In an SPRPG, I feel like I'm affecting the world. If I kill a big dragon. It's dead. If a town gets slaughtered by orcs, it's slaughtered and burned to the ground.
But in SWTOR, if I kill an imperial commander, he'll just respawn. Unless he's in an instance, in which case I have to leave the instance and then can't return. Also, it's blatantly obvious that a legion of other players is repeating the exact same quest that I just did. The whole thing feels very static and much like we are just patrons waiting in line to go on the same ride (like a theme park no? )
There's a sense of permenancy in an SPRPG that just isn't in your traditional WoW model MMORPG. The world of an SPRPG need not stay the same, whereas the world in a WoW model MMORPG does. This makes a big difference to me, it's just way too easy for me to see through the thin veneer into what the game really is.
I can get lost in an SPRPG, but I can't seem to get lost in SWTOR. There's just so many shining beacons that keep screaming "GAME, GAME, GAME."
How do you get around that in any MMO though? I just don't think it is possible.
Ideas?
I think there are a few approaches that can be tried...
1. Ignore it. Don't even worry about immersion that much. Make it very clear that this is a game, and concentrate on the gameplay. This is kind of what WoW did. And hey, it can work. I had fun playing WoW, and it never bothered me that I wasn't immersed because I was having fun just playing the game.
2. The "completely player driven" approach. Try to put systems in place that will allow the players to create their own story. This is the "traditional sandbox" approach of games like Darkfall, UO, and Eve. It can work sometimes, but it leaves a lot of folks out in the cold because of inaccessibility. I also think it's very hard to implement correctly.
3. The "everything is tied to the world" approach. This means that "quests" are no longer associated with individual players, but are instead associated with the world. So instead of YOU having to complete a quest, there is something bad happening in the world, and you can participate in resolving it. This is the approach that WAR pioneered with public quests, Rift further explored with Rifts, and GW2 is trying to perfect with Dynamic Events.
I think there is a lot of potential with this one, but it can go horribly wrong too. Just look at WAR. It had lots of public quests, but they all essentially required a decent group of people, and were typically empty. It really needs to be implemented "just right" so that people can still solo these events, but also have the option of grouping up and still being challenged.
In an SPRPG, I feel like I'm affecting the world. If I kill a big dragon. It's dead. If a town gets slaughtered by orcs, it's slaughtered and burned to the ground.
But in SWTOR, if I kill an imperial commander, he'll just respawn. Unless he's in an instance, in which case I have to leave the instance and then can't return. Also, it's blatantly obvious that a legion of other players is repeating the exact same quest that I just did. The whole thing feels very static and much like we are just patrons waiting in line to go on the same ride (like a theme park no? )
There's a sense of permenancy in an SPRPG that just isn't in your traditional WoW model MMORPG. The world of an SPRPG need not stay the same, whereas the world in a WoW model MMORPG does. This makes a big difference to me, it's just way too easy for me to see through the thin veneer into what the game really is.
I can get lost in an SPRPG, but I can't seem to get lost in SWTOR. There's just so many shining beacons that keep screaming "GAME, GAME, GAME."
How do you get around that in any MMO though themepark or not? I just don't think it is possible for genre.
Ideas?
Replace normal quests with 'dynamic events' that actually change the world ... would be how I would answer that which is what GW2 claims that it is doing. Do I believe it will be better? I have no idea. For all we know GW2s Dynamic Events might be no different then PQs from WAR or Rifts from Rift. Only seeing is believing if it will fill that expectation.
After 20 hours of play, he's declared it the best MMO ever! Even after admitting he's an uber Star Wars fan who's watched the movies a hundred times and still owns a large collection of Star Wars toys, there is no self awareness exhibited as to exactly how deeply rose colored the lenses are through which his experiences are tinted, nor gives any insight into how it's the best MMO ever, aside from "it's Star Wars", he likes the Group Instances and he get's giddy at the cutscenes and his droid feeding him some perfunctory dialogue about how good it is that they are working together.
Well, that decides it doesn't it, it must be the best MMO ever?!?!?!?
The thing I hate most about MMO today, and this goes for pretty much every MMO on the market, is the fact that everyone is the hero. Everyone is doing the same quest, undertaking the same mission, saving the same person, killing the same bad guy. Everyone is doing the same things.
