us, of lesser brains and imagination, have thought about it for some time and i have reached the conclusion that if a game decides to be online and attract all these people, it might as well allow them to play together and who knows; maybe create their own social or otherwise content whilst they are at it?
Those of us with greater brains and imagination wouldn't be putting in systems that indirectly discourage grouping.
Some of us realize you can do both....
It's entirely possible to cater to both, why is it so hard to accept that? There are players who like to group, there are players who like going solo, then there are others like me who do both regularly. Because most MMO's allow it. Most always have.
There's no need to focus on just one segment of the MMO population in this regard. Someone said a few posts back some people just kick and scream all the while knowing, they have the option to do what they're screaming for. Yet they don't do it unless it's forced on them. That's pretty much spot on, the only people hurt by options are those he's referring to. Good riddance if you ask me, most of these players are void of any social skill outside of whining (that's why they need forced grouping), who needs them? We'd probably be better off in most games without them.
I agree with you, but I think a big part of what is missing from today's MMOs is having those two player types working together for one common cause. For the most part, both types of players in todays MMOs are only in it for themselves. There's nothing wrong with that either, but some of us yearn for something more. We want to be part of the world, rather than just playing around in it. And we'd like you to be a part of it as well.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I agree with you, but I think a big part of what is missing from today's MMOs is having those two player types working together for one common cause. For the most part, both types of players in todays MMOs are only in it for themselves. There's nothing wrong with that either, but some of us yearn for something more. We want to be part of the world, rather than just playing around in it. And we'd like you to be a part of it as well.
See, to me, this is part of exactly what RPGs offer, that MMOs have not offered, and which TOR promises to bring to MMOs, enriching the genre and bringing it up to speed with RPGs via the very things you think are going to dilute it. Interesting.
Originally posted by Palebane
Originally posted by Saerain
Which always sounds real nice and pretty, but it has never once been the case.
Everquest was like that for a long time. To many people. From what I hear, EvE is like that also.
EverQuest was a textbook themepark game. There was nothing about it that facilitated the ideal sandbox gameplay Lobotomist describes any more than just about any other MMO, as far as I can see. Of course, a good roleplayer can do that, but I thought we were talking game design, not what player communities choose to do after the fact. Norrath was about as static and uninteractive as they've come, despite whatever my nostalgia often tries to warp it into.
EVE is a sandbox game, sure, and in my opinion the best of them, capitalizing on everything that makes that model attractive. I'd say it's a masterpiece. I'd not say that players write their own story in the sense of the word 'story' in an RPG. Players do what they will, sure. Players build alliances and wage wars as they will, sure. But if that's 'story,' the EVE community is creatively retarded. That's like saying a game of tabletop Warhammer tells a story. Bullshit. It's just a battle.
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
@Comnitus : You are exactly the unique snowflake I was talking too. So far, we have seen game play with groups and with solos, but nothing involving sitting around Dalaran and having tons of characters just stand around and interact. It is possible that KOTOR 3 to Infinity (aka SWTOR) involves storylines and quests for solos (simulating KOTOR) and for groups (simulating KOTOR as if other people could pick up the controller to your XBox and game right along with you). I believe this is the vision that is being presented to the masses as SWTOR. You can be as sarcastic as you like, but it will not change the facts as they have been presented so far*.
It is also possible that the fastest way from A->B is going to be through the group version, still allowing A->B to be transversed solo, if slower. This would mimic every other MMO we have seen to date.
* "so far", meaning given the evidence already available, in no way am I claiming to be a prophet nor a BW insider.
I agree with you, but I think a big part of what is missing from today's MMOs is having those two player types working together for one common cause. For the most part, both types of players in todays MMOs are only in it for themselves. There's nothing wrong with that either, but some of us yearn for something more. We want to be part of the world, rather than just playing around in it. And we'd like you to be a part of it as well.
See, to me, this is part of exactly what RPGs offer, that MMOs have not offered, and which TOR promises to bring to MMOs, enriching the genre and bringing it up to speed with RPGs via the very things you think are going to dilute it. Interesting.
I never said a rich storyline was going to dilute the player experience. I have said I think it will be interesting to see if it makes any difference.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I agree with the "What do you do when the story runs out?" crowd. Story is awesome, but if the entire game is built around it, then when you finish the story, you're still in exactly the same spot you were with every other MMO. So you go through and play as another class ... eventually, like all BioWare games, every class puts you on the same road through the same story. Play any of their single player RPG games as any class and any alignment, and regardless of how you start, you'll get railroaded into the story. I desperately tried in DragonAge as every single class/race combination I could to avoid Duncan. You can't. And as soon as you meet him, every class/race combination's story is almost exactly the same. Bioware said they were different, but just because I was an elf instead of a human and it took five conversations to become a grey warden instead of three, doesn't mean the whole story is different.
