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SWTOR was a WOW Killer.....
iceman00
Member Posts: 1,363
Had the game been made back in 2005 when they first announced it.
I honestly think they did a lot of research on all the MMO's before they announced they were doing it, and then stopped. It doesn't seem like they've taken into account what has worked in MMO's the past 7 years, and what hasn't.
Comments
This is one of the major problems ( i can see) with working on an MMO, or any project with a long development/conceptual phase. Before you can start developing you need a concept, player trends during one period may be completely different by the end of the final conceptual period, meaning your concept is already outdated.
Keeping up with these trends is possible ( GW2) but i think they already had a plan to move away from the WOW model and expand (impressively) on their own design and concepts.
You aslo have to consider seamlessness and flow, the game has to tie togther, each facet should facilitate the next, which is already at ricky subject with TOR, it's not there, but much further in "mixing it up" they'd have a Frankenstein's monster on their hands, IMO anyway.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
I think the problem is that a lot of the team probably didn't play MMO's, and those who did, only played WoW. And then stopped playing as WoW had to innovate a bit to keep their cherished spot. Yes, I hate WoW, but they had to make their quests a bit more in-depth, reduce the emphasis on 40 man raids, diversify rewards, etc.
I'd guess this is untrue, many of their devs are from older MMOs like DAOC, SWG, WAR, Shadowbane, etc, etc...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There's a difference between developing a game and actually playing it. One of the classic rules of the MMO world: players know their game better than the Devs. A developer can code a system. But they can't tell you if it actually works in the game. Only a player can do that.
SWTOR was going to be a WOW killer.... and then it got high.
I'm still enjoying the game at a slow and steady pace, so regardless of what anyone else thinks, it is still the best MMORPG available today to me.
There is no excuse.
This is a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game. There is nothing massive about tiny raids, tiny groups, and instanced PvP.
They completely ignored the social realm. How on earth can you be a dev and not realize the importance of good virtual community. This replaced SOCIAL with STORY. Thus, we now have this Massive Co'op Game that people must pay monthly for.
SWTOR is the ultimate example of ADVERTISING & HYPE over GAMEPLAY & ORIGINALITY.
you serious? Woah you are.
To me the logical fallacy is that MMO devs by nature are not gamers, why would someone subject themselves to this line of work when there are easier, more rewarding jobs to be had for those individuals? It just wouldn't make sense.
Maybe you're talking about the suits? In that case I'd agree, they care about the business end, they're the ones deciding on focus testing, research, analysis, advertising,, etc...
Second what you just said would be akin to saying a musician couldn't tell a good musical score apart from a bad one, which is all kinds of wrong (in so many, many ways). There's a difference between knowing what's good, and what will have mass appeal.
You're forgetting devs are controlled by the corp, the corp decides what directions they can take, not the guys sitting down actually doing the work.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The problem is nobody has the stones to be original. A company with original ideas could spend 5 years on an MMO and it would still be fresh after dev time. It would be nice to see something besides a flock of, dare I type it? WOW clones. Anybody besides me think Titan will me miles away from WOW? If it is and it makes money you can expect 10 years of Titan clones to follow because originality has dried up.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
Have the corporate leads really had the reigns of projects over the past 10 years or has that only changed after MMOs went mainstread with potential of huge profits?
have to completely disagree with you there i don't think a SINGLE person who developed this game has ever played anything other then SPRPG games, they didn't even bring in kids as experts on this one and it shows with what all they missed.
LOL okay you got me there.
Got three things to say to that Guild Wars 2, Archeage, and Wushu. Nothing like we've seen in the past. They are actively trying to break the mold and i will be right there with my dollar if they hold true to their designs. I'm excited.
Oh almost forgot, they do as devs have to take an active roll to see and pay attention to what other games are doing that are working WHILE they are developing I've noticed that Anet has done this twice now, said one thing then changed to a better plan after it was shown that something was working better in another community of gamers under a different title. So, it's not supposed to be just a "let's take a snapshot of how it is now" and not ever update that snapshot of what's happening after that snapshot. That's just not going to work with anything. That would be like taking a look at cars in the 1970's and spending ten years making a car only to find no one wants it because it doesn't have any of the features of the other modern day cars in the 1980's.
If this is what they did it definitely shows.
You don't risk 200+ million dollar investment on something unproven, unless you have SO much money you can stand to take a bet on that 200 million.
TOR isn't a WoW killer, and no game will ever be because the only things killing WoW are
A) age
The Western made AAA mega-budget Sandbox MMO is not happening people - better you start to accept it.
GW2 is the closest we are going to get for a long, long while.
However:
The Undead Labs L4 or whatever it is might just suprise us though, I'm waiting to see.
Of course, always the possibility EQNext or Titan will completely redefine the genre.
Simple. A writer can recognize a great writing work. But most the time, he is so busy writing it, he has others who aren't as involved in the process give criticism. They see things he can't, because he is so invested in the project.