ToR is exactly the same in that regard, only now you get to watch a cinematic about doing the same thing everyone else is doing. Dialog options or not, you're doing the exact same thing.
Voice overs are nice, but the story element in an MMO is awful. It doesn't help to build a world in which you are one of thousands of individuals ihabiting it, it just means you're watching the same thing as thousands of other people. Cinimatics and stories are great in single player games, were I'm the ONLY hero. They're great for telling a story. However, they don't make an MMO more of an MMO or better. It only lends to a more polished and fleshed out online single player, or co-op, experience.
ToR could be the best MMO on the market, but when all I see is people declaring it great because of the story I have to cringe; especially when the story doesn't revolve around the world, but the individual, it's not like taking a step forward, it's taking a step back in building interactive worlds that thousands of people live out virtual lives in.
No ones talking about how great the actual gameplay in ToR is. No one is talking about how great the crafting is. No one is talking about how great or inovative the dungeons are. No one is telling me that the PvP is different, that the classes are imaginative, fun, or different. EVERYONE keeps telling me that the story is great, and that that's why ToR is great.
Seems like there are a lot of people playing MMO's who only care about how the story is delivered to them, and not so much about actual gameplay. At least that's the impression I've gotten from all the reviews and forum feedback. When all anyone will tell me is great about the game is the story, I have to wonder, how good is the 99.9% of the game itself?
I'm pretty sick of hearing about how good the story is in ToR. That is not what makes an MMO great.
I play single player games for story, I play MMO's for interactive worlds.
It doesn't really help that I'm sick to death of starwars either.
And this sentence is really all I need to know from you.
That one sentence doesn't change, let alone have any bearing, on anything I wrote prior to that. Because nothing I wrote prior to that had anything to do with whether or not an MMO is based on Starwars.
It's good to know that as far as your opinion goes, if you don't like starwars your opinion doesn't matter. That says a LOT.
I do hope you understand that when you discredit anything I say soley because I can't really get into starwars after 30 years of starwars, that it makes it look like no matter how the game itself is, your sole opinion of it is based entirely on the fact that it's starwars. By writing what you wrote, I can't help but to view anything positive you say about the game as being positive because it's starwars. How could I possibly trust your opinion on the game when you disregard mine based on my not being that into starwars after 3 decades of starwars.
Let me put it really simple:
What are you doing in a Star Wars MMO, when you're sick and tired of Star Wars? It seriously kills anything else you have to say about the game, since you shouldn't be playing it to begin with. Impartiality is null and void in your case, atleast to others (myself included).
In an SPRPG, I feel like I'm affecting the world. If I kill a big dragon. It's dead. If a town gets slaughtered by orcs, it's slaughtered and burned to the ground.
But in SWTOR, if I kill an imperial commander, he'll just respawn. Unless he's in an instance, in which case I have to leave the instance and then can't return. Also, it's blatantly obvious that a legion of other players is repeating the exact same quest that I just did. The whole thing feels very static and much like we are just patrons waiting in line to go on the same ride (like a theme park no? )
There's a sense of permenancy in an SPRPG that just isn't in your traditional WoW model MMORPG. The world of an SPRPG need not stay the same, whereas the world in a WoW model MMORPG does. This makes a big difference to me, it's just way too easy for me to see through the thin veneer into what the game really is.
I can get lost in an SPRPG, but I can't seem to get lost in SWTOR. There's just so many shining beacons that keep screaming "GAME, GAME, GAME."
I think a story based themepark game could work for me honestly but the devs would have adress why there are 200 troopers on the same server. But bioware doesn't even try to. You are THE leader of THE havoc squad. I just don't want to have to have tunnel vision to be able to "buy in" to the story, in game that is suppost to be about the STORY.
To be honest, I think SWTOR would have worked marvelously as a full fledged CORPG like Guild Wars. That's really my only major "design-level" issue with SWTOR. Considering what the devs sought to accomplish...I really see no reason why it had to be an MMORPG. It pretty much just ignores the fact it has a persistent world, and even tries to hide it by excessive sharding.
I guess the only thing you would lose is open-world ganking...but I've never been that much of a fan . You could still have an open-world PvP zone in a CORPG though.