Maybe they've managed to write eight completely different story lines without any overlap but still entirely meshed with the overall story of the game. Cool.
But, if you've just spent three months questing to save the republic on your way to cap, when you restart as any class, is the story built so that it completely disregards all that time you spent? Or is Darth Bob, who you killed just yesterday, going to have risen and threatens the whole galaxy ... again ...
I really hope it works because it could really change the way MMOs are played. But I just can't see it yet.
I would think that the story, albeit finite, is bound to be less finite for many people than the profound intellectual thrill of building and decorating that EXPrection.
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
...Someone had left out the module. There was no story, there was no point. You just kind of wandered around. And that hasn't really changed all that much over the years.
Nonsense! If this is really what he thinks, he is either unable to comprehend MMOs, or has played far too few MMOs or has played only asian MMOs or his vision of games is that weird, that we really have to fear for the wellbeing of SWTOR. Hopefully it is just him and not the game.
Please Daniel Erickson, do no further interview about any MMO ever!
I kinda agree, I like depth and immersion, the sand box, sometimes lacks these things, don't get me wrong I like the freedom to roam in a snadbox game, as long as the game is well done, has great quests and storyline, plus other options of game play, I really don't care if it is linear or sandbox, I just want a good game in theme I like..
...Someone had left out the module. There was no story, there was no point. You just kind of wandered around. And that hasn't really changed all that much over the years.
Nonsense! If this is really what he thinks, he is either unable to comprehend MMOs, or has played far too few MMOs or has played only asian MMOs or his vision of games is that weird, that we really have to fear for the wellbeing of SWTOR. Hopefully it is just him and not the game.
Please Daniel Erickson, do no further interview about any MMO ever!
Consider that he's a writer. I'm not sure that we can call him crazy for looking down a little on a genre that hasn't had much respect for his profession.
The best writing I've ever seen for an MMO was for Shadowbane and for EVE, and in both cases this writing isn't really a part of the game, just some inconsequential, irrelevant 'fluff' you can read on the website to get you hooked on a world that the game doesn't actually seem to represent. I think this is an opportunity to actually put good writing to use. That's not to say I think they'll succeed, but if they can, I'm convinced it's the right direction for at least part of the genre, or the birth of a subgenre. It's kind of the design I've been ranting about wanting ever since Ultima Online, so my bias is evident, but....
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
You know i have sat back and thought on this topic for a little bit since my last post, and i still can't find one thing wrong for having a personal story integrated into an MMORPG that will give my character some depth all along playing with my friends i have now and the new ones i will be sure to encounter.
I look back into my SWG days of long ago and remember the first time i ever logged into a online game. SWG had only been out for little less than a year and i remember my true ambition was to try and become a jedi. I didn't know what it took to become one nor did i really know how to react to anything even less to anyone.
I had played many single player games, KOTOR and just loved the jedi knight series. So there i was getting my feet wet in Correllia with my Brawler trashing every meatlump groups and gaining my xp to fill the next box up to become my Tera Kasi. I never grouped with anyone other than a good friend of mine who started playing a week later.
As i did some research and found out about what had to be done to get the old man to visit and how to get into the villiage, i had been playing for some time now and had learned alot about the game and it's mechanics. You know, doc buffs, crafting, solo groups and all things in between.
Once i unlocked my padawan, i realized very quickly that not only was a i forced to solo group even more, i had to go off into a long lost corner and could not ever be seen for the fear of getting attacked by a bounty hunter and losing hundreds of thousands of xp in the process.
As i went through the process and finally became a full blown jedi, i realized that, that was it, it was over. There was nothing more but to be perma overt and pvp. There was no story behind my jedi, none that made me anymore special than any other one. All i had as a story was an old man and a village. I could now be seen, group up for a guild krayt hunt and dispatch any BH that came looking for fame and glory.
Now as i look forward to TOR and all the possibilities of how not knowing how my personal story will unfold has me very curious and excited. The point i'm trying to make is, even though i can RPG with anyone, by not having a good story to play out, it kind of makes it seem shallow and very weak. Grouping and questing with friends and others will always happen no matter if you can do a quest or whatever solo or not. A personal story will not hamper gameplay, it will only enhance it.
The real question now is, if I showed you BioWare quotes stating this will be a group based game,
It can't be both solo-based and group-based.
that there are incentives to grouping
What are they - exactly?
and that the combat was built with PvP specifically in mind,
Does that make sense to you in a game that is so PvE-focused?
would you believe what BioWare has stated?
Honestly, MW, this is a very naive attitude. You have followed the development of other MMOs, right?
This is text book dev-speak.
