee a return on investment.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
while i understand & like the idea of the instancing players at starter areas...
i really dislike the feel of emptyness specially at cities.
i really hope bioware level up he cap on cities and some areas when the population settles
because right now the world feels very empty.
just imagine when everyone is more spread out.. the areas themselves are pretty large and its pretty crazy to only allow 100-200 or so people in a zone that could easily hold 1000 and still not feel overcrowded
Because it is one, despite all the idiots trying to argue that it's not.
Massive =/= Maximum 100 players in a zone. No need to be an idiot to think that TOR doesn't quite fit what you'd call a real MMO.
TOR is more MMO than any other themepark on the market right now. MMO is defined not by how many people are in a certain place, it's defined by WHAT these people are doing. Are they doing something together or are they just waiting to be ported into a BG or an instance? Today i spend the entire evening doing heroic quests on Balmorra and Nar Shaddaa and flashpoints with strangers i met while questing next to them. I prefer this 1000 times over than standing in Stormwind with 300 others just waiting the dungeon / raid finder to teleport me into an instance. And when i step out of the city? The zones are dead, even on high populated servers like Sylvanas (EU).
And i won't comment on other themeparks like Rift or LotR because the situation there is much worse.
It makes me cringe when I see comments here from people who are completely ok with never seeing another player unless they have to group up for an instance. This is what MMORPGs have come to.
You apperently do not know the history then. It started out that way. In EQ, I could and DID go hours without interacting with others. I explored many areas without ever seeing another person. I grouped for certain quests/areas and had fun doing so, but mostly soloed. It wasn't until later that MMO's started being released that were aimed (I would say forced, but that's a bit harsh) at forming groups (EQ2, WOW, LotRO to name a couple). You still didn't have to group, but you had to wait and level before attempting it solo (so why not group ).
Point is, it's not your version of "MMO" that is correct. MMO is just "Massive Multiplayer Online". Nothing more or less to read into it. If it is massive, is multiplayer, and is online...well?
I hope Bioware will remove the need of other players and just give me an option to solo everything with 3 companions.
Bots listen to commands a lot better than people anyways.
Also make the combat pauseable so i can issue orders, it just works better that way.
For example you could still group for flashpoints or sth, but just give me 3 companions.
And... here you go. This poster WANTS an RPG with a chat room. He is clearly playing in the wrong genre, and it's people like him that are ruining what MMORPG games are supposed to be. It's nothing personal against him or anyone else who thinks like him, but the fact that people like him are hanging out on the MMORPG site and believe they are in the right place just shows how far these games are straying away from their original intent ~ virtual worlds.
I was pretty sure he was being sarcastic, lol
If he is, then his comment still represents what a lot of people who like SWTOR are saying. They couldn't care less if other people were in the game with them. Joining a guild represents very occasional grouping and a chat window to them. (in other words, co-op gameplay).
I'm being half-serious there, but when I play it, I just keep thinking how I could be playing something like KOTOR with 3-4 companions instead, and for example let one of my friends take a spot on the team if he so desires.
I think the game would have been better off as a SP title with optional grouping, B2P not a subscription based game.
Quality in all aspects suffers from the format the game is in. Micromanaging a party is always pretty fun for me in these RPGs, especially bioware RPGs, its been their backbone for a long time now.
I think SWTOR woudl be better off without the grouping at all for the questing. The flashpoints could still have the bigger groupings maybe or sth.
if you don't want crowds don't play mmo's, one of the M's stands for massively.
the cities are dead, the cantinas are ghost towns you'd be lucky to see 20 people in your zones..way to kill the feeling of playing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game bioware. ive never seen such static npc's in my life.
Originally posted by nerovipus32 if you don't want crowds don't play mmo's, one of the M's stands for massively. the cities are dead, the cantinas are ghost towns you'd be lucky to see 20 people in your zones..way to kill the feeling of playing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game bioware. ive never seen such static npc's in my life.
There are always 15-20 people in the cantina in Kaas City on my server. No que times either. Most zone population have around 130-180 people in them. I've never felt like its been empty. It could be the server or time you're playing.