This hyperboling is just ridicilous. SW:TOR is not the best MMORPG nor is it the worst, it is a finely crafted Themepark which follows the standards formula in a SW setting. No more and no less.
I think it's an average themepark at best. At least in my eyes.
Why? Because the world from the sound, to zone layout to the untouchable horizon simply feels cardboard.
I never got this feeling in AoC -- which is also a themepark.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
Other then the fact that the hammer and Athsiss don't have any talking or real story at all? I will agree BT and Eseless were great(heck I would have bought the game without a problem if hammer was anything like them).
The guy is clearly clueless to the world of MMORPGs. I'm willing to wager WoW was his first and only MMORPG and now he thinks he is an MMORPGer.
Anyway, Flashpoints are really cool. Unfortunately in an MMO where instances are run to death, Flashpoints will soon lose their lustre. A video review on YT put it perfectly... a 50 minute dungeon run broken down featured 20 minutes of no combat. I can see this being fun at first. Doing the Flash points on alts? Farming them over and over?
Poor design.
People trashing WoW's instanced PvE are clueless. As far as 5 mans go, Cataclysm has really brought them into their own; WoW still remains king.
I'm also going to add that that it is such bullshit that "you change the outcome" -- yeah, but your actions are utterly irrelevant at the end. It's not like your decision in the Flashpoint has any lasting or meaningful bearing. This corresponds to the last point that you made too about why SWTOR lacks the awesomeness of a SRPG.
Ehh I don't agree. If all the flashpoints were story based(and basicly well writen) I and hopifully others would have no problems run them over and over again.
I ran Esseless like 30 times in beta and only skiped convos once when the server was going to go down. Where as I played Hammer 3 times and Athsiss once. I was always up to run Eseless again but I had almost no interest in Hammer or Athsis because they were the same old boring instance of go from point A to B and kill everything.
I do agree that you can't really change the outcome but who cares it still was fun to me.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Ehh I don't agree. If all the flashpoints were story based(and basicly well writen) I and hopifully others would have no problems run them over and over again.
I ran Esseless like 30 times in beta and only skiped convos once when the server was going to go down. Where as I played Hammer 3 times and Athsiss once. I was always up to run Eseless again but I had almost no interest in Hammer or Athsis because they were the same old boring instance of go from point A to B and kill everything.
I do agree that you can't really change the outcome but who cares it still was fun to me.
Really? You would endure 20 minutes of the exact same dialog over 30 times?
Wow! (I'm not trying to be rude, so sorry if I come across that way. But that blows my mind.
In WoW, I am always squirming in heavily story-driven dungeons (like Hour of Twilight) past the first 2 or 3 times. And I happen to be someone who actually reads quests and gives a flying frog about the lore. So it's not as if I am ADD or anything. )
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
Ehh I don't agree. If all the flashpoints were story based(and basicly well writen) I and hopifully others would have no problems run them over and over again.
I ran Esseless like 30 times in beta and only skiped convos once when the server was going to go down. Where as I played Hammer 3 times and Athsiss once. I was always up to run Eseless again but I had almost no interest in Hammer or Athsis because they were the same old boring instance of go from point A to B and kill everything.
I do agree that you can't really change the outcome but who cares it still was fun to me.
Really? You would endure 20 minutes of the exact same dialog over 30 times?
Wow! (I'm not trying to be rude, so sorry if I come across that way. But that blows my mind.)
Heheh, well I've known people that will watch reruns of their favorite movie/show over and over and over again. So I'm not too surprised .
Still, I think that most folks probably don't want to see these cutscenes more than once.
Ehh I don't agree. If all the flashpoints were story based(and basicly well writen) I and hopifully others would have no problems run them over and over again.
I ran Esseless like 30 times in beta and only skiped convos once when the server was going to go down. Where as I played Hammer 3 times and Athsiss once. I was always up to run Eseless again but I had almost no interest in Hammer or Athsis because they were the same old boring instance of go from point A to B and kill everything.
I do agree that you can't really change the outcome but who cares it still was fun to me.
Really? You would endure 20 minutes of the exact same dialog over 30 times?
Wow! (I'm not trying to be rude, so sorry if I come across that way. But that blows my mind.)