If they want us to believe it, they have to show it, not just offer a few vague statements.
No it can't be both solo-based and group-based if by based you meant the content is solely created around that particular playstyle, though the direct quote from the developer is "Is this going to be a group based game? Yes, definitely."
Incentive to grouping, what dos that mean? Well incentives could mean, better loot, more xp and more or different content, which TOR said it will have when you group in their game, or incentives could be something else entirely.
PvE and PvP don't have to be so different... I think the biggest mistake ever made in the genre was trying to keep these two thing separate. Why even bother toying with balance if you're going to be balancing two different games? If you are creating a game balanced around PvP, why should PvE content have to change? Maybe the focus of this game isn't dependent on tank and spank combat for PvE.
I'm not sitting here and saying that everything BioWare says will come to pass flawlessly. It comes down to whether you want to believe the things BioWare says, or you don't. I don't believe BioWare is trying to mislead us in any way, there would be no profit in that. They have too much information released and shown to turn around on launch day and yell "Fooled you!" on their features. My attitude on the way this game is handled is very open right now, my opinion can change very quickly on what this game will turn into, and despite many people saying this is primarily a single player game, I'm just not buying it.
I fullheartedly agree Lobotomist! But theres no point trying to explain it to them though. Just as SOE, their mind is set in stone and nothing can budge them from the decided path...
I'm not sitting here and saying that everything BioWare says will come to pass flawlessly. It comes down to whether you want to believe the things BioWare says, or you don't.
It has to do with how much evidence has been shown of one aspect of the gameplay and how little of the others.
I don't believe BioWare is trying to mislead us in any way, there would be no profit in that. They have too much information released and shown to turn around on launch day and yell "Fooled you!" on their features.
Lots of other MMOs have done just that. Box sales mean lots of money up front. Even if every non-KOTOR fan drops the game after a month, they will still have hundreds of thousand of KOTOR fans who will play.
I wonder what special extended subsccription deals will be offered. Assuming it's a sub-based game at all.
My attitude on the way this game is handled is very open right now, my opinion can change very quickly on what this game will turn into, and despite many people saying this is primarily a single player game, I'm just not buying it.
With all the speculation about it being a single-player game in all but name, why haven't they shown us something to prove otherwise?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Some of you guys are a real piece of work. Maybe they haven't been giving us all the info that we want, they've been giving us what they can. They've already said it will have all the things that are key in MMO's along with storylines added in. If you can't understand those words, please, get someone to help you. I don't know if I can say it any more simple for you to wrap your heads around. Get a grip and realize that they've been telling you the whole time the concept of how it's going to work, fill in the blanks with whatever you like for now. Jeez...
Have some faith, read and watch things that are going on and take it with a grain of salt if you don't really like everything that's going in. Don't come in here whining about every single detail this is not a freakin' daycare. Now listen, do some research, think a little more positive, because coming in here every other day with a new complaint or coming up with some reason to not like the game is just plain ridiculous. You thought the complaints about the NGE and SOE hating was bad, some of you are going that far into the void.
Now, as I've said before, you can't really say anything about what you don't know. I'd advise you to wait and watch. When it becomes possible, try the game out. If you don't like it, great, you can stop complaining and let go. If you like it, great, have fun playing it. I for one an looking forward to what they have planned for E3 and look forward to hearing about the rest of the game.
What he says sounds all good and dandy, as an ex-pen 'n' paper role player I totally get it, but what about when the story runs out? There are still people playing WoW now that started from launch, you can say what you like but that's some achievement and it's kinda also what MMOs are about. Are Bioware going to write 6 years or more of continuous story? Ouch, EA are gonna have to dig REAL deep.
Nowhere did they say that their MMO would 'only have story', or that it would be a prolonged singleplayer experience but then online. They stated that they would add that fourth aspect, story, next to the other 3 that they would also integrate in their MMO, just like other MMO's have.
That's a very big difference in interpretation. Basically, they offer all the gameplay mechanics that other MMO's offer, done in their own way - of which we still have to learn more about from them - and added to that they will offer their enhanced stories.
I imagine it to be something similar like Tortage Island in AoC, but then up to end level, with a number of different paths to follow depending on your choices and it being able to do also with a group.
this, seems like all of the haters of the game are saying all there is is a story and once thats done there wont be anything else to do. but everything i've read it has everything that makes an MMO an MMO but they added a story arc. like to me it seems like there are the typical MMO quests, and mobs to grind on and all that stuff but you'll also have a main story arc for each class.
it will be like Tortage on a LARGE scale, in Tortage you had the main story arc to 20 but thats not all you did hell you couldn't just only do the story arc even if thats all you wanted to do.you had to do the other MMO stuff to level up to the next level of the story arc wich was every 5 levels.or like a combo of Tortage and EQs epic quest line wich was class specific.
