Even though it is slightly grasping at straws, Blizzard did gain alot of experience with their Diablo releases(which in no way can be categorized as a RTS), both in terms of the formulas of what people want, online gaming, and the cocktail of fantasy games and RPG.
When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off, encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded.
Can we wait until the game at least reaches external testing phase before we declare it a single player RPG with co-op mode?
I am not clear on why it matters to you.
Because no one here has actually played it yet.
Sadly, for some, the very fact that it's not SWG and that BioWare is focusing on the players' story is enough to classify it as "a single-player co-op RPG." Sorry to all the SWG vets who aren't like this, but your peers give you a really bad impression overall, and you can't be upset if we tend to think that all SWG vets are like that ("foaming at the mouth" was the aforementioned description, wasn't it?)
BioWare has stated that they're trying to create a themepark/sandbox hybrid. Whether they're successful or not remains to be seen, and plenty of information still needs to be revealed. I'm looking forward to something big at E3 - Beta perhaps, or some mention of another major feature like space combat, crafting, PvP, or the "endgame" in general. Last year we got the best (in my opinion) cinematic trailer for an MMO ever. I hope this year is equally as good.
Thanks for writing this Eric. It'll be good to keep track of all the things we know as more information is released.
My feeling from all the reading I have done on this game is that this is basically Wow in the Star Wars universe. Now it is a much updated Wow with some Bioware nuances.
Hard to say what the final product will look like since it has a long way yet to beta, but at this point I believe this game has a very good chance of upsetting the apple cart in the MMO genre. I wish there were more details about the crafting system and how it affects the economy.
While the dedicated Wow player will probably stick with Wow, a lot of the undecided or bored will give this game a try and if it is half as good as the normal Bioware game, they will stay, unlike many of the previous blockbusters we have seen lately.
I would not be surprised to see 2 million subs or more within 6 months.
It will be interesting to see what Blizzard is going to counter this game with as Wow is getting long in the tooth despite the upgrades. Maybe we will know this summer at Blizzcom, the MMO they have been secretly working on the past couple years.
I will probably try this game, but it depends on how good the crafting is and how it is envolved in the eoncomy. Hopefully we won't see the "kill a bear and it drops a laser gun" type of economy.
I still don't see much that will really make this title different.
Other than the choreography of some of the animations (which is eyewash), I didn't see anything in the combat video that hasn't been done a lot already in other games.
I'd be hesitant in calling 4 classes per side "solid", unless those classes were extremely flexible - a class only in name, and not in limitations.
Same thing with claims that the crafting will be important. Just about every game makes that claim. How are they going to do so?
It does have some interesting things about it, but it still looks like it's going to be an overly-instanced, linear game.
You're an ardent defender of Star Trek Online. Don't you really enjoy overly-instanced linear games?
My feeling from all the reading I have done on this game is that this is basically Wow in the Star Wars universe. Now it is a much updated Wow with some Bioware nuances.
Hard to say what the final product will look like since it has a long way yet to beta, but at this point I believe this game has a very good chance of upsetting the apple cart in the MMO genre. I wish there were more details about the crafting system and how it affects the economy.
While the dedicated Wow player will probably stick with Wow, a lot of the undecided or bored will give this game a try and if it is half as good as the normal Bioware game, they will stay, unlike many of the previous blockbusters we have seen lately.
I would not be surprised to see 2 million subs or more within 6 months.
It will be interesting to see what Blizzard is going to counter this game with as Wow is getting long in the tooth despite the upgrades. Maybe we will know this summer at Blizzcom, the MMO they have been secretly working on the past couple years.
I will probably try this game, but it depends on how good the crafting is and how it is envolved in the eoncomy. Hopefully we won't see the "kill a bear and it drops a laser gun" type of economy.
This is basically how I feel. I also think TOR will serve as the next "gateway MMO" because plenty of Star Wars fans who've never touched an MMO will likely try it. 2 million subs... and likely more.