I have seen a number of movies and tv shows dozens and dozens of times. It doesn't bother me one bit to hear the same dialog over and over again, just as long as it isn't just a fancy way to say go get me x or kill me x. Oh did I skip alot of the normal quest convos.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Best MMO ever? Perhaps. It's still a crappy game The author kinda forgot to mention MMO's are in a pityful state and TOR is not even pretending to try to change that. Also it's hilarious such claims are made so early, has anyone even gone through the endgame yet? Doubt it.. While you can get a feel that a game is bad from a short exposure, you can't really get a feel if a game, especialy an MMO, is great without playing the endgame for a while. Otherwise I could say AoC is the best MMO ever, because it has Tortage..
It's like saying this junkfood is the best among junkfoods! Yay? I'll wait for the 5 star dish that is GW2, thanks.
The thing I hate most about MMO today, and this goes for pretty much every MMO on the market, is the fact that everyone is the hero. Everyone is doing the same quest, undertaking the same mission, saving the same person, killing the same bad guy. Everyone is doing the same things.
ToR is exactly the same in that regard, only now you get to watch a cinematic about doing the same thing everyone else is doing. Dialog options or not, you're doing the exact same thing.
Yep and especially funny in this regard is that if you run through Kaas City with your Khem Val (the dog-like tank) companion, you'll see another 15 players at least with their own Khem Val running next to them, without even the engine trying to hide their name from you.
Heheh, well I've known people that will watch reruns of their favorite movie/show over and over and over again. So I'm not too surprised .
Still, I think that most folks probably don't want to see these cutscenes more than once.
Point well taken and understood. I can watch movies over and over :P
But a 100 minute movie is different from a 50 minute instance, don't you think? A movie for me always is an experience... a dungeon for me (once I am familiar with it) passes into the realm of chore. "Chore" isn't the right word but I definitely prefer open world dungeons that heavily story driven ones.
If you played WoW -- I prefer a dungeon like Magister's Terrace to Escape from Durnholde Keep.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I am not a hater or a fan of SW:TOR. I have one question about this "opinion piece." How much did Bioware pay for it? While the article appears to be written by a professional the content is anything but. Could he fall over himself to worship at Lucas Arts feet?
I have seen a number of movies and tv shows dozens and dozens of times. It doesn't bother me one bit to hear the same dialog over and over again, just as long as it isn't just a fancy way to say go get me x or kill me x. Oh did I skip alot of the normal quest convos.
Agreed!
I do wish BioWare had taken some notes from their singleplayer games... where not everything has to be kill, kill, kill. They did this epic storytelling approach and they didn't make quests where if we answer "correctly", we get the XP of kill quests?
Kind of one-dimensional.
And maybe I should have skipped the open-world quest dialog. I'd still be playing then :P
The Coruscant quests made me want to tear my eyes out. (and plug my ears too)
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
With that technique you can get the illusion that you change the world?
Yep phasing can work, but the problem is that it basically pushes the game closer to being single player. It further segments the world and makes it feel less open.
I think the REAL fix for this problem has to at once make people feel like what they are doing has an effect on the world WITHOUT "copping out" and just making the portion where they are affecting the world completely instanced (phased).
I really think that the public quest innovation is the best "direction" we've seen for themepark games to go. Yes, it was implemented horribly and not very fun. yes, it wasn't implemented well in Rift again...but I still think it has potential.
I am not a hater or a fan of SW:TOR. I have one question about this "opinion piece." How much did Bioware pay for it? While the article appears to be written by a professional the content is anything but. Could he fall over himself to worship at Lucas Arts feet?
Eh, I don't think BW needs to pay anyone. I really think there are a sizable number of people that would say this game is the best ever just as long as it's not utterly terrible.
I am not a hater or a fan of SW:TOR. I have one question about this "opinion piece." How much did Bioware pay for it? While the article appears to be written by a professional the content is anything but. Could he fall over himself to worship at Lucas Arts feet?
Eh, I don't think BW needs to pay anyone. I really think there are a sizable number of people that would say this game is the best ever just as long as it's not utterly terrible.
I happen to work in marketing and let me tell you, marking is not free. Reviews are not really what you think they are. What you can do as a consumer is read several reviews, message boards and try to figure out if the features that are important to you are there and done well... but it can be quite a bit to wade through especially with leaks, developer quotes and such. Some things don't make it into the game and it can be difficult with the marketing machine(s) out there to figure out what is there / not.