Personaly, if I want a form of entertainment where the script is pre-written for me, then I'll go see a movie rather then play an MMO....the seats are more comfortable and they serve popcorn.
Mr Erickson has a point but he misses the Mark by a good 3 feet or so. It's not the "story", it's the "SETTING"...it's the world and the events unfolding in it. The real magic of the ORIGIONAL rpg's... the ones you played with funny looking dice.... is that they allowed the PLAYERS to be as imaginative and creative when playing the game as the creators of the game or the authors or module designers. That's where the real FUN was to be had.
Yes, and not only that but pencil and paper RPGs gave the players a degree of freedom which no MMO has ever come close to. Not only could the players be creative because anything could be gamed in those games but they could also take off in the wrong direction, completely abandoning the pre-planned route the DM had prepared for them. That was when a good DM was put to the test making stuff up as they went along. Bad DMs would find some lame excuse to herd them back onto the route he had planned out for them.
In some of the games I played with my friends we never even got back to the main quest or mission we had set out to complete, and we had a blast anyway. The freedom to try absolutely anything and go absolutely anywhere was the greatest thing about those games. Of course there are obvious reasons why MMOs can't match that but it should be the holy grail they are aspiring towards.
Paradoxically, this Erickson guy disparages freedom with his comment that "you just wandered around" in early MMOs. Well...yeah, but the point is that you were free to wander around. You weren't herded down a particular path and you didn't feel obligated to follow a specific pre-planned route through the game.
It wasn't as good as the old tabletop RPGs but it was the closest I'd ever come to that in a computer game. That freedom to "just wander around" was the whole damn reason I got hooked on these games in the first place. If they hadn't had that they would have been no better than the single player games I had played before.
What most people aren't mentioning about the difference between mmorpgs and pen & paper rpgs is the storyteller. Yeah, that guy behind the cardboard screen. He is probably the most inmportant part of any rpg, and he's missing in every mmorpg I've ever played (and every crpg for that matter).
It's the interactivity of the experience, the back and forth between the DM and the players that people are looking for. Yeah, it's next to impossible the replicate that with a computer game, what with dynamically adjusting quests, npc's, and events on the fly dictated by the players whims. But its like no one is even making the effort to even try.
Facing a dillema as a character in a crpg or a mmorpg, the character usually has at most 3 choices to pick from as a solution, and rarely do these choices effect anything throughout the rest of the game. And even if the choices do have an effect, it's minimal at best.
Maybe I was spoiled when I played d&d, shadowrun, gurps, vampire, and the rest with my DM. We were forced to invest time in our characters, writing elaborate backgrounds for them, describe their personalities and social quirks. And through the role playing, we got to know our characters and understand them. We made them more than just numbers on a character sheet. Some of the best times we had with rpgs were the ones with no dice rolling, we could go multiple gaming sessions without dice hitting the table because we were ROLE playing, not ROLL playing.
EvE is a good example of the sort of MMO the article wrongly disses on. There is not much in the way of story. The game revolves around the players and their activities, not some linear single-player like rpg.
The problems that he refers to are actually developer laziness: it's much easier to create a theme park mmo than a dynamic open world.
MMOs are not about pre written quests. Pre written storyes. And never changing pre set world.
They are not just single player RPGs that can be played with other players on internet.
There is a reason why original MMOs didnt have story - because it was your story -
The MMOs are blank slate in order for player to write their own story, and to mold the world , change it.
Colectively create the story line together.
But that is all lost. Thanks to guys like you.
Y'know, if I could go into an MMO like UO with a group of friends, where we could designate, say, 1 friend as our group's GM/DM/whathaveyou, where he could create a story of his own design for us to later experience, maybe you'd have a point. Maybe. The simple problem is, we, as players, don't have creative control over our content, so all we can end up doing is a star trek-styled supplimental log where we merely regurgitate what we've "experienced" as we explore random dungeon and fight off random pre-set monsters of randomness, possibly for random loot, plausibly pointless. Yes, individual people can create a story in that game that doesn't work as well in, say, an MMO like WoW or TOR due to scripted storylines, but that is because story-driven MMO's like LOTRO and what TOR is supposed to be actually give us content, and a world of generally unique origin. Even TOR, despite being an IP, is a unique story all of bioware's creation (with LA's approval, obviously) And, some of us don't want an MMOSandbox. Simply put, if you want a sandbox, play a sandbox game, like X3, or EVE, or any number of the other terrible sandbox MMO's that are defined not by the content they contain but by the grind they tend to impose on everyone. (X3's pretty good though)
sandbox MMO's are like youtube or the blogging craze. The tools are their to do cool things, but the general public just end up creating crap that no one should see. Most do nothing, or do nothing meaningful creative that justifies me caring. The sandbox MMO usually gets overrun with griefers that like to destroy the world not create anything. I would have confidence in sandbox MMO's if I had confidence in the creativity of the general public. If their was a chance for sandbox MMO's it would of been done already as an open source project, because that group would of banded together and created a world, but since I don't see that I come to the conclusion that no one cares about creating a world.
