We have no idea what it is going to be so we have no idea if we will like it or not. Lets find out what it is first when Bioware lets us know sometime this century.
What are the chances people wont like it? Slim to none as long as Bioware reveals the title soon and begins to build hype for it if it is releasing in late 2008.
If they dont do this soon, they are really setting themselves up for a sub par launch if its being released late 2008. Now, if its being released in late 2009, then they have plenty of time to not only market it, but also iron out any bugs, glitches, gameplay issues before their launch.
Ive always said since I heard about this that if it is being released in 2009 (which it probably will be), Bioware is actually pulling a brilliant move by keeping the lid on things. It totally takes the pressure off of development staff, and keeps them out of the demanding MMO community's pre-launch drama while building core components for their game.
While EA Mythic has done an excellent job of hosting a very public "out in the open" creation of WAR, I think that is a special circumstance, and cannot be done by most companies developing a mainstream MMO. Kudos to Bioware for sticking to their guns, and keeping the development process in house and quiet for the time being so they can really polish their initial concepts before we start chopping it up here on fansites like we always do.
All i want is a non Combat Level Based game skill based FTW, sandbox, with a rich story line of content for those who choose it while not forcing players to follow it.
I dont even mind jedi in game but they should be alpha and have a perma death. this is where SOE failed and jedi started popping out like rabbits instead of being in hiding. and bringing on endless nerf cries from non jedi players as many jedi became more bold in game since there was no reactions to there actions...
Last I heard the Bioware MMO is not the same as the Bioware/LA interactive entertainment product.
Here is some quotes from the Bioware MMORPG devs:
"And by directed, we don't mean linear -- we mean that you know where you have to go to have fun."
"Decisions matter, and NPCs aren't pez dispensers, and you're not in a grind."
"You run into problems when people feel they're forced to group up or raid to get somewhere in the game."
"We're probably gonna have more visual customization than you've seen in a BioWare game before."
"We don't want players to be stuck grinding through the same content over and over again -- I know when I hit level 60 in WoW, I pretty much quit. So whatever end-game model we have, it's not going to be that."
All i want is a non Combat Level Based game skill based FTW, sandbox, with a rich story line of content for those who choose it while not forcing players to follow it. I dont even mind jedi in game but they should be alpha and have a perma death. this is where SOE failed and jedi started popping out like rabbits instead of being in hiding. and bringing on endless nerf cries from non jedi players as many jedi became more bold in game since there was no reactions to there actions... sometimes you just have to pay the pimp!!
First off, it's called 'Ultima Online' and oh SWG didn't have any 'rich storyline of content' unless you where a Role Player... "Dev's make the game, Players make the content!" And yeah what great content when I got a knockdown/dizzy from someone claiming their RP is "Vader is my dad lol!"
And know what? Jedi and Alpha Classes are one of the things that turned this game into the mess you see before you! People do NOT understand what Risk vs Reward means. And with that lovely little Alpha Class they believed just getting it should be the 'risk' not if you want to keep playing it there's a ton of 'risks' in that...
You want an Alpha Class back? Fine but guess what, bring back Perma-Death and SWG will be back in the same boat it was in the first time around. People will be on the forums screaming about how unfair it is, and how much Perma-Death sucks.
Wanna know what would have helped the game in the first place? SOE, LA and Raph Koster standing firm on the whole "No Player Jedi!" That they said when the game was first in the works. They should have come out and told everyone 'clearly' on why there should be no Jedi in the GCW timeline. And really I do blame both LA whom believed people wouldn't play unless Jedi was in. And Raph cuz lord knows the man loves testing people in MMO's (See Ultima Online 1998 till 2000 the Player Killer years) to see what they will do when there's something in place like that.
And on the whole "Will people hate the BioWare/LA MMO" chances are yes. Go check out Mass Effect, great game but it's everything the Pre-CU Vets hate. It's not going to be a Pre-CU system, and chances are it will be more of a storydriven 'content' game from the get go. That's not a bad thing in my eyes, and BioWare knows how to tell a great story... See ummmm every game they have put out... Hell even that Mech game they did back in the 1990's rocked.
All i want is a non Combat Level Based game skill based FTW, sandbox, with a rich story line of content for those who choose it while not forcing players to follow it. I dont even mind jedi in game but they should be alpha and have a perma death. this is where SOE failed and jedi started popping out like rabbits instead of being in hiding. and bringing on endless nerf cries from non jedi players as many jedi became more bold in game since there was no reactions to there actions... sometimes you just have to pay the pimp!!
First off, it's called 'Ultima Online' and oh SWG didn't have any 'rich storyline of content' unless you where a Role Player... "Dev's make the game, Players make the content!" And yeah what great content when I got a knockdown/dizzy from someone claiming their RP is "Vader is my dad lol!"
And know what? Jedi and Alpha Classes are one of the things that turned this game into the mess you see before you! People do NOT understand what Risk vs Reward means. And with that lovely little Alpha Class they believed just getting it should be the 'risk' not if you want to keep playing it there's a ton of 'risks' in that...
You want an Alpha Class back? Fine but guess what, bring back Perma-Death and SWG will be back in the same boat it was in the first time around. People will be on the forums screaming about how unfair it is, and how much Perma-Death sucks.