The thing I hate most about MMO today, and this goes for pretty much every MMO on the market, is the fact that everyone is the hero. Everyone is doing the same quest, undertaking the same mission, saving the same person, killing the same bad guy. Everyone is doing the same things.
ToR is exactly the same in that regard, only now you get to watch a cinematic about doing the same thing everyone else is doing. Dialog options or not, you're doing the exact same thing.
Voice overs are nice, but the story element in an MMO is awful. It doesn't help to build a world in which you are one of thousands of individuals ihabiting it, it just means you're watching the same thing as thousands of other people. Cinimatics and stories are great in single player games, were I'm the ONLY hero. They're great for telling a story. However, they don't make an MMO more of an MMO or better. It only lends to a more polished and fleshed out online single player, or co-op, experience.
ToR could be the best MMO on the market, but when all I see is people declaring it great because of the story I have to cringe; especially when the story doesn't revolve around the world, but the individual, it's not like taking a step forward, it's taking a step back in building interactive worlds that thousands of people live out virtual lives in.
No ones talking about how great the actual gameplay in ToR is. No one is talking about how great the crafting is. No one is talking about how great or inovative the dungeons are. No one is telling me that the PvP is different, that the classes are imaginative, fun, or different. EVERYONE keeps telling me that the story is great, and that that's why ToR is great.
Seems like there are a lot of people playing MMO's who only care about how the story is delivered to them, and not so much about actual gameplay. At least that's the impression I've gotten from all the reviews and forum feedback. When all anyone will tell me is great about the game is the story, I have to wonder, how good is the 99.9% of the game itself?
I'm pretty sick of hearing about how good the story is in ToR. That is not what makes an MMO great.
I play single player games for story, I play MMO's for interactive worlds.
It doesn't really help that I'm sick to death of starwars either.
And this sentence is really all I need to know from you.
That one sentence doesn't change, let alone have any bearing, on anything I wrote prior to that. Because nothing I wrote prior to that had anything to do with whether or not an MMO is based on Starwars.
It's good to know that as far as your opinion goes, if you don't like starwars your opinion doesn't matter. That says a LOT.
I do hope you understand that when you discredit anything I say soley because I can't really get into starwars after 30 years of starwars, that it makes it look like no matter how the game itself is, your sole opinion of it is based entirely on the fact that it's starwars. By writing what you wrote, I can't help but to view anything positive you say about the game as being positive because it's starwars. How could I possibly trust your opinion on the game when you disregard mine based on my not being that into starwars after 3 decades of starwars.
Let me put it really simple:
What are you doing in a Star Wars MMO, when you're sick and tired of Star Wars? It seriously kills anything else you have to say about the game, since you shouldn't be playing it to begin with. Impartiality is null and void in your case, atleast to others (myself included).
When in the world did i ever say i was playing the game?
I expressed an opinion that had everything to do with the things i read about the game, and absolutely NOTHING to do with personal experience in the game.
I wrote entirely about the abundance of talk centered around the story in the game, and how I'm continually bombarded about how great the game is based on the story, and rarely ever given any opinion on how good the actual gameplay itself is.
I could you possibly read what I wrote and think that I even played the game?
Or did you just skim, see the very last line, and then make an assumption about what was actually written above it? Cause that would have been pretty silly of you to do.
Let me put it another way.
I'm not playing ToR because:
1) All anyone says about it is that it's great for the story, and to me that isn't what makes an MMO great.
2) I've read very little about what is good about the actual gameplay other then there are a lot of cutscenes and some choices you make, and that doesn't sound like fun MMO stuff to me.
3) After 30 years of starwars I'm just not interested in playing anything simply because it's starwars, and unless there's something more worthwhile then "it's starwars" im not going to spend money on it. And truefully, that's all I've really been reading. "it's starwars", and that's just not good enough for me.
Unlike a lot of people, it would seem, individual story is not why I play MMO's and if that's what your biggest draw is, then I'm not going to get it. Individual story does not make a better MMO, it makes a better SRPG, and ToR is supposed to be an MMO. You can not possible have a better MMO when you emphasize the single player aspect of the game; you only succeed in making a better singleplayer online game, not a better MMO.