MMOs are not about pre written quests. Pre written storyes. And never changing pre set world.
They are not just single player RPGs that can be played with other players on internet.
There is a reason why original MMOs didnt have story - because it was your story -
The MMOs are blank slate in order for player to write their own story, and to mold the world , change it.
Colectively create the story line together.
But that is all lost. Thanks to guys like you.
errr... sorry mate... what game are you writing about?
99% of today's MMOs have pre written quests, storylines and lore and a never changing world (apart from instances)
most of todays MMOs are basically single player games with chat option
games with blank slate players and where players are creating stories for themselves and not tunneling endless quest chains are SANDBOX games (currently i can name two: EVE Online and Darkfall) which i dont think you've meant
so Daniel is right and i totally agree that MMOs (apart from EVE and DFO) of today suck
What most people aren't mentioning about the difference between mmorpgs and pen & paper rpgs is the storyteller. Yeah, that guy behind the cardboard screen. He is probably the most inmportant part of any rpg, and he's missing in every mmorpg I've ever played (and every crpg for that matter).
It's the interactivity of the experience, the back and forth between the DM and the players that people are looking for. Yeah, it's next to impossible the replicate that with a computer game, what with dynamically adjusting quests, npc's, and events on the fly dictated by the players whims. But its like no one is even making the effort to even try.
Facing a dillema as a character in a crpg or a mmorpg, the character usually has at most 3 choices to pick from as a solution, and rarely do these choices effect anything throughout the rest of the game. And even if the choices do have an effect, it's minimal at best.
Maybe I was spoiled when I played d&d, shadowrun, gurps, vampire, and the rest with my DM. We were forced to invest time in our characters, writing elaborate backgrounds for them, describe their personalities and social quirks. And through the role playing, we got to know our characters and understand them. We made them more than just numbers on a character sheet. Some of the best times we had with rpgs were the ones with no dice rolling, we could go multiple gaming sessions without dice hitting the table because we were ROLE playing, not ROLL playing.
I agree totally!
Having a background story to any RPG is a must. Taking the time to write elaborate backgrounds really made people care about the adventure. I never left it up to the players to do their own backgrounds writing them up and giving a player a surprise was more fun. Also giving players side stories when the games was not in play was a must for me. It was easy when email was around but before that you had to give players hand written pages to be read later.
I guess it really depends if you want a basic frame and you have to paint the story or most of the story is painted for you with some options to create. For me both work but since these are online games and you can get instant satisfaction when you choose to play.
I just hope Bioware can give that feeling of a grand story like pen and paper did because most mmos lack any real story out side of the player base.
I can feel your anger. This game is defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike this game down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards towards the Dark Side will be complete.
Comments
Which always sounds real nice and pretty, but it has never once been the case.
I agree with you, but I think a big part of what is missing from today's MMOs is having those two player types working together for one common cause. For the most part, both types of players in todays MMOs are only in it for themselves. There's nothing wrong with that either, but some of us yearn for something more. We want to be part of the world, rather than just playing around in it. And we'd like you to be a part of it as well.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Everquest was like that for a long time. To many people. From what I hear, EvE is like that also.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
See, to me, this is part of exactly what RPGs offer, that MMOs have not offered, and which TOR promises to bring to MMOs, enriching the genre and bringing it up to speed with RPGs via the very things you think are going to dilute it. Interesting.
EverQuest was a textbook themepark game. There was nothing about it that facilitated the ideal sandbox gameplay Lobotomist describes any more than just about any other MMO, as far as I can see. Of course, a good roleplayer can do that, but I thought we were talking game design, not what player communities choose to do after the fact. Norrath was about as static and uninteractive as they've come, despite whatever my nostalgia often tries to warp it into.
EVE is a sandbox game, sure, and in my opinion the best of them, capitalizing on everything that makes that model attractive. I'd say it's a masterpiece. I'd not say that players write their own story in the sense of the word 'story' in an RPG. Players do what they will, sure. Players build alliances and wage wars as they will, sure. But if that's 'story,' the EVE community is creatively retarded. That's like saying a game of tabletop Warhammer tells a story. Bullshit. It's just a battle.