As for crafting:
"Crafting is another area where we’ve talked a lot about community. The systems design team is not satisfied with some other crafting systems that we’ve seen, where many players craft almost exclusively for themselves. We’ve spent quite a bit of time discussing how to ensure that crafters – true dedicated crafters – can make a name for themselves and be important in their community. But that is a discussion for a future letter." - From a Dev blog on community.
I still don't see much that will really make this title different.
Other than the choreography of some of the animations (which is eyewash), I didn't see anything in the combat video that hasn't been done a lot already in other games.
I'd be hesitant in calling 4 classes per side "solid", unless those classes were extremely flexible - a class only in name, and not in limitations.
Same thing with claims that the crafting will be important. Just about every game makes that claim. How are they going to do so?
It does have some interesting things about it, but it still looks like it's going to be an overly-instanced, linear game.
You're an ardent defender of Star Trek Online. Don't you really enjoy overly-instanced linear games?
Not to mention STO only has three classes.
A dev was quoted weeks ago now saying only about 10% of TOR was instanced, which sounds about like LotRO. Not sure why people keep saying TOR is heavily instanced unless they're intentionally spreading falsehoods.
I wasn't really aware this game only had 4 classes per side until i read this since I haven't been following along as closely as some others. Regardless, 4 classes per sides strikes me as extremely weak as a first impression.
Better to have 8 unique classes that play different from eachother and are really fun to play like WoW. Than EQ2 that has 16 or 24 really boring bland classes where most of them play the same and you find it hard to pick one because they're all so weak. In WoW all my friends was able to pick a class they loved straight away. When they came to piay EQ2 and WAR they all found themselves making ALTs trying to like a class and ended up quitting because they couldn't find one fund to play.
Prior to WoW's release, Blizzard had 0 MMO experience, and was known exclusively as a provider of RTS games.
Personally, I think you all are getting way to emo over this game and Bioware (well, any future MMO actually, I find it funny how absurdly immature the MMO comminity as a whole has become over the last decade).
As long as they release a stable and playable game and give the IP the respect it has earned in it's 40 year existence, I'm sure the game will do fine, if not exceptional.
I'm also sure everybody complaining about cartoony models will shut their pie holes the moment they start playing the game and become immersed. All of a sudden, you won't care wether or not it is ultra-realistic or not, because you'll be too busy playing the game and adventuring to give a crap.
Justy my .02... I doubt I will be proven wrong, and for those of limited intelligence, it is impossible to prove me wrong until after release.
Thank you....finally someone who understands comepletely
I will play it, but I have no expections or high hopes, those lead to fast disapointment, if the game is just mediocre I will be happy, those folks going in with high hopes, and huge expections, will be the fisrt bashing it on the forums from what I have seen in other games, I expect this game to suffer like all other mmo's do at launch, bugs, lack of content, and little to no end game, and what about space, this STAR wars not ground wars..hehhe only time will tell..
There is so much arrogance as well as ignorance on these forums.
Sure, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but opinions can carry more or less weight if they are supported or rejected on the basis of available facts.
I could say that the sun revolves around the Earth, and claim it as my opinion, but no one should listen to me or value my opinion because my arguement is rejected by the availability of facts.
How this applies - we know very little in the way of facts about SW: ToR yet.
Anyone saying anything about how "we know that it's going to be a co-op single player rpg" or "we know it's going to be mostly instanced" or anything is simply an idiot.
There is no logical nor factual basis to your arguments, and as such, your opinion is devalued to the point of lunacy and mental retardation.
Please... just... stop....
Speculation is fine, speculation is an entirely different matter... but many are so ignorant to the information available on this game, though it may be fairly sparse at this point, that it's borderline offensive.
Whenever something is majorly hiped or becoes extremely popular you will always have people who come in and do their best to try to bring it down for whatever reason.