Wanna know what would have helped the game in the first place? SOE, LA and Raph Koster standing firm on the whole "No Player Jedi!" That they said when the game was first in the works. They should have come out and told everyone 'clearly' on why there should be no Jedi in the GCW timeline. And really I do blame both LA whom believed people wouldn't play unless Jedi was in. And Raph cuz lord knows the man loves testing people in MMO's (See Ultima Online 1998 till 2000 the Player Killer years) to see what they will do when there's something in place like that.
And on the whole "Will people hate the BioWare/LA MMO" chances are yes. Go check out Mass Effect, great game but it's everything the Pre-CU Vets hate. It's not going to be a Pre-CU system, and chances are it will be more of a storydriven 'content' game from the get go. That's not a bad thing in my eyes, and BioWare knows how to tell a great story... See ummmm every game they have put out... Hell even that Mech game they did back in the 1990's rocked.
Why do people get into a concrete-brained mindset on the subject of Alphas classes? There were and are many ways for MMO developers to control such Alphas classes without permadeath (making months of grinding suddenly worthless) or restricting the numbers allowed in each Alpha class (discriminatory and open to massive abuse) or making Alpha classes so weak that they are not worth attaining. Here are just some of the ideas that could have been considered but weren't by SWG
- Make Jedi one of a number of Alpha classes - like Nightsister, Emperor's Hand, Royal Guard or Antaran Ranger, all mutually hostile
- Make a scaleable penalty for Alpha class. You die, you can't clone for an hour/three hours/a day/a week, depending on when you were last killed. These time penalties would be degradeable over time.
- Allowing BHs to group until they reach the destructive level of 1 Jedi.
- Having powerful NPC guards in major cities who could 'see' Jedi
etc, etc... You see? There are three ideas off the top of my head. SWG, of course, didn't implement any of them.
All i want is a non Combat Level Based game skill based FTW, sandbox, with a rich story line of content for those who choose it while not forcing players to follow it. I dont even mind jedi in game but they should be alpha and have a perma death. this is where SOE failed and jedi started popping out like rabbits instead of being in hiding. and bringing on endless nerf cries from non jedi players as many jedi became more bold in game since there was no reactions to there actions... sometimes you just have to pay the pimp!!
Sadly its almost 2008 and not 1998 welcome to the real world of moneymen wanting to make games for cash not just the love of it
If they are dumb enough to make the Bioware MMO like the NGE and have no skills or unique character building, then it will fail before it ever comes out. You can't peddle a softcore MMO to a hardcore fanbase. The NGE should have proven that by now.
I dont see 8 million "hardcore" players playing WOW do you..no you see a fairly simple game that will appeal to the masses,you know a game like SWG should have been from the start
I disagree, and the marketplace, it seems, agrees with me. True, WoW is a very simple game with a very large subscriber base. However, Second Life is a very sophisticated game with a subscriber base that is second only to WoW's. The SOE Devs' mistake, in my opinion was to make SWG simpler rather than more complex (and, by corollary, balanced and fixed).
I cant accept that 2nd life is a game in the true sense of the word plus its free apart from micro transactions isnt it?
Now we come to WOW..8 million peeps cant be all wrong can they? no they cant thy went for a game that frankly was simple to play and simple on the pc they where playing it from..SWG was borked from the off and i'll say it again Koster has to take the blame for this.
1/. If they have strong and powerful Alpha professions - not just Jedi - but also Nightsister, Emperor's Hand, Royal Guard and Antaran Ranger that may take one or two years to achieve but which are truly forces to be reckoned with ...
2/. If they have vast landscapes that the player can manipulate, building cities with transport, support, entertainment, medical and residential facilities...
3/. If they have an excellent space flight combat dimension - not just single-seat fighters but two-seat bombers, larger POB gunships and Guild-owned Capital Ships...
4/. If there are no 'levels', only skills to be acquired and weapons and armor to be acquired...
5/. If there are many, interdependent support professions - entertainers, artisans, engineers, architects, tailors, hunters - all of whom have a progression path as interesting as the basic combat progression...
6/. If there is a FFA PVP system that players can choose to enter - like the old SWG TEF system...
7/. If each player toon really is fully customisable - not just at start-up but, with the right facilities and support help - throughout the game...
8/. If no droppable loot is ever as powerful as craftable items - but droppable loot includes rare schematics and components...
9/. If I can interact with Darth Sion and Darth Nihilous...
I disagree, and the marketplace, it seems, agrees with me. True, WoW is a very simple game with a very large subscriber base. However, Second Life is a very sophisticated game with a subscriber base that is second only to WoW's. The SOE Devs' mistake, in my opinion was to make SWG simpler rather than more complex (and, by corollary, balanced and fixed).
I cant accept that 2nd life is a game in the true sense of the word plus its free apart from micro transactions isnt it?
Now we come to WOW..8 million peeps cant be all wrong can they? no they cant thy went for a game that frankly was simple to play and simple on the pc they where playing it from..SWG was borked from the off and i'll say it again Koster has to take the blame for this.
The fact that you don't accept 2nd Life as a game doesn't make that game any less of a fact. And a massive cash-making phenomenon very nearly the equal of WoW at that. Don't believe me - try it for yourself. Though it does take a more mature, more questing mind to play - the kind of mindset, it seems, that the old school SWG Vets once shared.