@Comnitus : You are exactly the unique snowflake I was talking too. So far, we have seen game play with groups and with solos, but nothing involving sitting around Dalaran and having tons of characters just stand around and interact. It is possible that KOTOR 3 to Infinity (aka SWTOR) involves storylines and quests for solos (simulating KOTOR) and for groups (simulating KOTOR as if other people could pick up the controller to your XBox and game right along with you). I believe this is the vision that is being presented to the masses as SWTOR. You can be as sarcastic as you like, but it will not change the facts as they have been presented so far*.
It is also possible that the fastest way from A->B is going to be through the group version, still allowing A->B to be transversed solo, if slower. This would mimic every other MMO we have seen to date.
* "so far", meaning given the evidence already available, in no way am I claiming to be a prophet nor a BW insider.
I never said a rich storyline was going to dilute the player experience. I have said I think it will be interesting to see if it makes any difference.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I agree with the "What do you do when the story runs out?" crowd. Story is awesome, but if the entire game is built around it, then when you finish the story, you're still in exactly the same spot you were with every other MMO. So you go through and play as another class ... eventually, like all BioWare games, every class puts you on the same road through the same story. Play any of their single player RPG games as any class and any alignment, and regardless of how you start, you'll get railroaded into the story. I desperately tried in DragonAge as every single class/race combination I could to avoid Duncan. You can't. And as soon as you meet him, every class/race combination's story is almost exactly the same. Bioware said they were different, but just because I was an elf instead of a human and it took five conversations to become a grey warden instead of three, doesn't mean the whole story is different.
Maybe they've managed to write eight completely different story lines without any overlap but still entirely meshed with the overall story of the game. Cool.
But, if you've just spent three months questing to save the republic on your way to cap, when you restart as any class, is the story built so that it completely disregards all that time you spent? Or is Darth Bob, who you killed just yesterday, going to have risen and threatens the whole galaxy ... again ...
I really hope it works because it could really change the way MMOs are played. But I just can't see it yet.
I would think that the story, albeit finite, is bound to be less finite for many people than the profound intellectual thrill of building and decorating that EXPrection.
...Someone had left out the module. There was no story, there was no point. You just kind of wandered around. And that hasn't really changed all that much over the years.
Nonsense! If this is really what he thinks, he is either unable to comprehend MMOs, or has played far too few MMOs or has played only asian MMOs or his vision of games is that weird, that we really have to fear for the wellbeing of SWTOR. Hopefully it is just him and not the game.
Please Daniel Erickson, do no further interview about any MMO ever!
I kinda agree, I like depth and immersion, the sand box, sometimes lacks these things, don't get me wrong I like the freedom to roam in a snadbox game, as long as the game is well done, has great quests and storyline, plus other options of game play, I really don't care if it is linear or sandbox, I just want a good game in theme I like..
Consider that he's a writer. I'm not sure that we can call him crazy for looking down a little on a genre that hasn't had much respect for his profession.
The best writing I've ever seen for an MMO was for Shadowbane and for EVE, and in both cases this writing isn't really a part of the game, just some inconsequential, irrelevant 'fluff' you can read on the website to get you hooked on a world that the game doesn't actually seem to represent. I think this is an opportunity to actually put good writing to use. That's not to say I think they'll succeed, but if they can, I'm convinced it's the right direction for at least part of the genre, or the birth of a subgenre. It's kind of the design I've been ranting about wanting ever since Ultima Online, so my bias is evident, but....
You know i have sat back and thought on this topic for a little bit since my last post, and i still can't find one thing wrong for having a personal story integrated into an MMORPG that will give my character some depth all along playing with my friends i have now and the new ones i will be sure to encounter.
I look back into my SWG days of long ago and remember the first time i ever logged into a online game. SWG had only been out for little less than a year and i remember my true ambition was to try and become a jedi. I didn't know what it took to become one nor did i really know how to react to anything even less to anyone.
I had played many single player games, KOTOR and just loved the jedi knight series. So there i was getting my feet wet in Correllia with my Brawler trashing every meatlump groups and gaining my xp to fill the next box up to become my Tera Kasi. I never grouped with anyone other than a good friend of mine who started playing a week later.
As i did some research and found out about what had to be done to get the old man to visit and how to get into the villiage, i had been playing for some time now and had learned alot about the game and it's mechanics. You know, doc buffs, crafting, solo groups and all things in between.
Once i unlocked my padawan, i realized very quickly that not only was a i forced to solo group even more, i had to go off into a long lost corner and could not ever be seen for the fear of getting attacked by a bounty hunter and losing hundreds of thousands of xp in the process.
As i went through the process and finally became a full blown jedi, i realized that, that was it, it was over. There was nothing more but to be perma overt and pvp. There was no story behind my jedi, none that made me anymore special than any other one. All i had as a story was an old man and a village. I could now be seen, group up for a guild krayt hunt and dispatch any BH that came looking for fame and glory.