I am an ex SWG, UO, Insert old MMO title here, player and while I do miss the days of old, they are well and gone, and to think that developers will move back to those sorts of designs now without incorperating what is popular now a days, is just silly.
People like to say this will be heavily instanced and linear and so on and so forth but have no real proof to back it up. I am sure there will be loading screens as you move from your personal story line to the main game world unless they use phasing, which I would not put it past Bioware to incorperate. If you take the quotes from exploration, in the fact that you can explore forever and the planets are huge, then that sort of tells me that the worlds themselves are not very instanced other than most likely a loading screen when you "land" on said planet.
Really we still know just too little. What we have seen is some small combat videos, some quick planetary videos and a few things on classes and flashpoints. Beyond that there really is no information. Don't get me wrong, this game may be terrible and boring as hell past the first month, but I'm with holding my judgment until we get closer and closer to the release date that is a year away.
I have been following this game's forums since long before the "decieved" trailer came out and grabbed attention.
So eveything in the article was old news to me except the fun line "A heavily armed Helen Keller" (pure gold, BTW).
The very last thing the author does is to ask what WE would like to see in the game.
For me it's: Firing while prone (sniping), Ship-to-Ship combat in space, NO Julio Torres (snrk!), and armor color/pattern customization.
In case you'v not guessed, I'm looking forward to being a Trooper, and blasting the baddies into the next galactic arm.
edit: and for all he people decrying the lack of information releases from the development team, they have from the beginning stated that they will not talk about anything that is not solidly in the game, so that they will not have to retract any publicized feature.
I applaud this kind of thinking, as frustrating as it is for the fans. It beats the heck out of telling us about all the wonderful things they THINK are going in, only to release Klingons as a side-show (oops, did I just say that out loud?)
"but we are promised by Lead Combat Designer Damion Schubert, that "We've spent quite a bit of time discussing how to ensure that crafters, true dedicated crafters, can make a name for themselves and be important in their community.""
Yep.
As you mentioned above, IF crafting was going to be so integral, so important enough to bring into play the phrase "true dedicated crafters" then it would have more credence if the Lead Crafting Designer spoke about it as opposed to the Lead Combat Designer.
I personally don't believe it is going to be anymore thought out or planned as what you see in a typical themepark mmo of the last few years. I've got no reason to believe it will be different (they haven't talked about crafting in detail) and every reason to believe it will be light (Vogel's talking about crafting; having a Lead Combat guy talk about it).
We'll see, though. I got a little excited a few weeks ago when they first used "true dedicated crafters" on a Friday update. After thinking about it since then, it stands to just be more corporate lip service to try to grab interest from more potential customers. I kinda wish they just throw out what they are going to do so that I can either stay interested or write it off my potential play list.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Why wasnt this article published a day earlier then the author could have done the "May the 4tth be with you" joke.
I used to visit this site a lot however in recent years it has become the home of negative forum posts, illogical opinions and tantrums so I visit less often.
Played or Beta'd: UO / DAOC / Horizons / EQ2 / DDO / EVE / Archlord / PirateKingsOnline / Tabula Rasa / LOTRO / AOC / Champions / Darkfall / Mortal Online / DCUO / Rift / STO / SWTOR / TSW
The fact remains the neither the fanboys or the doubters no anything about this game. What we do know is it's been in development since December 2005 and up to this point BioWare have not shown us any of the features that make this a mmorpg.
BioWare saying "yes we have those features but we can't show them yet" is not enough. Show us these vast open worlds,show us the great crafting system you say you have.
Story story story, yes we know it's story driven, so is GW2. This dumb line that the fanboys like to shout out "it's BioWare" is just pathetic.
They have not even shown us the different playable races, yes they have said you can play other races but again it's just words.
Hmm, playing other races could mean that they think the glorified pet's (companions) are the other playable races. Perhaps the next time mmorpg.com suck up to BioWare they could actually ask the question like this.