If the Bioware MMO is a star wars MMO I think it will go 50/50 for SWG fans. I think new fans will like it. And Bioware fans will like it. But SWG fans are going to be in for a shock if they do not have player items, houses, space, etc. But I guess it is only speculation because how the hades do we know if it is even true? Can you guys see player cities in a this mmo? I can see player apartments based on KOTOR> but really how much freedom is one going to have in a KOTOR Bioware MMO? SWG was a Koster and party design. It was all about freedom and community game play. But here we are speculating.
Speculation speculation and more speculation its all i ever see, no hard facts that its going to be a kotor mmo or even that its going to be an mmo the only facts that are for sure are bioware and lucas arts are partnering to make an interactive product....thats it nothing else.
So im going to speculate a little, yes i belief bioware/lucasarts are making an "interactive product" and it will be knights of the old republic 3 the last part of the trilogy that raps everything up soon to be available for playstation 3, xbox 360 and windows vista users and thats it...no mmo just the last part of the trilogy, come on guys what sounds more convincing trying to resurrect an old mmo title like starwars and risking taking a huge battering from the fan base for not getting it right and even more important to bioware/lucasarts the huge risk of pumping in millions of dollars and ultimatly running it at a loss or revive a successful multi platform rpg that still has a huge dedicated fan base waiting to see how the kotor story finally ends on there nice brand spanking new next gen machines.
I disagree, and the marketplace, it seems, agrees with me. True, WoW is a very simple game with a very large subscriber base. However, Second Life is a very sophisticated game with a subscriber base that is second only to WoW's. The SOE Devs' mistake, in my opinion was to make SWG simpler rather than more complex (and, by corollary, balanced and fixed).
I cant accept that 2nd life is a game in the true sense of the word plus its free apart from micro transactions isnt it?
Now we come to WOW..8 million peeps cant be all wrong can they? no they cant thy went for a game that frankly was simple to play and simple on the pc they where playing it from..SWG was borked from the off and i'll say it again Koster has to take the blame for this.
The fact that you don't accept 2nd Life as a game doesn't make that game any less of a fact. And a massive cash-making phenomenon very nearly the equal of WoW at that. Don't believe me - try it for yourself. Though it does take a more mature, more questing mind to play - the kind of mindset, it seems, that the old school SWG Vets once shared.
I have tried it thats the point..its not a game its a chat room with some very odd people populating the world not my cup of tea thank you very much
All i want is a non Combat Level Based game skill based FTW, sandbox, with a rich story line of content for those who choose it while not forcing players to follow it. I dont even mind jedi in game but they should be alpha and have a perma death. this is where SOE failed and jedi started popping out like rabbits instead of being in hiding. and bringing on endless nerf cries from non jedi players as many jedi became more bold in game since there was no reactions to there actions... sometimes you just have to pay the pimp!!
First off, it's called 'Ultima Online' and oh SWG didn't have any 'rich storyline of content' unless you where a Role Player... "Dev's make the game, Players make the content!" And yeah what great content when I got a knockdown/dizzy from someone claiming their RP is "Vader is my dad lol!"
And know what? Jedi and Alpha Classes are one of the things that turned this game into the mess you see before you! People do NOT understand what Risk vs Reward means. And with that lovely little Alpha Class they believed just getting it should be the 'risk' not if you want to keep playing it there's a ton of 'risks' in that...
You want an Alpha Class back? Fine but guess what, bring back Perma-Death and SWG will be back in the same boat it was in the first time around. People will be on the forums screaming about how unfair it is, and how much Perma-Death sucks.
Wanna know what would have helped the game in the first place? SOE, LA and Raph Koster standing firm on the whole "No Player Jedi!" That they said when the game was first in the works. They should have come out and told everyone 'clearly' on why there should be no Jedi in the GCW timeline. And really I do blame both LA whom believed people wouldn't play unless Jedi was in. And Raph cuz lord knows the man loves testing people in MMO's (See Ultima Online 1998 till 2000 the Player Killer years) to see what they will do when there's something in place like that.
And on the whole "Will people hate the BioWare/LA MMO" chances are yes. Go check out Mass Effect, great game but it's everything the Pre-CU Vets hate. It's not going to be a Pre-CU system, and chances are it will be more of a storydriven 'content' game from the get go. That's not a bad thing in my eyes, and BioWare knows how to tell a great story... See ummmm every game they have put out... Hell even that Mech game they did back in the 1990's rocked.
Why do people get into a concrete-brained mindset on the subject of Alphas classes? There were and are many ways for MMO developers to control such Alphas classes without permadeath (making months of grinding suddenly worthless) or restricting the numbers allowed in each Alpha class (discriminatory and open to massive abuse) or making Alpha classes so weak that they are not worth attaining. Here are just some of the ideas that could have been considered but weren't by SWG
- Make Jedi one of a number of Alpha classes - like Nightsister, Emperor's Hand, Royal Guard or Antaran Ranger, all mutually hostile
- Make a scaleable penalty for Alpha class. You die, you can't clone for an hour/three hours/a day/a week, depending on when you were last killed. These time penalties would be degradeable over time.
- Allowing BHs to group until they reach the destructive level of 1 Jedi.
- Having powerful NPC guards in major cities who could 'see' Jedi
etc, etc... You see? There are three ideas off the top of my head. SWG, of course, didn't implement any of them.