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
if you don't want crowds don't play mmo's, one of the M's stands for massively.
the cities are dead, the cantinas are ghost towns you'd be lucky to see 20 people in your zones..way to kill the feeling of playing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game bioware. ive never seen such static npc's in my life.
There are always 15-20 people in the cantina in Kaas City on my server. No que times either. Most zone population have around 130-180 people in them. I've never felt like its been empty. It could be the server or time you're playing.
no it's because there is 20 different versions of kaas city, thats the problem. i was on kaas city 21 the other night and yet i only saw maybe 10 other people while running around.
Originally posted by nerovipus32 Originally posted by DannyGlover
Originally posted by nerovipus32 if you don't want crowds don't play mmo's, one of the M's stands for massively. the cities are dead, the cantinas are ghost towns you'd be lucky to see 20 people in your zones..way to kill the feeling of playing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game bioware. ive never seen such static npc's in my life.
There are always 15-20 people in the cantina in Kaas City on my server. No que times either. Most zone population have around 130-180 people in them. I've never felt like its been empty. It could be the server or time you're playing. no it's because there is 20 different versions of kaas city, thats the problem. i was on kaas city 21 the other night and yet i only saw maybe 10 other people while running around. I believe you can change instances every 30 minutes. General chat is across all instances. I've seen some people ask in general who has the highest instance pop so they can join it. Maybe you could try that? That could help
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
I prefer SWToR's method. I don't want an extra 6 people running up to kill the same stuff I'm killing and it has nothing to do with XP or loot. I would rather see crowded cities and sparsely populated adventure areas. Seeing someone out in the world should be a rare treat, not a common occurrence.
/facepalm
You realize it's supposed to be MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game right? Seeing lots of other players out in the adventuring areas is supposed to be the norm, not a rare treat.
Have you even played an MMO before SWTOR?
Why should I be seeing lots of other players out there in the adventure areas? "Because it's an mmorpg" is not an acceptable answer. It should make sense for the game itself, not just to satisfy an arbitrary definition.
I would rather have the experience of fewer people in adventure areas and more people in social areas. I like it. That's more how the world works and it's far less annoying than having tons of people around me in the adventure areas and a few people in the social areas.
Ypou sound like a Guild Wars player. Or All Points Bulletin where only your teammates and opponents called against you were significant.
But that's not MMO, no siree. MMO really should be about fighting over resources an "the annoyance of having tons of people".
but lets say there we're 2 instances of every zone, one instance where everyone is placed standard.
and one optional instance where you can go if you don't like being in a crowd. I would bet that for questing Alot of people would switch to the optional instance. (probably evening them out eventually.
So I guess swtor made a good choice,
I personally understand why people want the crowd, but I think its not as fun for everyone.
"You resist. You cling to your life as if it actually matters. You will learn."
I prefer SWToR's method. I don't want an extra 6 people running up to kill the same stuff I'm killing and it has nothing to do with XP or loot. I would rather see crowded cities and sparsely populated adventure areas. Seeing someone out in the world should be a rare treat, not a common occurrence.
/facepalm
You realize it's supposed to be MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game right? Seeing lots of other players out in the adventuring areas is supposed to be the norm, not a rare treat.
Have you even played an MMO before SWTOR?
Why should I be seeing lots of other players out there in the adventure areas? "Because it's an mmorpg" is not an acceptable answer. It should make sense for the game itself, not just to satisfy an arbitrary definition.
I would rather have the experience of fewer people in adventure areas and more people in social areas. I like it. That's more how the world works and it's far less annoying than having tons of people around me in the adventure areas and a few people in the social areas.
Ypou sound like a Guild Wars player. Or All Points Bulletin where only your teammates and opponents called against you were significant.