Especially when thousands of other people are doign the exact same individual story. There's nothing personal about something thousands of other people are doing as well.
Even more so when I know that all they did was take and element from one of there single player games and import it to an MMO. Or is everyone conveniently ignoring that they're playing dragon age with a starwars skin?
Not a hater here but anyone making that assertion at this early stage makes my head spin.
Would spin too if someone were to make an article saying it was the worst mmo ever as well.
Oh well, least he waited until he played it for about twenty hours before coming to this conclusion. Seriously? Wtf...
This, pretty much. For someone to declare that a game is the best ever the week after it launches says a lot about the person making the claim, and not much about the game. It's rather foolish to rush in and make such claims before you have a little better perspective on the matter.
In politics, I like to say that people who declare the current person in a given office to be the most extremal something or other (best, worst, etc.) in history usually don't know much history. I think there's an analogue for declaring a game the best ever.
Then again, he got people to click the link, which was probably the whole point. Welcome to the Internet, where saying stupid things to get page hits is more profitable than careful analyses.
I have seen a number of movies and tv shows dozens and dozens of times. It doesn't bother me one bit to hear the same dialog over and over again, just as long as it isn't just a fancy way to say go get me x or kill me x. Oh did I skip alot of the normal quest convos.
Agreed!
I do wish BioWare had taken some notes from their singleplayer games... where not everything has to be kill, kill, kill. They did this epic storytelling approach and they didn't make quests where if we answer "correctly", we get the XP of kill quests?
Kind of one-dimensional.
And maybe I should have skipped the open-world quest dialog. I'd still be playing then :P
The Coruscant quests made me want to tear my eyes out. (and plug my ears too)
Think about how personal story lines and dungeons work in ToR, and then think about how the stories in Dragon Age work, and ask yourself.
Did they take an element from one of their single player games.
With that technique you can get the illusion that you change the world?
Yep phasing can work, but the problem is that it basically pushes the game closer to being single player. It further segments the world and makes it feel less open.
I think the REAL fix for this problem has to at once make people feel like what they are doing has an effect on the world WITHOUT "copping out" and just making the portion where they are affecting the world completely instanced (phased).
I really think that the public quest innovation is the best "direction" we've seen for themepark games to go. Yes, it was implemented horribly and not very fun. yes, it wasn't implemented well in Rift again...but I still think it has potential.
Actually I think the problem with phasing is that it often is used to separate players needlessly. Just because 2 players are on a different phase doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to interact. It's the players view and interaction of NON-player aspects that should differ, not who else they can group with. While it may seem silly to have people group when one person has completed a phased quest, that's a small price to pay to get the best of both worlds.
Comments
I think there are a few approaches that can be tried...
1. Ignore it. Don't even worry about immersion that much. Make it very clear that this is a game, and concentrate on the gameplay. This is kind of what WoW did. And hey, it can work. I had fun playing WoW, and it never bothered me that I wasn't immersed because I was having fun just playing the game.
2. The "completely player driven" approach. Try to put systems in place that will allow the players to create their own story. This is the "traditional sandbox" approach of games like Darkfall, UO, and Eve. It can work sometimes, but it leaves a lot of folks out in the cold because of inaccessibility. I also think it's very hard to implement correctly.
3. The "everything is tied to the world" approach. This means that "quests" are no longer associated with individual players, but are instead associated with the world. So instead of YOU having to complete a quest, there is something bad happening in the world, and you can participate in resolving it. This is the approach that WAR pioneered with public quests, Rift further explored with Rifts, and GW2 is trying to perfect with Dynamic Events.
I think there is a lot of potential with this one, but it can go horribly wrong too. Just look at WAR. It had lots of public quests, but they all essentially required a decent group of people, and were typically empty. It really needs to be implemented "just right" so that people can still solo these events, but also have the option of grouping up and still being challenged.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Replace normal quests with 'dynamic events' that actually change the world ... would be how I would answer that which is what GW2 claims that it is doing. Do I believe it will be better? I have no idea. For all we know GW2s Dynamic Events might be no different then PQs from WAR or Rifts from Rift. Only seeing is believing if it will fill that expectation.