Wanna know why? Alpha Classes just do NOT work in an MMO. Even if you have 2 or 4 or 10 types of Alpha Classes you will still run into the same faults with it that SWG did. People will flock to whatever the Alpha Class is, and if it's 'too hard' or if there is some system to keep them in line. There will be outrage and after a few months those making the game will 'give in' and make it easyer.
Also think of the long term with Alpha Classes, we saw this with SWG. Those playing the Alpha Classes will find the game 'too easy' and those making the game will make it harder. So now the Alpha people have a harder game, those that are not playing it are going to have a really hard time and now are forced to go Alpha. Then there's PvP, and well look at what happen with the GCW system with all the Jedi running around in the CU. It turned into one big Jedi fight.
The point is Alpha Classes will never work in an MMORPG game. It just throws off any idea of balance and makes the game less fun for those coming into it.
Why do people get into a concrete-brained mindset on the subject of Alphas classes? There were and are many ways for MMO developers to control such Alphas classes without permadeath (making months of grinding suddenly worthless) or restricting the numbers allowed in each Alpha class (discriminatory and open to massive abuse) or making Alpha classes so weak that they are not worth attaining. Here are just some of the ideas that could have been considered but weren't by SWG - Make Jedi one of a number of Alpha classes - like Nightsister, Emperor's Hand, Royal Guard or Antaran Ranger, all mutually hostile - Make a scaleable penalty for Alpha class. You die, you can't clone for an hour/three hours/a day/a week, depending on when you were last killed. These time penalties would be degradeable over time. - Allowing BHs to group until they reach the destructive level of 1 Jedi. - Having powerful NPC guards in major cities who could 'see' Jedi etc, etc... You see? There are three ideas off the top of my head. SWG, of course, didn't implement any of them.
Wanna know why? Alpha Classes just do NOT work in an MMO. Even if you have 2 or 4 or 10 types of Alpha Classes you will still run into the same faults with it that SWG did. People will flock to whatever the Alpha Class is, and if it's 'too hard' or if there is some system to keep them in line. There will be outrage and after a few months those making the game will 'give in' and make it easyer.
Also think of the long term with Alpha Classes, we saw this with SWG. Those playing the Alpha Classes will find the game 'too easy' and those making the game will make it harder. So now the Alpha people have a harder game, those that are not playing it are going to have a really hard time and now are forced to go Alpha. Then there's PvP, and well look at what happen with the GCW system with all the Jedi running around in the CU. It turned into one big Jedi fight.
The point is Alpha Classes will never work in an MMORPG game. It just throws off any idea of balance and makes the game less fun for those coming into it.
All right, here it is:
What we have here is a simple difference in conclusion. You say that Alpha Classes didn't work in SWG; I say they did. Simple as that.
I actually posted a poll on mmorpg.com posing the question: if SWG were relaunched, would you want powerful Jedi unlockable after a long process or not? And 85% said yes. Not a scientific poll, I would immediately say, but the vast overwhelming majority it revealed in favour of the proposition shows that whatever you personally may feel about this, a lot more people believe the opposite.,
I think a LOT of people are going to hate whatever they make....because people are already drumming up absurd expectations...and they've no idea about anything of the game, save that SOMETHING is being made...
Remember that game "Fable" and all teh hype that went with it...well...i don't think the game was that bad, it was actually pretty fun. However, because all of the promioses that its producers made never surfaced...people hated the game...because it wasn't what they were expecting.
In this case, its not even the game developers doing it...its players with no clue about anything, already setting themselves up for dissapointment.
Spot on.
Ever since the release of AO, ( Wich honestly have since evolved to something good ), I try to not have any expectations what so ever.
After all, it is much more fulfilling to bo pleasantly surprised then the opposite, and if you build un-achievable air castles you are pretty much certain to be.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not a straight WoW clone, more like taking their approach to single player RPGs and turning it into a multiplayer game. Linear story telling and character advancement are their trademarks and they've said that's how they plan to approach their MMO. They've ruled out taking a sandbox approach, flat out not going to happen, no player cities, no complex crafting, no player driven economy, they wouldn't even commit to having a form of player housing. They aren't making SWG2 or anything like SWG.
As for Second Life.. it's not a game unless you think interactive pixel porn is a game. Whilst it may be big business, it's 90% pornographic material making that money, something most game companies wouldn't want to get involved in.
And Second Life isn't second to WoW in number of users, it's had 1.8 million people try it, active user count is vague at best, but that number they advertise is the number of people who made an account and logged in once during it's life time. Even if that was active users, there are a dozen of so Asian MMOs that have way more than that, hell Lineage 2 still has over 2 million active subscribers worldwide.
SL is all smoke screens and porn and isn't a game by definition of Linden Labs themselves. It's a virtual world.
Not a straight WoW clone, more like taking their approach to single player RPGs and turning it into a multiplayer game. Linear story telling and character advancement are their trademarks and they've said that's how they plan to approach their MMO. They've ruled out taking a sandbox approach, flat out not going to happen, no player cities, no complex crafting, no player driven economy, they wouldn't even commit to having a form of player housing. They aren't making SWG2 or anything like SWG. As for Second Life.. it's not a game unless you think interactive pixel porn is a game. Whilst it may be big business, it's 90% pornographic material making that money, something most game companies wouldn't want to get involved in. And Second Life isn't second to WoW in number of users, it's had 1.8 million people try it, active user count is vague at best, but that number they advertise is the number of people who made an account and logged in once during it's life time. Even if that was active users, there are a dozen of so Asian MMOs that have way more than that, hell Lineage 2 still has over 2 million active subscribers worldwide. SL is all smoke screens and porn and isn't a game by definition of Linden Labs themselves. It's a virtual world.