But that's not MMO, no siree. MMO really should be about fighting over resources an "the annoyance of having tons of people".
mind-boggling. you read so much about people saying to someone else "maybe mmos aren't for you" and "move on" and i'm astounded by the number of people who think this phasing/instancing thing is a perfect solution to having to "fight over resources". it's not. the perfect solution to having to "fight over resources" or to experience "fewer people in adventure areas" is skyrim.
the perfect solution to an mmoRPG is gw2. and i do HATE bringing it up, but it is. of course, the flipside solution would be open pvp, but that's even more of a niche area and while i'd personally find it interesting, it's never proven a successful model on the same level as pve co-op.
as far as i'm concerned, if you want phasing or instancing, then you're asking for a single-play game with a lobby.
we shouldn't all be competing with each other in the adventure areas. rather, we should be sharing the adventure, meeting new friends and perhaps even a few enemies. we should be saying hi to each other when we pass, rather than scowling because that other guy might pinch our lootz. the focus on loot and levelling has brought a "what's in it for me" attitude that pushes thought of teaming and casual encounters for adventure out of the picture unless it's for a dungeon which promises mad phat lootz for me. and that's the biggest pitfall of every mmo. once you start driving the players further and further from each other, they get bored quicker. they leave quicker.
and you lose money quicker.
bring the players together, though, and you get a community.
if you don't want crowds don't play mmo's, one of the M's stands for massively.
the cities are dead, the cantinas are ghost towns you'd be lucky to see 20 people in your zones..way to kill the feeling of playing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game bioware. ive never seen such static npc's in my life.
I really cant understand why would you pay 15 dollars a month to play a game alone.
The challenge and fun of an MMO are all the thing that peope bring into the game.
Comments
If you're in a zone, there are phases of that zone with players in each phase. It's not a barrier to playing with friends, and it's not a barrier to grouping with people. In the beta, there were a LOT of phases for each zone. In release, it doesn't look like there are many phases. For instance, in one zone, I saw 600 phases in beta. In release, it's more like 2 or 3 (from what I've heard).
The actual number of players per phase isn't known. The number '100' is being used, but I haven't seen any confirmation on this and that seems kind of low given the number of pre-orders and the number of servers.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
not exactly unexpected, the multiplayer part of it is strictly optional, one of the reasons i think why it was necessary to have companions as part of the game. without companions it would probably be unplayable.
Untrue. The problem is that game developers all want to have WoW's success. They are developing these dumbed-down games to appeal to the masses for maximum profit. The only proof you need is EVE. EVE Online is infinitely more complex, deep and expandable than SWTOR, and sustains a very healthy and profitable population somewhere around 300,000 players. CCP is not hurting for cash. The idea that you must have millions of players in your game is nothing more than a corporate marketing plan for a get-rich-quick scheme. These are games made for investors, not games made for gamers.
Check out this upcoming indy game using the Hero engine. The screenshots look a hell of a lot better than anything I have seen in SWTOR, the feature list blows TOR away in pure game complexity. They have a tiny budget and a handful of developers: http://www.therepopulation.com
I look at TOR and I wonder where the hell exactly did $150M go into this game. Games with much smaller budgets have a lot more depth to them. If they spent most of their money on VO quests, they missed the whole point of making an MMO game. If Bioware didn't have the Star Wars IP to rely on, would anyone have given them $150M to build this game? I think not.
I have to say this too.... The whole idea of a "Collector's Edition" has to be the best marketing idea on the planet. Here you get players to spend $150+ on a box with some cheap trinkets in it and some unlockable in-game junk. No one will *ever* be collecting these things. If they do it will be because someone has a box, still wrapped up, sitting on a shelf 50 years from now at a time when there are only a handful in existence. There is nothing collectable about it, yet people line up to throw money at this stuff. I crack up everytime I see a thread posted where someone is disappointed in the CE vendor.
If only someone had the ballsack to throw even a paltry $10 million at The Repopulation we would really have something interesting.
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.
Massive Multiplayer ONLINE came from a time when there were limited numbers of connections to servers. MMO is about networking not world size and only implies more players. But understand it is about networking.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I'd say you are the one who has it somewhat backwards. "MMO" is a very broad group of games - "Virtual World" is a very specific subset of the genre.
SWTOR is an MMO - a different kind of MMO, but an MMO nonetheless.