After 20 hours of play, he's declared it the best MMO ever! Even after admitting he's an uber Star Wars fan who's watched the movies a hundred times and still owns a large collection of Star Wars toys, there is no self awareness exhibited as to exactly how deeply rose colored the lenses are through which his experiences are tinted, nor gives any insight into how it's the best MMO ever, aside from "it's Star Wars", he likes the Group Instances and he get's giddy at the cutscenes and his droid feeding him some perfunctory dialogue about how good it is that they are working together.
Well, that decides it doesn't it, it must be the best MMO ever?!?!?!?
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Let me put it really simple:
What are you doing in a Star Wars MMO, when you're sick and tired of Star Wars? It seriously kills anything else you have to say about the game, since you shouldn't be playing it to begin with. Impartiality is null and void in your case, atleast to others (myself included).
To be honest, I think SWTOR would have worked marvelously as a full fledged CORPG like Guild Wars. That's really my only major "design-level" issue with SWTOR. Considering what the devs sought to accomplish...I really see no reason why it had to be an MMORPG. It pretty much just ignores the fact it has a persistent world, and even tries to hide it by excessive sharding.
I guess the only thing you would lose is open-world ganking...but I've never been that much of a fan
. You could still have an open-world PvP zone in a CORPG though.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I think it's an average themepark at best. At least in my eyes.
Why? Because the world from the sound, to zone layout to the untouchable horizon simply feels cardboard.
I never got this feeling in AoC -- which is also a themepark.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
Ehh I don't agree. If all the flashpoints were story based(and basicly well writen) I and hopifully others would have no problems run them over and over again.
I ran Esseless like 30 times in beta and only skiped convos once when the server was going to go down. Where as I played Hammer 3 times and Athsiss once. I was always up to run Eseless again but I had almost no interest in Hammer or Athsis because they were the same old boring instance of go from point A to B and kill everything.
I do agree that you can't really change the outcome but who cares it still was fun to me.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Really? You would endure 20 minutes of the exact same dialog over 30 times?
Wow! (I'm not trying to be rude, so sorry if I come across that way. But that blows my mind.
In WoW, I am always squirming in heavily story-driven dungeons (like Hour of Twilight) past the first 2 or 3 times. And I happen to be someone who actually reads quests and gives a flying frog about the lore. So it's not as if I am ADD or anything. )
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
Heheh, well I've known people that will watch reruns of their favorite movie/show over and over and over again. So I'm not too surprised
.
Still, I think that most folks probably don't want to see these cutscenes more than once.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I have seen a number of movies and tv shows dozens and dozens of times. It doesn't bother me one bit to hear the same dialog over and over again, just as long as it isn't just a fancy way to say go get me x or kill me x. Oh did I skip alot of the normal quest convos.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
How about phasing?
With that technique you can get the illusion that you change the world?
Best MMO ever? Perhaps. It's still a crappy game
The author kinda forgot to mention MMO's are in a pityful state and TOR is not even pretending to try to change that. Also it's hilarious such claims are made so early, has anyone even gone through the endgame yet? Doubt it.. While you can get a feel that a game is bad from a short exposure, you can't really get a feel if a game, especialy an MMO, is great without playing the endgame for a while. Otherwise I could say AoC is the best MMO ever, because it has Tortage..
It's like saying this junkfood is the best among junkfoods! Yay? I'll wait for the 5 star dish that is GW2, thanks.
My Guild Wars 2 First Beta Weekend "reviewette" : http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4944570/thread/349125#4944570
Yep and especially funny in this regard is that if you run through Kaas City with your Khem Val (the dog-like tank) companion, you'll see another 15 players at least with their own Khem Val running next to them, without even the engine trying to hide their name from you.
REALITY CHECK
Point well taken and understood. I can watch movies over and over :P
But a 100 minute movie is different from a 50 minute instance, don't you think? A movie for me always is an experience... a dungeon for me (once I am familiar with it) passes into the realm of chore. "Chore" isn't the right word but I definitely prefer open world dungeons that heavily story driven ones.
If you played WoW -- I prefer a dungeon like Magister's Terrace to Escape from Durnholde Keep.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
I am not a hater or a fan of SW:TOR. I have one question about this "opinion piece." How much did Bioware pay for it? While the article appears to be written by a professional the content is anything but. Could he fall over himself to worship at Lucas Arts feet?