Please provide a link as to where Bioware 'ruled out taking a sandbox' approach? No information has been released about this game whatsoever. Did you just make this up?
Your basic facts on Second Life are incorrect. I guess you found so much porn because you went looking for wank-material. I played this game for two years and found very little -- I was playing a premium account, $9.99 pm. Twenty million accounts have been registered though far, far fewer are active - there are apparenlty 2.2 million 'active residents'. This is smaller than WoW's 7.5 million subscribers but it is still a significant figure for a US game. Oh, and Linden Labs does call it a game - so does mmorpg.com, that's why it's listed under 'released Games'. Here's what the New York Times called it
'While Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, this description does not fit the standard definition. It does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games, though it can be thought of as a game on a more basic level because it is "played for fun".
Read lesson 10.. this is the guy making the BioWare MMO, it's not a huge leap of faith to assume it will follow his design principles.
Second Life isn't a game or there would be ESRB, PEGI and BBFC ratings for it, it's circumvented these rating systems by claiming it's not entertainment software. Which has partly led to the legal issues they now face for having adult rated content available to minors due to no previous rating or age verification systems. As an ex-Linden GM, I think I have a better understanding of what the product is.. pornographic content is the major money in SL, it may not be the most traded commodity, but it sells for a lot more than a chair or a pair of shoes. Though I may be a little bitter.. sorta get pissed off with it after the hundredth time of some prat telling you his virtual dick fell off as he teleported, the simple fact is, if you take porn out of SL, it's no longer profitable, as the rest of the item/service market is currently being saturated by a lady from China and her company of slaves who undercut all the home grown business people.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15386 Read lesson 10.. this is the guy making the BioWare MMO, it's not a huge leap of faith to assume it will follow his design principles. Second Life isn't a game or there would be ESRB, PEGI and BBFC ratings for it, it's circumvented these rating systems by claiming it's not entertainment software. Which has partly led to the legal issues they now face for having adult rated content available to minors due to no previous rating or age verification systems. As an ex-Linden GM, I think I have a better understanding of what the product is.. pornographic content is the major money in SL, it may not be the most traded commodity, but it sells for a lot more than a chair or a pair of shoes. Though I may be a little bitter.. sorta get pissed off with it after the hundredth time of some prat telling you his virtual dick fell off as he teleported, the simple fact is, if you take porn out of SL, it's no longer profitable, as the rest of the item/service market is currently being saturated by a lady from China and her company of slaves who undercut all the home grown business people.
Well, regarding the Bioware MMO; we're just going to have to see, aren't we?
Comments
We have no idea what it is going to be so we have no idea if we will like it or not. Lets find out what it is first when Bioware lets us know sometime this century.
What are the chances people wont like it? Slim to none as long as Bioware reveals the title soon and begins to build hype for it if it is releasing in late 2008.
If they dont do this soon, they are really setting themselves up for a sub par launch if its being released late 2008. Now, if its being released in late 2009, then they have plenty of time to not only market it, but also iron out any bugs, glitches, gameplay issues before their launch.
Ive always said since I heard about this that if it is being released in 2009 (which it probably will be), Bioware is actually pulling a brilliant move by keeping the lid on things. It totally takes the pressure off of development staff, and keeps them out of the demanding MMO community's pre-launch drama while building core components for their game.
While EA Mythic has done an excellent job of hosting a very public "out in the open" creation of WAR, I think that is a special circumstance, and cannot be done by most companies developing a mainstream MMO. Kudos to Bioware for sticking to their guns, and keeping the development process in house and quiet for the time being so they can really polish their initial concepts before we start chopping it up here on fansites like we always do.
We loved Pre-CU because despite it being broken and flawed, it was RIGHT... We just wanted it fixed and content added.
SOE didn't do either.
Well wasn't the EA buyout of BioWare approved?
I mean really aren't we now talking about the LA / EA MMO?
Looking at EA's success with MMO's... Lets say I'd go with it was 90% more likely before EA was involved.
I've heard this "business as usual" after an EA buyout ... 2 or 3 times already (just with mmo's).
All i want is a non Combat Level Based game skill based FTW, sandbox, with a rich story line of content for those who choose it while not forcing players to follow it.
I dont even mind jedi in game but they should be alpha and have a perma death. this is where SOE failed and jedi started popping out like rabbits instead of being in hiding. and bringing on endless nerf cries from non jedi players as many jedi became more bold in game since there was no reactions to there actions...
sometimes you just have to pay the pimp!!
Last I heard the Bioware MMO is not the same as the Bioware/LA interactive entertainment product.
Here is some quotes from the Bioware MMORPG devs:
"And by directed, we don't mean linear -- we mean that you know where you have to go to have fun."
"Decisions matter, and NPCs aren't pez dispensers, and you're not in a grind."
"You run into problems when people feel they're forced to group up or raid to get somewhere in the game."