You can call it an MMO all you want. If by MMO you mean millions of people connect to hundreds of servers, and then barely interact... fine. I still do not believe it is an MMORPG. Call it an MMOG.
For the record, I was referring to how the genre was originally about having an interactive RPG game set in more of a living, breathing virtual world, whereas games like TOR feel more like being strapped into a rollercoaster and force-fed a scripted experience. I wasn't referring to worlds like SecondLife.
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.
What you're not considering is why many MMO Devs have done the things they have in recent years. Instances, and the like are a result of what? Instanced PVP is a result of what? Tutorials and starting zones are a result of what? Just about every change here is a direct result of what many viewed as problems long ago.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
This.
Try hitting the who button up top screen. I had 130 instances of people last night in just one starter zone and the server was on heavy NOT full so yeah there are a shiton of people but you dont have to fight them al in the starting areas for quest mobs etc.
If you don't liek the game thats fine. But having to fight people at launch when they are all in the same area duh wont make you like it any better.
Sounds like people are running out of things to complain about since the world didn't explode on launch day from this terrible game.
And yeah I am surfing here while waiting in my hour long que to get into my server. You know all the NON people trying to get in.
I understand instanced dungeons and have no problem with them. If by "problems" from long ago you mean it costs them more money (less profit) to make larger more interactive gameplay areas today, then yeah, looks like they solved it. They have scaled everything down, slammed everyone through on-rails gameplay, and instance it so they can rake in the profits from millions of players. From what I can see, most of these "problems" are directly related to how much more profit the investors can make from a dumbed down game experience.
It's a sign of the times though. We now live in a corporatacracy with a population of stupid consumers/wasters. Why should gaming be any different?
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.
And on this one I am sure EA and bioware care about your opinion of what an MMO is or isn't. Don't play it if the acronym doesn't fit your definition correctly. I can see alot of reasons to not liek or play this but because the acronym isn't correct is a new one.
What do you play btw? I like sandboxes but the last one I purchased had no real sand so I threw a fit and snet it back.
You apperently do not know the history then. It started out that way. In EQ, I could and DID go hours without interacting with others. I explored many areas without ever seeing another person. I grouped for certain quests/areas and had fun doing so, but mostly soloed. It wasn't until later that MMO's started being released that were aimed (I would say forced, but that's a bit harsh) at forming groups (EQ2, WOW, LotRO to name a couple). You still didn't have to group, but you had to wait and level before attempting it solo (so why not group
Point is, it's not your version of "MMO" that is correct. MMO is just "Massive Multiplayer Online". Nothing more or less to read into it. If it is massive, is multiplayer, and is online...well?
Yeah, I've only been gaming online for about 17 years now, and offline for a lot longer. I have no idea about the history of the genre....
The difference between the older MMOs, the ones that were built for interactivity and interdependence of players, and the ones built now is that going solo was an interesting gameplay choice that went against the grain of the design. One of my favorite characters in Star Wars Galaxies was a Ranger for this very reason. Now we have games that are focused on solo players, and include a few reasons to group here and there, if you want to. The current MMO game design is almost a complete 180 degree turn in core values and design. This is why I believe they deserve their own genre rather than being lumped in with MMORPG games. Yes, your genre may be more popular, but then so is FARMVILLE.
That 180 degree turn around is also why there's hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled into the genre. It's the reason that it's possible to develop a game that costs $50 million to produce. It's the reason the genre still exists as a genre and not as an odd blip in the history of gaming.
Untrue. The problem is that game developers all want to have WoW's success. They are developing these dumbed-down games to appeal to the masses for maximum profit. The only proof you need is EVE. EVE Online is infinitely more complex, deep and expandable than SWTOR, and sustains a very healthy and profitable population somewhere around 300,000 players. CCP is not hurting for cash. The idea that you must have millions of players in your game is nothing more than a corporate marketing plan for a get-rich-quick scheme. These are games made for investors, not games made for gamers.