I give him two weeks tops before he flip flops.
Agreed!
I do wish BioWare had taken some notes from their singleplayer games... where not everything has to be kill, kill, kill. They did this epic storytelling approach and they didn't make quests where if we answer "correctly", we get the XP of kill quests?
Kind of one-dimensional.
And maybe I should have skipped the open-world quest dialog. I'd still be playing then :P
The Coruscant quests made me want to tear my eyes out. (and plug my ears too)
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
Yep phasing can work, but the problem is that it basically pushes the game closer to being single player. It further segments the world and makes it feel less open.
I think the REAL fix for this problem has to at once make people feel like what they are doing has an effect on the world WITHOUT "copping out" and just making the portion where they are affecting the world completely instanced (phased).
I really think that the public quest innovation is the best "direction" we've seen for themepark games to go. Yes, it was implemented horribly and not very fun. yes, it wasn't implemented well in Rift again...but I still think it has potential.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Eh, I don't think BW needs to pay anyone. I really think there are a sizable number of people that would say this game is the best ever just as long as it's not utterly terrible.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Basically but i was trying to be polite about it LOL
I happen to work in marketing and let me tell you, marking is not free. Reviews are not really what you think they are. What you can do as a consumer is read several reviews, message boards and try to figure out if the features that are important to you are there and done well... but it can be quite a bit to wade through especially with leaks, developer quotes and such. Some things don't make it into the game and it can be difficult with the marketing machine(s) out there to figure out what is there / not.
When in the world did i ever say i was playing the game?
I expressed an opinion that had everything to do with the things i read about the game, and absolutely NOTHING to do with personal experience in the game.
I wrote entirely about the abundance of talk centered around the story in the game, and how I'm continually bombarded about how great the game is based on the story, and rarely ever given any opinion on how good the actual gameplay itself is.
I could you possibly read what I wrote and think that I even played the game?
Or did you just skim, see the very last line, and then make an assumption about what was actually written above it? Cause that would have been pretty silly of you to do.
Let me put it another way.
I'm not playing ToR because:
1) All anyone says about it is that it's great for the story, and to me that isn't what makes an MMO great.
2) I've read very little about what is good about the actual gameplay other then there are a lot of cutscenes and some choices you make, and that doesn't sound like fun MMO stuff to me.
3) After 30 years of starwars I'm just not interested in playing anything simply because it's starwars, and unless there's something more worthwhile then "it's starwars" im not going to spend money on it. And truefully, that's all I've really been reading. "it's starwars", and that's just not good enough for me.
Unlike a lot of people, it would seem, individual story is not why I play MMO's and if that's what your biggest draw is, then I'm not going to get it. Individual story does not make a better MMO, it makes a better SRPG, and ToR is supposed to be an MMO. You can not possible have a better MMO when you emphasize the single player aspect of the game; you only succeed in making a better singleplayer online game, not a better MMO.
Especially when thousands of other people are doign the exact same individual story. There's nothing personal about something thousands of other people are doing as well.
Even more so when I know that all they did was take and element from one of there single player games and import it to an MMO. Or is everyone conveniently ignoring that they're playing dragon age with a starwars skin?
This, pretty much. For someone to declare that a game is the best ever the week after it launches says a lot about the person making the claim, and not much about the game. It's rather foolish to rush in and make such claims before you have a little better perspective on the matter.
In politics, I like to say that people who declare the current person in a given office to be the most extremal something or other (best, worst, etc.) in history usually don't know much history. I think there's an analogue for declaring a game the best ever.
Then again, he got people to click the link, which was probably the whole point. Welcome to the Internet, where saying stupid things to get page hits is more profitable than careful analyses.
Think about how personal story lines and dungeons work in ToR, and then think about how the stories in Dragon Age work, and ask yourself.
Did they take an element from one of their single player games.
I'm gonna say that's exactly what they did.
Actually I think the problem with phasing is that it often is used to separate players needlessly. Just because 2 players are on a different phase doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to interact. It's the players view and interaction of NON-player aspects that should differ, not who else they can group with. While it may seem silly to have people group when one person has completed a phased quest, that's a small price to pay to get the best of both worlds.