"We're probably gonna have more visual customization than you've seen in a BioWare game before."
"We don't want players to be stuck grinding through the same content over and over again -- I know when I hit level 60 in WoW, I pretty much quit. So whatever end-game model we have, it's not going to be that."
It is from here:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3155486
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
First off, it's called 'Ultima Online' and oh SWG didn't have any 'rich storyline of content' unless you where a Role Player... "Dev's make the game, Players make the content!" And yeah what great content when I got a knockdown/dizzy from someone claiming their RP is "Vader is my dad lol!"
And know what? Jedi and Alpha Classes are one of the things that turned this game into the mess you see before you! People do NOT understand what Risk vs Reward means. And with that lovely little Alpha Class they believed just getting it should be the 'risk' not if you want to keep playing it there's a ton of 'risks' in that...
You want an Alpha Class back? Fine but guess what, bring back Perma-Death and SWG will be back in the same boat it was in the first time around. People will be on the forums screaming about how unfair it is, and how much Perma-Death sucks.
Wanna know what would have helped the game in the first place? SOE, LA and Raph Koster standing firm on the whole "No Player Jedi!" That they said when the game was first in the works. They should have come out and told everyone 'clearly' on why there should be no Jedi in the GCW timeline. And really I do blame both LA whom believed people wouldn't play unless Jedi was in. And Raph cuz lord knows the man loves testing people in MMO's (See Ultima Online 1998 till 2000 the Player Killer years) to see what they will do when there's something in place like that.
And on the whole "Will people hate the BioWare/LA MMO" chances are yes. Go check out Mass Effect, great game but it's everything the Pre-CU Vets hate. It's not going to be a Pre-CU system, and chances are it will be more of a storydriven 'content' game from the get go. That's not a bad thing in my eyes, and BioWare knows how to tell a great story... See ummmm every game they have put out... Hell even that Mech game they did back in the 1990's rocked.
First off, it's called 'Ultima Online' and oh SWG didn't have any 'rich storyline of content' unless you where a Role Player... "Dev's make the game, Players make the content!" And yeah what great content when I got a knockdown/dizzy from someone claiming their RP is "Vader is my dad lol!"
And know what? Jedi and Alpha Classes are one of the things that turned this game into the mess you see before you! People do NOT understand what Risk vs Reward means. And with that lovely little Alpha Class they believed just getting it should be the 'risk' not if you want to keep playing it there's a ton of 'risks' in that...
You want an Alpha Class back? Fine but guess what, bring back Perma-Death and SWG will be back in the same boat it was in the first time around. People will be on the forums screaming about how unfair it is, and how much Perma-Death sucks.
Wanna know what would have helped the game in the first place? SOE, LA and Raph Koster standing firm on the whole "No Player Jedi!" That they said when the game was first in the works. They should have come out and told everyone 'clearly' on why there should be no Jedi in the GCW timeline. And really I do blame both LA whom believed people wouldn't play unless Jedi was in. And Raph cuz lord knows the man loves testing people in MMO's (See Ultima Online 1998 till 2000 the Player Killer years) to see what they will do when there's something in place like that.
And on the whole "Will people hate the BioWare/LA MMO" chances are yes. Go check out Mass Effect, great game but it's everything the Pre-CU Vets hate. It's not going to be a Pre-CU system, and chances are it will be more of a storydriven 'content' game from the get go. That's not a bad thing in my eyes, and BioWare knows how to tell a great story... See ummmm every game they have put out... Hell even that Mech game they did back in the 1990's rocked.
Why do people get into a concrete-brained mindset on the subject of Alphas classes? There were and are many ways for MMO developers to control such Alphas classes without permadeath (making months of grinding suddenly worthless) or restricting the numbers allowed in each Alpha class (discriminatory and open to massive abuse) or making Alpha classes so weak that they are not worth attaining. Here are just some of the ideas that could have been considered but weren't by SWG
- Make Jedi one of a number of Alpha classes - like Nightsister, Emperor's Hand, Royal Guard or Antaran Ranger, all mutually hostile
- Make a scaleable penalty for Alpha class. You die, you can't clone for an hour/three hours/a day/a week, depending on when you were last killed. These time penalties would be degradeable over time.
- Allowing BHs to group until they reach the destructive level of 1 Jedi.
- Having powerful NPC guards in major cities who could 'see' Jedi
etc, etc... You see? There are three ideas off the top of my head. SWG, of course, didn't implement any of them.
Just curious...do these posts get tossed into one thread?
Was wondering cause they are all starting...starting?
Well all I have to say is someone needs to fix the record player cause this song keeps skipping...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Never thought of that but yes i would imagine itd would widen the playerbase of it
Sadly its almost 2008 and not 1998 welcome to the real world of moneymen wanting to make games for cash not just the love of it
I dont see 8 million "hardcore" players playing WOW do you..no you see a fairly simple game that will appeal to the masses,you know a game like SWG should have been from the start
I disagree, and the marketplace, it seems, agrees with me. True, WoW is a very simple game with a very large subscriber base. However, Second Life is a very sophisticated game with a subscriber base that is second only to WoW's. The SOE Devs' mistake, in my opinion was to make SWG simpler rather than more complex (and, by corollary, balanced and fixed).