Question mmorpg.com
"Morning BioWare ,many of our readers want to know if their will be other playable races, WILL WE BE ABLE TO CREATE ANOTHER RACE AT THE CHARACTER CREATION SCREEN OTHER THAN HUMANS" Bioware would not be able to wiggle out of the question if it was put across like that, it would be a yes or a no.
The clock is ticking and one thing we can rely on is Beta Leaks once the beta starts, BioWare will not be able to stop leaks, no dev team can.
I don't agree with Beta Leaks but ill freaking read them because they come from people like us,the paying public who have heard all this bullshit hype before from many dev teams. Mythic made one of , if not the best RVR-PVP mmorpg ever but look how WAR turned out.
Anyone thinking that BioWare are in this for the love of their fans is delustional, they will tell you everything you want to hear, the only time you might realise you have been robbed is when you have bought the game.
If BioWare are that sure they have a winner then they will have a complete open beta where anyone can download and try the game out, as a matter of fact why don't they do what blizzard done and not even have an NDA and have open beta forum where anyone can go and read up on all the beta info but no post unless you are in beta.
Put your money where your mouth is BioWare, do these things once beta starts.
I doubt anyone from SWG will play SW TOR the same way as they did that game.
SW TOR IMO is a CO - OP game with a SUB fee, just another professional company, never making a mmorpg, see the market and trying to copy a WOW with a different theme.
Wrong reasons to make a mmorpg. SWG didnt die because it was crappy/outdated, it died cause the Devs were complete retards and screwed up the game.
SW TOR will never be a replacement for SWG(SWG isnt dead yet, pre-cu ), just a 1-3 month long roller coaster, nothing more imo.
That said, these are speculations and non facts, but knowing bioware and seeing their updates thus far, I think its safe to say this game is going to be very linear, and very short lived, like any roller coaster.
If it was anyone else other than Bioware delivering this game .... then i may vaguely agree. A lot of us will have a great time with us. Maybe this will give you just the shot in the arm so that you can come out of that pre NGE depression.
Nice article to the OP:
Feature wise I really just want to see some real size, to the planets that will be in at release. Any community building features would help , I would also like to see a feature in game so that it takes a minimum of a year to reach the " in Quotes" Maximum level whatever that may be.
If this is a true MMO it should be about teh STAR WARS Univers and longevity , not win in a week rude boys.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Inevitably, this is going to be one of those titles we just have to see working before we make judgement. No matter what else you think, Bioware don't have a history of releasing stinkers so I'm willing to wait...
As some folks have wondered why those vets have lost their mind over this game....here is some insight in case you missed how this drama unfolded.
I would watch the Vet Forums after the NGE, cause the nerd rage was truly epic. Plots of ruining games on shelves, trying to put up a message on brds across from Sony offices, and picketing were just some of the ideas I read about from these folks.
If you follow the threads over there following Nov 15, you will see they got wind of BW getting the SW license.
Some of the folks put 2 + 2 together to come up with....Hey we are getting Pre-CU back. Lucas is yanking the deal with SOE and giving it to BW.
So for maybe a yr they had nothing to correct these false ideas that their "PRECioUs" would be returned to them. When they found out their luv for BW quickly turned into disdain. I remember one of them having a total meltdown on the General Forums when it was announced the game would be combat-centered.
IMO these folks need to see DR Phil....as do I since I get a sick sense of enjoyment reading about their misery. When you have folks that will dress up as a comic character, to make a blog show, to complain about a company over a video game....for 4 yrs running....you know that game inspired some sick puppies.
Personally I look forward to a SW game this around....rather than a sick fantasy world that appealed to a very select few that still cant get over it. Despite what they may claim.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Comments
When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off,
encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded.
Looking forward to this game a lot. Nice article!
Sadly, for some, the very fact that it's not SWG and that BioWare is focusing on the players' story is enough to classify it as "a single-player co-op RPG." Sorry to all the SWG vets who aren't like this, but your peers give you a really bad impression overall, and you can't be upset if we tend to think that all SWG vets are like that ("foaming at the mouth" was the aforementioned description, wasn't it?)