Check out this upcoming indy game using the Hero engine. The screenshots look a hell of a lot better than anything I have seen in SWTOR, the feature list blows TOR away in pure game complexity. They have a tiny budget and a handful of developers: http://www.therepopulation.com
I look at TOR and I wonder where the hell exactly did $150M go into this game. Games with much smaller budgets have a lot more depth to them. If they spent most of their money on VO quests, they missed the whole point of making an MMO game. If Bioware didn't have the Star Wars IP to rely on, would anyone have given them $150M to build this game? I think not.
I have to say this too.... The whole idea of a "Collector's Edition" has to be the best marketing idea on the planet. Here you get players to spend $150+ on a box with some cheap trinkets in it and some unlockable in-game junk. No one will *ever* be collecting these things. If they do it will be because someone has a box, still wrapped up, sitting on a shelf 50 years from now at a time when there are only a handful in existence. There is nothing collectable about it, yet people line up to throw money at this stuff. I crack up everytime I see a thread posted where someone is disappointed in the CE vendor.
If only someone had the ballsack to throw even a paltry $10 million at The Repopulation we would really have something interesting.
WoW didn't start the trend, they were just the most successful at it. The trend towards something 'Not Ultima Online' started just after Ultima Online. Every game that came out after UO offered something geared towards easier game play. The games became less arcane and attracted more users. This would have happened with or without WoW. As more players entered the market, the games were geared more towards those players since they quickly outnumbered the people who originally started playing in the genre.
The money will follow the players because the players will speak with their wallets. Guess what the most financially successful games are? If you ignore WoW, the most successful game is Rift, followed by Guild Wars (not even an mmorpg) and Age of Conan. These are the games that are funding development of new games in the genre. This is where further high dollar development is going to happen.
That's why we have a genre. Money is being funneled into it. Without the ability to prove you can make money with one of these games, no money would be coming in and there would be nothing but indie games like The Repopupation*.
* This might not be a bad thing. It certainly wouldn't be a real profitable thing.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Companies and investors are measuring quality and success by units sold. I don't give a rip where the masses spend their money. I could make a mile-long list of garbage people buy simply because the marketing is good and people have been trained from birth via TV to buy inferior products and trinkets. My current favorite are those ludicrous "power bracelets" that magically give people more balance and strength! I was a surf shop yesterday and saw that even Billabong has their own power bracelet for sale now. Talk about snake oil! They are selling millions of these per year, and lemmings walk around proudly wearing them not knowing they were scammed because they couldn't be bothered to look into it first.
Investors aren't putting money into niche projects. They want the WoW numbers or nothing. I think this trend will have to end though. WoW-style wins are going to be a once in a decade rarity if anything. There is plenty of room for games that cater to smaller markets and still make great money as a small/med business. Having a smaller population makes no difference to me as a player at all. Especially given the fact that you only have a few thousand people per server in these MMO games anyway. EVE is the exception with a single server. What we need are smaller projects and more variety.
As a side note, the same problem is happening in the movie industry, only there are more avenues to get funding. Look at all the retarded movies that keep being remade over and over again, while there are millions of interesting books and stories out there that would make great movies. Investors want the sure thing, and we all suffer in the mundane because of it.
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.
That 180 degree turn around is also why there's hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled into the genre. It's the reason that it's possible to develop a game that costs $50 million to produce. It's the reason the genre still exists as a genre and not as an odd blip in the history of gaming.
Untrue. The problem is that game developers all want to have WoW's success. They are developing these dumbed-down games to appeal to the masses for maximum profit. The only proof you need is EVE. EVE Online is infinitely more complex, deep and expandable than SWTOR, and sustains a very healthy and profitable population somewhere around 300,000 players. CCP is not hurting for cash. The idea that you must have millions of players in your game is nothing more than a corporate marketing plan for a get-rich-quick scheme. These are games made for investors, not games made for gamers.
Check out this upcoming indy game using the Hero engine. The screenshots look a hell of a lot better than anything I have seen in SWTOR, the feature list blows TOR away in pure game complexity. They have a tiny budget and a handful of developers: http://www.therepopulation.com
I look at TOR and I wonder where the hell exactly did $150M go into this game. Games with much smaller budgets have a lot more depth to them. If they spent most of their money on VO quests, they missed the whole point of making an MMO game. If Bioware didn't have the Star Wars IP to rely on, would anyone have given them $150M to build this game? I think not.