I cant accept that 2nd life is a game in the true sense of the word plus its free apart from micro transactions isnt it?Now we come to WOW..8 million peeps cant be all wrong can they? no they cant thy went for a game that frankly was simple to play and simple on the pc they where playing it from..SWG was borked from the off and i'll say it again Koster has to take the blame for this.
1/. If they have strong and powerful Alpha professions - not just Jedi - but also Nightsister, Emperor's Hand, Royal Guard and Antaran Ranger that may take one or two years to achieve but which are truly forces to be reckoned with ...
2/. If they have vast landscapes that the player can manipulate, building cities with transport, support, entertainment, medical and residential facilities...
3/. If they have an excellent space flight combat dimension - not just single-seat fighters but two-seat bombers, larger POB gunships and Guild-owned Capital Ships...
4/. If there are no 'levels', only skills to be acquired and weapons and armor to be acquired...
5/. If there are many, interdependent support professions - entertainers, artisans, engineers, architects, tailors, hunters - all of whom have a progression path as interesting as the basic combat progression...
6/. If there is a FFA PVP system that players can choose to enter - like the old SWG TEF system...
7/. If each player toon really is fully customisable - not just at start-up but, with the right facilities and support help - throughout the game...
8/. If no droppable loot is ever as powerful as craftable items - but droppable loot includes rare schematics and components...
9/. If I can interact with Darth Sion and Darth Nihilous...
...Then I, for one, would be very pleased.
Now we come to WOW..8 million peeps cant be all wrong can they? no they cant thy went for a game that frankly was simple to play and simple on the pc they where playing it from..SWG was borked from the off and i'll say it again Koster has to take the blame for this.
The fact that you don't accept 2nd Life as a game doesn't make that game any less of a fact. And a massive cash-making phenomenon very nearly the equal of WoW at that. Don't believe me - try it for yourself. Though it does take a more mature, more questing mind to play - the kind of mindset, it seems, that the old school SWG Vets once shared.
Speculation speculation and more speculation its all i ever see, no hard facts that its going to be a kotor mmo or even that its going to be an mmo
the only facts that are for sure are bioware and lucas arts are partnering to make an interactive product....thats it nothing else.
So im going to speculate a little, yes i belief bioware/lucasarts are making an "interactive product" and it will be knights of the old republic 3 the last part of the trilogy that raps everything up soon to be available for playstation 3, xbox 360 and windows vista users and thats it...no mmo just the last part of the trilogy, come on guys what sounds more convincing trying to resurrect an old mmo title like starwars and risking taking a huge battering from the fan base for not getting it right and even more important to bioware/lucasarts the huge risk of pumping in millions of dollars and ultimatly running it at a loss or revive a successful multi platform rpg that still has a huge dedicated fan base waiting to see how the kotor story finally ends on there nice brand spanking new next gen machines.
Ok I'll shuttup now .......
Now we come to WOW..8 million peeps cant be all wrong can they? no they cant thy went for a game that frankly was simple to play and simple on the pc they where playing it from..SWG was borked from the off and i'll say it again Koster has to take the blame for this.
The fact that you don't accept 2nd Life as a game doesn't make that game any less of a fact. And a massive cash-making phenomenon very nearly the equal of WoW at that. Don't believe me - try it for yourself. Though it does take a more mature, more questing mind to play - the kind of mindset, it seems, that the old school SWG Vets once shared.
I have tried it thats the point..its not a game its a chat room with some very odd people populating the world not my cup of tea thank you very much
First off, it's called 'Ultima Online' and oh SWG didn't have any 'rich storyline of content' unless you where a Role Player... "Dev's make the game, Players make the content!" And yeah what great content when I got a knockdown/dizzy from someone claiming their RP is "Vader is my dad lol!"
And know what? Jedi and Alpha Classes are one of the things that turned this game into the mess you see before you! People do NOT understand what Risk vs Reward means. And with that lovely little Alpha Class they believed just getting it should be the 'risk' not if you want to keep playing it there's a ton of 'risks' in that...
You want an Alpha Class back? Fine but guess what, bring back Perma-Death and SWG will be back in the same boat it was in the first time around. People will be on the forums screaming about how unfair it is, and how much Perma-Death sucks.
Wanna know what would have helped the game in the first place? SOE, LA and Raph Koster standing firm on the whole "No Player Jedi!" That they said when the game was first in the works. They should have come out and told everyone 'clearly' on why there should be no Jedi in the GCW timeline. And really I do blame both LA whom believed people wouldn't play unless Jedi was in. And Raph cuz lord knows the man loves testing people in MMO's (See Ultima Online 1998 till 2000 the Player Killer years) to see what they will do when there's something in place like that.
And on the whole "Will people hate the BioWare/LA MMO" chances are yes. Go check out Mass Effect, great game but it's everything the Pre-CU Vets hate. It's not going to be a Pre-CU system, and chances are it will be more of a storydriven 'content' game from the get go. That's not a bad thing in my eyes, and BioWare knows how to tell a great story... See ummmm every game they have put out... Hell even that Mech game they did back in the 1990's rocked.