BioWare has stated that they're trying to create a themepark/sandbox hybrid. Whether they're successful or not remains to be seen, and plenty of information still needs to be revealed. I'm looking forward to something big at E3 - Beta perhaps, or some mention of another major feature like space combat, crafting, PvP, or the "endgame" in general. Last year we got the best (in my opinion) cinematic trailer for an MMO ever. I hope this year is equally as good.
Thanks for writing this Eric. It'll be good to keep track of all the things we know as more information is released.
My feeling from all the reading I have done on this game is that this is basically Wow in the Star Wars universe. Now it is a much updated Wow with some Bioware nuances.
Hard to say what the final product will look like since it has a long way yet to beta, but at this point I believe this game has a very good chance of upsetting the apple cart in the MMO genre. I wish there were more details about the crafting system and how it affects the economy.
While the dedicated Wow player will probably stick with Wow, a lot of the undecided or bored will give this game a try and if it is half as good as the normal Bioware game, they will stay, unlike many of the previous blockbusters we have seen lately.
I would not be surprised to see 2 million subs or more within 6 months.
It will be interesting to see what Blizzard is going to counter this game with as Wow is getting long in the tooth despite the upgrades. Maybe we will know this summer at Blizzcom, the MMO they have been secretly working on the past couple years.
I will probably try this game, but it depends on how good the crafting is and how it is envolved in the eoncomy. Hopefully we won't see the "kill a bear and it drops a laser gun" type of economy.
You're an ardent defender of Star Trek Online. Don't you really enjoy overly-instanced linear games?
This is basically how I feel. I also think TOR will serve as the next "gateway MMO" because plenty of Star Wars fans who've never touched an MMO will likely try it. 2 million subs... and likely more.
As for crafting:
"Crafting is another area where we’ve talked a lot about community. The systems design team is not satisfied with some other crafting systems that we’ve seen, where many players craft almost exclusively for themselves. We’ve spent quite a bit of time discussing how to ensure that crafters – true dedicated crafters – can make a name for themselves and be important in their community. But that is a discussion for a future letter." - From a Dev blog on community.
So we'll see.
Not to mention STO only has three classes.
A dev was quoted weeks ago now saying only about 10% of TOR was instanced, which sounds about like LotRO. Not sure why people keep saying TOR is heavily instanced unless they're intentionally spreading falsehoods.
Better to have 8 unique classes that play different from eachother and are really fun to play like WoW. Than EQ2 that has 16 or 24 really boring bland classes where most of them play the same and you find it hard to pick one because they're all so weak. In WoW all my friends was able to pick a class they loved straight away. When they came to piay EQ2 and WAR they all found themselves making ALTs trying to like a class and ended up quitting because they couldn't find one fund to play.
Thank you....finally someone who understands comepletely
I will play it, but I have no expections or high hopes, those lead to fast disapointment, if the game is just mediocre I will be happy, those folks going in with high hopes, and huge expections, will be the fisrt bashing it on the forums from what I have seen in other games, I expect this game to suffer like all other mmo's do at launch, bugs, lack of content, and little to no end game, and what about space, this STAR wars not ground wars..hehhe only time will tell..
What wgc01 said.
"Hype leads to anticipation, antipation leads to fantasies, fantasies are never implemented" - Best Yoda voice.
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
There is so much arrogance as well as ignorance on these forums.
Sure, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but opinions can carry more or less weight if they are supported or rejected on the basis of available facts.
I could say that the sun revolves around the Earth, and claim it as my opinion, but no one should listen to me or value my opinion because my arguement is rejected by the availability of facts.
How this applies - we know very little in the way of facts about SW: ToR yet.
Anyone saying anything about how "we know that it's going to be a co-op single player rpg" or "we know it's going to be mostly instanced" or anything is simply an idiot.