I have to say this too.... The whole idea of a "Collector's Edition" has to be the best marketing idea on the planet. Here you get players to spend $150+ on a box with some cheap trinkets in it and some unlockable in-game junk. No one will *ever* be collecting these things. If they do it will be because someone has a box, still wrapped up, sitting on a shelf 50 years from now at a time when there are only a handful in existence. There is nothing collectable about it, yet people line up to throw money at this stuff. I crack up everytime I see a thread posted where someone is disappointed in the CE vendor.
If only someone had the ballsack to throw even a paltry $10 million at The Repopulation we would really have something interesting.
WoW didn't start the trend, they were just the most successful at it. The trend towards something 'Not Ultima Online' started just after Ultima Online. Every game that came out after UO offered something geared towards easier game play. The games became less arcane and attracted more users. This would have happened with or without WoW. As more players entered the market, the games were geared more towards those players since they quickly outnumbered the people who originally started playing in the genre.
The money will follow the players because the players will speak with their wallets. Guess what the most financially successful games are? If you ignore WoW, the most successful game is Rift, followed by Guild Wars (not even an mmorpg) and Age of Conan. These are the games that are funding development of new games in the genre. This is where further high dollar development is going to happen.
That's why we have a genre. Money is being funneled into it. Without the ability to prove you can make money with one of these games, no money would be coming in and there would be nothing but indie games like The Repopupation*.
* This might not be a bad thing. It certainly wouldn't be a real profitable thing.
Companies and investors are measuring quality and success by units sold. I don't give a rip where the masses spend their money. I could make a mile-long list of garbage people buy simply because the marketing is good and people have been trained from birth via TV to buy inferior products and trinkets. My current favorite are those ludicrous "power bracelets" that magically give people more balance and strength! I was a surf shop yesterday and saw that even Billabong has their own power bracelet for sale now. Talk about snake oil! They are selling millions of these per year, and lemmings walk around proudly wearing them not knowing they were scammed because they couldn't be bothered to look into it first.
Investors aren't putting money into niche projects. They want the WoW numbers or nothing. I think this trend will have to end though. WoW-style wins are going to be a once in a decade rarity if anything. There is plenty of room for games that cater to smaller markets and still make great money as a small/med business. Having a smaller population makes no difference to me as a player at all. Especially given the fact that you only have a few thousand people per server in these MMO games anyway. EVE is the exception with a single server. What we need are smaller projects and more variety.
As a side note, the same problem is happening in the movie industry, only there are more avenues to get funding. Look at all the retarded movies that keep being remade over and over again, while there are millions of interesting books and stories out there that would make great movies. Investors want the sure thing, and we all suffer in the mundane because of it.
I snipped some of the posts. This is getting long.
I wish, wish, wish I had thought of those power bracelets. They are a scam (it's muscle memory folks!) but at least I could be making money on it.
Movies are the one thing where they have to get better now. Think about it, how quickly do reviews for movies come out on Rotten Tomatoes? Instead of waiting for Monday's paper to see if a movie is good, you look at Rotten Tomatoes the night the movie releases. :-)
There are upsides and downsides to how things get funded. The upside is lots of money often turns into a better done product. The downside is that it's often a safer product to guarantee a return on investment.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
while i understand & like the idea of the instancing players at starter areas...
i really dislike the feel of emptyness specially at cities.
i really hope bioware level up he cap on cities and some areas when the population settles
because right now the world feels very empty.
just imagine when everyone is more spread out.. the areas themselves are pretty large and its pretty crazy to only allow 100-200 or so people in a zone that could easily hold 1000 and still not feel overcrowded
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
TOR is more MMO than any other themepark on the market right now. MMO is defined not by how many people are in a certain place, it's defined by WHAT these people are doing. Are they doing something together or are they just waiting to be ported into a BG or an instance? Today i spend the entire evening doing heroic quests on Balmorra and Nar Shaddaa and flashpoints with strangers i met while questing next to them. I prefer this 1000 times over than standing in Stormwind with 300 others just waiting the dungeon / raid finder to teleport me into an instance. And when i step out of the city? The zones are dead, even on high populated servers like Sylvanas (EU).