Why do people get into a concrete-brained mindset on the subject of Alphas classes? There were and are many ways for MMO developers to control such Alphas classes without permadeath (making months of grinding suddenly worthless) or restricting the numbers allowed in each Alpha class (discriminatory and open to massive abuse) or making Alpha classes so weak that they are not worth attaining. Here are just some of the ideas that could have been considered but weren't by SWG
- Make Jedi one of a number of Alpha classes - like Nightsister, Emperor's Hand, Royal Guard or Antaran Ranger, all mutually hostile
- Make a scaleable penalty for Alpha class. You die, you can't clone for an hour/three hours/a day/a week, depending on when you were last killed. These time penalties would be degradeable over time.
- Allowing BHs to group until they reach the destructive level of 1 Jedi.
- Having powerful NPC guards in major cities who could 'see' Jedi
etc, etc... You see? There are three ideas off the top of my head. SWG, of course, didn't implement any of them.
Wanna know why? Alpha Classes just do NOT work in an MMO. Even if you have 2 or 4 or 10 types of Alpha Classes you will still run into the same faults with it that SWG did. People will flock to whatever the Alpha Class is, and if it's 'too hard' or if there is some system to keep them in line. There will be outrage and after a few months those making the game will 'give in' and make it easyer.Also think of the long term with Alpha Classes, we saw this with SWG. Those playing the Alpha Classes will find the game 'too easy' and those making the game will make it harder. So now the Alpha people have a harder game, those that are not playing it are going to have a really hard time and now are forced to go Alpha. Then there's PvP, and well look at what happen with the GCW system with all the Jedi running around in the CU. It turned into one big Jedi fight.
The point is Alpha Classes will never work in an MMORPG game. It just throws off any idea of balance and makes the game less fun for those coming into it.
Also think of the long term with Alpha Classes, we saw this with SWG. Those playing the Alpha Classes will find the game 'too easy' and those making the game will make it harder. So now the Alpha people have a harder game, those that are not playing it are going to have a really hard time and now are forced to go Alpha. Then there's PvP, and well look at what happen with the GCW system with all the Jedi running around in the CU. It turned into one big Jedi fight.
The point is Alpha Classes will never work in an MMORPG game. It just throws off any idea of balance and makes the game less fun for those coming into it.
All right, here it is:What we have here is a simple difference in conclusion. You say that Alpha Classes didn't work in SWG; I say they did. Simple as that.
I actually posted a poll on mmorpg.com posing the question: if SWG were relaunched, would you want powerful Jedi unlockable after a long process or not? And 85% said yes. Not a scientific poll, I would immediately say, but the vast overwhelming majority it revealed in favour of the proposition shows that whatever you personally may feel about this, a lot more people believe the opposite.,
I really hope they have learned some thing from the disaster NGE was.
Spot on.
Ever since the release of AO, ( Wich honestly have since evolved to something good ), I try to not have any expectations what so ever.
After all, it is much more fulfilling to bo pleasantly surprised then the opposite, and if you build un-achievable air castles you are pretty much certain to be.
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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Not a straight WoW clone, more like taking their approach to single player RPGs and turning it into a multiplayer game. Linear story telling and character advancement are their trademarks and they've said that's how they plan to approach their MMO. They've ruled out taking a sandbox approach, flat out not going to happen, no player cities, no complex crafting, no player driven economy, they wouldn't even commit to having a form of player housing. They aren't making SWG2 or anything like SWG.
As for Second Life.. it's not a game unless you think interactive pixel porn is a game. Whilst it may be big business, it's 90% pornographic material making that money, something most game companies wouldn't want to get involved in.
And Second Life isn't second to WoW in number of users, it's had 1.8 million people try it, active user count is vague at best, but that number they advertise is the number of people who made an account and logged in once during it's life time. Even if that was active users, there are a dozen of so Asian MMOs that have way more than that, hell Lineage 2 still has over 2 million active subscribers worldwide.
SL is all smoke screens and porn and isn't a game by definition of Linden Labs themselves. It's a virtual world.
Your basic facts on Second Life are incorrect. I guess you found so much porn because you went looking for wank-material. I played this game for two years and found very little -- I was playing a premium account, $9.99 pm. Twenty million accounts have been registered though far, far fewer are active - there are apparenlty 2.2 million 'active residents'. This is smaller than WoW's 7.5 million subscribers but it is still a significant figure for a US game. Oh, and Linden Labs does call it a game - so does mmorpg.com, that's why it's listed under 'released Games'. Here's what the New York Times called it
'While Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, this description does not fit the standard definition. It does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games, though it can be thought of as a game on a more basic level because it is "played for fun".
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15386
Read lesson 10.. this is the guy making the BioWare MMO, it's not a huge leap of faith to assume it will follow his design principles.
Second Life isn't a game or there would be ESRB, PEGI and BBFC ratings for it, it's circumvented these rating systems by claiming it's not entertainment software. Which has partly led to the legal issues they now face for having adult rated content available to minors due to no previous rating or age verification systems. As an ex-Linden GM, I think I have a better understanding of what the product is.. pornographic content is the major money in SL, it may not be the most traded commodity, but it sells for a lot more than a chair or a pair of shoes. Though I may be a little bitter.. sorta get pissed off with it after the hundredth time of some prat telling you his virtual dick fell off as he teleported, the simple fact is, if you take porn out of SL, it's no longer profitable, as the rest of the item/service market is currently being saturated by a lady from China and her company of slaves who undercut all the home grown business people.
Well, regarding the Bioware MMO; we're just going to have to see, aren't we?As for your views on SL; sure.