There is no logical nor factual basis to your arguments, and as such, your opinion is devalued to the point of lunacy and mental retardation.
Please... just... stop....
Speculation is fine, speculation is an entirely different matter... but many are so ignorant to the information available on this game, though it may be fairly sparse at this point, that it's borderline offensive.
Whenever something is majorly hiped or becoes extremely popular you will always have people who come in and do their best to try to bring it down for whatever reason.
I am an ex SWG, UO, Insert old MMO title here, player and while I do miss the days of old, they are well and gone, and to think that developers will move back to those sorts of designs now without incorperating what is popular now a days, is just silly.
People like to say this will be heavily instanced and linear and so on and so forth but have no real proof to back it up. I am sure there will be loading screens as you move from your personal story line to the main game world unless they use phasing, which I would not put it past Bioware to incorperate. If you take the quotes from exploration, in the fact that you can explore forever and the planets are huge, then that sort of tells me that the worlds themselves are not very instanced other than most likely a loading screen when you "land" on said planet.
Really we still know just too little. What we have seen is some small combat videos, some quick planetary videos and a few things on classes and flashpoints. Beyond that there really is no information. Don't get me wrong, this game may be terrible and boring as hell past the first month, but I'm with holding my judgment until we get closer and closer to the release date that is a year away.
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
I have been following this game's forums since long before the "decieved" trailer came out and grabbed attention.
So eveything in the article was old news to me except the fun line "A heavily armed Helen Keller" (pure gold, BTW).
The very last thing the author does is to ask what WE would like to see in the game.
For me it's: Firing while prone (sniping), Ship-to-Ship combat in space, NO Julio Torres (snrk!), and armor color/pattern customization.
In case you'v not guessed, I'm looking forward to being a Trooper, and blasting the baddies into the next galactic arm.
edit: and for all he people decrying the lack of information releases from the development team, they have from the beginning stated that they will not talk about anything that is not solidly in the game, so that they will not have to retract any publicized feature.
I applaud this kind of thinking, as frustrating as it is for the fans. It beats the heck out of telling us about all the wonderful things they THINK are going in, only to release Klingons as a side-show (oops, did I just say that out loud?)
Yep.
As you mentioned above, IF crafting was going to be so integral, so important enough to bring into play the phrase "true dedicated crafters" then it would have more credence if the Lead Crafting Designer spoke about it as opposed to the Lead Combat Designer.
I personally don't believe it is going to be anymore thought out or planned as what you see in a typical themepark mmo of the last few years. I've got no reason to believe it will be different (they haven't talked about crafting in detail) and every reason to believe it will be light (Vogel's talking about crafting; having a Lead Combat guy talk about it).
We'll see, though. I got a little excited a few weeks ago when they first used "true dedicated crafters" on a Friday update. After thinking about it since then, it stands to just be more corporate lip service to try to grab interest from more potential customers. I kinda wish they just throw out what they are going to do so that I can either stay interested or write it off my potential play list.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
According to the blog entry in which the comment about crafting comes from, Shubert is Principal Lead Systems Designer http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20100402_001
Repost of what someone else said, hes not lead combat, hes lead systems.
After reading the above post I have to say my post here was pointless..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Who is in charge of the crafting, specifically? Anyone? If not, then it can't be a priority.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Why wasnt this article published a day earlier then the author could have done the "May the 4tth be with you" joke.
I used to visit this site a lot however in recent years it has become the home of negative forum posts, illogical opinions and tantrums so I visit less often.
Played or Beta'd: UO / DAOC / Horizons / EQ2 / DDO / EVE / Archlord / PirateKingsOnline / Tabula Rasa / LOTRO / AOC / Champions / Darkfall / Mortal Online / DCUO / Rift / STO / SWTOR / TSW
I hope the sandbox-part of the game will be like GTA with Star Wars.