Now as i look forward to TOR and all the possibilities of how not knowing how my personal story will unfold has me very curious and excited. The point i'm trying to make is, even though i can RPG with anyone, by not having a good story to play out, it kind of makes it seem shallow and very weak. Grouping and questing with friends and others will always happen no matter if you can do a quest or whatever solo or not. A personal story will not hamper gameplay, it will only enhance it.
No it can't be both solo-based and group-based if by based you meant the content is solely created around that particular playstyle, though the direct quote from the developer is "Is this going to be a group based game? Yes, definitely."
Incentive to grouping, what dos that mean? Well incentives could mean, better loot, more xp and more or different content, which TOR said it will have when you group in their game, or incentives could be something else entirely.
PvE and PvP don't have to be so different... I think the biggest mistake ever made in the genre was trying to keep these two thing separate. Why even bother toying with balance if you're going to be balancing two different games? If you are creating a game balanced around PvP, why should PvE content have to change? Maybe the focus of this game isn't dependent on tank and spank combat for PvE.
I'm not sitting here and saying that everything BioWare says will come to pass flawlessly. It comes down to whether you want to believe the things BioWare says, or you don't. I don't believe BioWare is trying to mislead us in any way, there would be no profit in that. They have too much information released and shown to turn around on launch day and yell "Fooled you!" on their features. My attitude on the way this game is handled is very open right now, my opinion can change very quickly on what this game will turn into, and despite many people saying this is primarily a single player game, I'm just not buying it.
No Daniel.
You got it all wrong.
MMOs are not about pre written quests. Pre written storyes. And never changing pre set world.
They are not just single player RPGs that can be played with other players on internet.
There is a reason why original MMOs didnt have story - because it was your story -
The MMOs are blank slate in order for player to write their own story, and to mold the world , change it.
Colectively create the story line together.
But that is all lost. Thanks to guys like you.
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I fullheartedly agree Lobotomist! But theres no point trying to explain it to them though. Just as SOE, their mind is set in stone and nothing can budge them from the decided path...
With all the speculation about it being a single-player game in all but name, why haven't they shown us something to prove otherwise?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
(Mod Edited)
Some of you guys are a real piece of work. Maybe they haven't been giving us all the info that we want, they've been giving us what they can. They've already said it will have all the things that are key in MMO's along with storylines added in. If you can't understand those words, please, get someone to help you. I don't know if I can say it any more simple for you to wrap your heads around. Get a grip and realize that they've been telling you the whole time the concept of how it's going to work, fill in the blanks with whatever you like for now. Jeez...
Have some faith, read and watch things that are going on and take it with a grain of salt if you don't really like everything that's going in. Don't come in here whining about every single detail this is not a freakin' daycare. Now listen, do some research, think a little more positive, because coming in here every other day with a new complaint or coming up with some reason to not like the game is just plain ridiculous. You thought the complaints about the NGE and SOE hating was bad, some of you are going that far into the void.
Now, as I've said before, you can't really say anything about what you don't know. I'd advise you to wait and watch. When it becomes possible, try the game out. If you don't like it, great, you can stop complaining and let go. If you like it, great, have fun playing it. I for one an looking forward to what they have planned for E3 and look forward to hearing about the rest of the game.
this, seems like all of the haters of the game are saying all there is is a story and once thats done there wont be anything else to do. but everything i've read it has everything that makes an MMO an MMO but they added a story arc. like to me it seems like there are the typical MMO quests, and mobs to grind on and all that stuff but you'll also have a main story arc for each class.
it will be like Tortage on a LARGE scale, in Tortage you had the main story arc to 20 but thats not all you did hell you couldn't just only do the story arc even if thats all you wanted to do.you had to do the other MMO stuff to level up to the next level of the story arc wich was every 5 levels.or like a combo of Tortage and EQs epic quest line wich was class specific.
Yes, and not only that but pencil and paper RPGs gave the players a degree of freedom which no MMO has ever come close to. Not only could the players be creative because anything could be gamed in those games but they could also take off in the wrong direction, completely abandoning the pre-planned route the DM had prepared for them. That was when a good DM was put to the test making stuff up as they went along. Bad DMs would find some lame excuse to herd them back onto the route he had planned out for them.
In some of the games I played with my friends we never even got back to the main quest or mission we had set out to complete, and we had a blast anyway. The freedom to try absolutely anything and go absolutely anywhere was the greatest thing about those games. Of course there are obvious reasons why MMOs can't match that but it should be the holy grail they are aspiring towards.