And i won't comment on other themeparks like Rift or LotR because the situation there is much worse.
I'm being half-serious there, but when I play it, I just keep thinking how I could be playing something like KOTOR with 3-4 companions instead, and for example let one of my friends take a spot on the team if he so desires.
I think the game would have been better off as a SP title with optional grouping, B2P not a subscription based game.
Quality in all aspects suffers from the format the game is in. Micromanaging a party is always pretty fun for me in these RPGs, especially bioware RPGs, its been their backbone for a long time now.
I think SWTOR woudl be better off without the grouping at all for the questing. The flashpoints could still have the bigger groupings maybe or sth.
if you don't want crowds don't play mmo's, one of the M's stands for massively.
the cities are dead, the cantinas are ghost towns you'd be lucky to see 20 people in your zones..way to kill the feeling of playing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game bioware. ive never seen such static npc's in my life.
There are always 15-20 people in the cantina in Kaas City on my server. No que times either. Most zone population have around 130-180 people in them. I've never felt like its been empty. It could be the server or time you're playing.
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
no it's because there is 20 different versions of kaas city, thats the problem. i was on kaas city 21 the other night and yet i only saw maybe 10 other people while running around.
There are always 15-20 people in the cantina in Kaas City on my server. No que times either. Most zone population have around 130-180 people in them. I've never felt like its been empty. It could be the server or time you're playing.
no it's because there is 20 different versions of kaas city, thats the problem. i was on kaas city 21 the other night and yet i only saw maybe 10 other people while running around.
I believe you can change instances every 30 minutes. General chat is across all instances. I've seen some people ask in general who has the highest instance pop so they can join it. Maybe you could try that? That could help
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
Ypou sound like a Guild Wars player. Or All Points Bulletin where only your teammates and opponents called against you were significant.
But that's not MMO, no siree. MMO really should be about fighting over resources an "the annoyance of having tons of people".
lulz
everyone is saying they want the crowds
but lets say there we're 2 instances of every zone, one instance where everyone is placed standard.
and one optional instance where you can go if you don't like being in a crowd. I would bet that for questing Alot of people would switch to the optional instance. (probably evening them out eventually.
So I guess swtor made a good choice,
I personally understand why people want the crowd, but I think its not as fun for everyone.
"You resist. You cling to your life as if it actually matters. You will learn."
mind-boggling. you read so much about people saying to someone else "maybe mmos aren't for you" and "move on" and i'm astounded by the number of people who think this phasing/instancing thing is a perfect solution to having to "fight over resources". it's not. the perfect solution to having to "fight over resources" or to experience "fewer people in adventure areas" is skyrim.
the perfect solution to an mmoRPG is gw2. and i do HATE bringing it up, but it is. of course, the flipside solution would be open pvp, but that's even more of a niche area and while i'd personally find it interesting, it's never proven a successful model on the same level as pve co-op.
as far as i'm concerned, if you want phasing or instancing, then you're asking for a single-play game with a lobby.
we shouldn't all be competing with each other in the adventure areas. rather, we should be sharing the adventure, meeting new friends and perhaps even a few enemies. we should be saying hi to each other when we pass, rather than scowling because that other guy might pinch our lootz. the focus on loot and levelling has brought a "what's in it for me" attitude that pushes thought of teaming and casual encounters for adventure out of the picture unless it's for a dungeon which promises mad phat lootz for me. and that's the biggest pitfall of every mmo. once you start driving the players further and further from each other, they get bored quicker. they leave quicker.
and you lose money quicker.
bring the players together, though, and you get a community.
I really cant understand why would you pay 15 dollars a month to play a game alone.
The challenge and fun of an MMO are all the thing that peope bring into the game.
WoW Sidequests