I imagine Coruscant with millions of people, hover-cars, intrigues, shops and firefights in the lower areas between thugs.
The fact remains the neither the fanboys or the doubters no anything about this game. What we do know is it's been in development since December 2005 and up to this point BioWare have not shown us any of the features that make this a mmorpg.
BioWare saying "yes we have those features but we can't show them yet" is not enough. Show us these vast open worlds,show us the great crafting system you say you have.
Story story story, yes we know it's story driven, so is GW2. This dumb line that the fanboys like to shout out "it's BioWare" is just pathetic.
They have not even shown us the different playable races, yes they have said you can play other races but again it's just words.
Hmm, playing other races could mean that they think the glorified pet's (companions) are the other playable races. Perhaps the next time mmorpg.com suck up to BioWare they could actually ask the question like this.
Question mmorpg.com
"Morning BioWare ,many of our readers want to know if their will be other playable races, WILL WE BE ABLE TO CREATE ANOTHER RACE AT THE CHARACTER CREATION SCREEN OTHER THAN HUMANS" Bioware would not be able to wiggle out of the question if it was put across like that, it would be a yes or a no.
The clock is ticking and one thing we can rely on is Beta Leaks once the beta starts, BioWare will not be able to stop leaks, no dev team can.
I don't agree with Beta Leaks but ill freaking read them because they come from people like us,the paying public who have heard all this bullshit hype before from many dev teams. Mythic made one of , if not the best RVR-PVP mmorpg ever but look how WAR turned out.
Anyone thinking that BioWare are in this for the love of their fans is delustional, they will tell you everything you want to hear, the only time you might realise you have been robbed is when you have bought the game.
If BioWare are that sure they have a winner then they will have a complete open beta where anyone can download and try the game out, as a matter of fact why don't they do what blizzard done and not even have an NDA and have open beta forum where anyone can go and read up on all the beta info but no post unless you are in beta.
Put your money where your mouth is BioWare, do these things once beta starts.
Furious Fighters
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/13trindx.htm
I have faith in Bioware. They have a lot of experience and every game they create has a amazing story and game play.
If it was anyone else other than Bioware delivering this game .... then i may vaguely agree. A lot of us will have a great time with us. Maybe this will give you just the shot in the arm so that you can come out of that pre NGE depression.
Nice article to the OP:
Feature wise I really just want to see some real size, to the planets that will be in at release. Any community building features would help , I would also like to see a feature in game so that it takes a minimum of a year to reach the " in Quotes" Maximum level whatever that may be.
If this is a true MMO it should be about teh STAR WARS Univers and longevity , not win in a week rude boys.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Inevitably, this is going to be one of those titles we just have to see working before we make judgement. No matter what else you think, Bioware don't have a history of releasing stinkers so I'm willing to wait...
As some folks have wondered why those vets have lost their mind over this game....here is some insight in case you missed how this drama unfolded.
I would watch the Vet Forums after the NGE, cause the nerd rage was truly epic. Plots of ruining games on shelves, trying to put up a message on brds across from Sony offices, and picketing were just some of the ideas I read about from these folks.
If you follow the threads over there following Nov 15, you will see they got wind of BW getting the SW license.
Some of the folks put 2 + 2 together to come up with....Hey we are getting Pre-CU back. Lucas is yanking the deal with SOE and giving it to BW.
So for maybe a yr they had nothing to correct these false ideas that their "PRECioUs" would be returned to them. When they found out their luv for BW quickly turned into disdain. I remember one of them having a total meltdown on the General Forums when it was announced the game would be combat-centered.
IMO these folks need to see DR Phil....as do I since I get a sick sense of enjoyment reading about their misery. When you have folks that will dress up as a comic character, to make a blog show, to complain about a company over a video game....for 4 yrs running....you know that game inspired some sick puppies.
Personally I look forward to a SW game this around....rather than a sick fantasy world that appealed to a very select few that still cant get over it. Despite what they may claim.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.