It isn't just "the suits." Bioware has proven that in other markets, they can make something polished, and even bring a few fresh things to the table. One of the main criticisms of this game so far is just the very poor design and thought process that went into things.
What you had was people who thought MMO's could be a cash cow, but really have no understanding of how an MMO becomes a cash cow when done properly.
Talking about a SOE and a Blizzard game, I'm afraid most of the "redefinition of the genre" may come in terms of unwelcomed features like major cash shops, RMT-AHs and tons of pay-to-use-them gimmicks like smartphone apps and such.
A game doesn't need to be a sandbox to catch my eyes. The problem with investing that 200 million is they didn't follow a lot of the "time tested" things.
You can't blame the suits for the debacle that was the 1.1 patch.
Yeah i'm holding my breath to see what other games are doing with their apps for iphone because i don't want to get into another WoW Armory app where i have to pay extra just to talk to friends. While i don't think this will be the case for Anet i am hoping that I am not wrong on this.
I remember this Kid arguement in SWG pre NGE.. and after the Kids complained.. we got NGE
Kid arguement in MXO and we got CR2.0 ..
It was long battle on the forums about Making SWG/mxo less complex and complicated. I am sure if someone has the time could search some archive and find the forum from long ago.
Wow worked becuase of what it was to the casual gamer back when in launched. It was one of the first games that casual gamers could get on equal footing with hardcore gamers.
Limiting grinds / Levels restricting growth before adding expanision to increase level caps. The days of Uo / SWG were skill s were earned through endless macros and grinding are long gone. if the SWG/UO model of Mmorpgs was truely going to kill wow . Wow would have never got as large as it did.
Don't get me wrong I would to play a game that had Skill based Mechinic in a MMO, that was more sandbox and less themepark , but things like that don't appeal to the hardgore and causal gamers alike, and become hard to balance.
That's because there is nothing left of massive multiplayer except a buzzword and PR fluff like "play with millions of other players online".
The baseline definition of the genre got sold out to singleplayer gaming by inable devs and investors aiming for the kid's pocket money. All that's left reminding on the multiplayer aspect is a line on the back of the games' box like "online experience not rated".
living in the past is a no-no. you learn from it, you carry on. it is you personal mistake to buy a game, of which you think it could have been better in year so-and-so, and complain in the end.
your fault. not theirs.
to say it in the way people understand it: you already paid money.
I said this many times before release: I could care less about whether or not this is a WOW killer . Of course then again I don't make judgements based on polls or popularity. I've got four characters in the game and all of them are Imperial. The highest level is 32 and I haven't got bored yet. WOW couldn't get me past one level 40 character. Far as I'm concerned TOR is the superior game. And before anyone starts, you're not going to get me to change my mind on that so don't even bother. I've played both games and my personal experience will always trump your opinions.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Certainly feels that way in some areas:
1. Subpar lfg mechanics
2. Faction imbalance
3. Lack of ui customization
4. The same PvP issues that happen again and again in these games that no one ever fixes until after the fact
The faction imbalance in this game is simply hilarious at this point. You play Imperial and planets and fleet are packed yet you can play Republic on the same server and have a chat in general with you and the one other person on your planet. Its like playing two different games. What makes it even more difficult for grouping for those that do is how awful their lfg mechanics are. So unless you get lucky and just happen to get the group quests at the same time the few other people playing on the planet picked them up you can pretty much call it a wash on completing them. Still may if it is a 4 man and you can't get a healer or tank.
Then there's how people are sectioned off from each other on the planets. Just get the game? Well, may have missed the boat because the bulk are on higher level planets so you and the few others thet get to mid levels get to trudge through what content you can by yourself or close to it. Mention it on their forums and the usual reply is:
"Well, what did you expect? People are still leveling their mains?"
"Just reroll"
"My server has 500 people on planets and fleet and still has an hour queue"
"You're just antisocial and wanna play by yourself you big fat baby. If you were really cool and friendly as you can obviously tell by my message to you and not such a loser you would be able to find groups fine. I never have a problem finding groups on my [insert random Imperial character]"
"Go back to WoW"
"Their lfg feature works just fine. Just use it. I'm sure you'll see at least one or two people looking to do something across the entire server or have something listed. Greatest feature ever made in an mmo. Besides [insert game x from ten years ago] never had one. This game doesn't need one anyways"
Really? Great reasons there.
There are some servers in this game that have a healthy population and faction levels for people to properly enjoy the game.
Then there are the rest...which suck if you're Republic.
Far as the game itself, seems pretty standard stuff to me besides what I mentioned. I suppose you could complain they didn't really build on anything ouside of the hallowed story theme element and as per the norm are going to have to rectify these concerns now rather than ahead of time. How shocking...I don't even know why these companies beta test anymore. They never listen anyways.
Think I'm going to stop wasting my time testing these games unless I want a free trial out of it.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.