Paradoxically, this Erickson guy disparages freedom with his comment that "you just wandered around" in early MMOs. Well...yeah, but the point is that you were free to wander around. You weren't herded down a particular path and you didn't feel obligated to follow a specific pre-planned route through the game.
It wasn't as good as the old tabletop RPGs but it was the closest I'd ever come to that in a computer game. That freedom to "just wander around" was the whole damn reason I got hooked on these games in the first place. If they hadn't had that they would have been no better than the single player games I had played before.
What most people aren't mentioning about the difference between mmorpgs and pen & paper rpgs is the storyteller. Yeah, that guy behind the cardboard screen. He is probably the most inmportant part of any rpg, and he's missing in every mmorpg I've ever played (and every crpg for that matter).
It's the interactivity of the experience, the back and forth between the DM and the players that people are looking for. Yeah, it's next to impossible the replicate that with a computer game, what with dynamically adjusting quests, npc's, and events on the fly dictated by the players whims. But its like no one is even making the effort to even try.
Facing a dillema as a character in a crpg or a mmorpg, the character usually has at most 3 choices to pick from as a solution, and rarely do these choices effect anything throughout the rest of the game. And even if the choices do have an effect, it's minimal at best.
Maybe I was spoiled when I played d&d, shadowrun, gurps, vampire, and the rest with my DM. We were forced to invest time in our characters, writing elaborate backgrounds for them, describe their personalities and social quirks. And through the role playing, we got to know our characters and understand them. We made them more than just numbers on a character sheet. Some of the best times we had with rpgs were the ones with no dice rolling, we could go multiple gaming sessions without dice hitting the table because we were ROLE playing, not ROLL playing.
Man, a lot of you folks are wound way way to tight.
Whether or not Bioware can come through in making a game that "has a point", what the Bioware guy said is true.
EvE is a good example of the sort of MMO the article wrongly disses on. There is not much in the way of story. The game revolves around the players and their activities, not some linear single-player like rpg.
The problems that he refers to are actually developer laziness: it's much easier to create a theme park mmo than a dynamic open world.
Y'know, if I could go into an MMO like UO with a group of friends, where we could designate, say, 1 friend as our group's GM/DM/whathaveyou, where he could create a story of his own design for us to later experience, maybe you'd have a point. Maybe. The simple problem is, we, as players, don't have creative control over our content, so all we can end up doing is a star trek-styled supplimental log where we merely regurgitate what we've "experienced" as we explore random dungeon and fight off random pre-set monsters of randomness, possibly for random loot, plausibly pointless. Yes, individual people can create a story in that game that doesn't work as well in, say, an MMO like WoW or TOR due to scripted storylines, but that is because story-driven MMO's like LOTRO and what TOR is supposed to be actually give us content, and a world of generally unique origin. Even TOR, despite being an IP, is a unique story all of bioware's creation (with LA's approval, obviously) And, some of us don't want an MMOSandbox. Simply put, if you want a sandbox, play a sandbox game, like X3, or EVE, or any number of the other terrible sandbox MMO's that are defined not by the content they contain but by the grind they tend to impose on everyone. (X3's pretty good though)
sandbox MMO's are like youtube or the blogging craze. The tools are their to do cool things, but the general public just end up creating crap that no one should see. Most do nothing, or do nothing meaningful creative that justifies me caring. The sandbox MMO usually gets overrun with griefers that like to destroy the world not create anything. I would have confidence in sandbox MMO's if I had confidence in the creativity of the general public. If their was a chance for sandbox MMO's it would of been done already as an open source project, because that group would of banded together and created a world, but since I don't see that I come to the conclusion that no one cares about creating a world.
We will see what Bioware does with the genre.
errr... sorry mate... what game are you writing about?
99% of today's MMOs have pre written quests, storylines and lore and a never changing world (apart from instances)
most of todays MMOs are basically single player games with chat option
games with blank slate players and where players are creating stories for themselves and not tunneling endless quest chains are SANDBOX games (currently i can name two: EVE Online and Darkfall) which i dont think you've meant
so Daniel is right and i totally agree that MMOs (apart from EVE and DFO) of today suck
I agree totally!
Having a background story to any RPG is a must. Taking the time to write elaborate backgrounds really made people care about the adventure. I never left it up to the players to do their own backgrounds writing them up and giving a player a surprise was more fun. Also giving players side stories when the games was not in play was a must for me. It was easy when email was around but before that you had to give players hand written pages to be read later.
I guess it really depends if you want a basic frame and you have to paint the story or most of the story is painted for you with some options to create. For me both work but since these are online games and you can get instant satisfaction when you choose to play.
I just hope Bioware can give that feeling of a grand story like pen and paper did because most mmos lack any real story out side of the player base.
I can feel your anger. This game is defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike this game down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards towards the Dark Side will be complete.