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Massively hands on with SWTOR - not positive impressions.
Lobotomist
Member EpicPosts: 5,981
Here is brand new E3 2010 hands on with SWTOR by Massively
http://www.massively.com/2010/06/18/e3-2010-hands-on-with-the-old-republics-smuggler-class/
They are not overly impressed.
This would pretty much sum the whole article :
So, in short, don't get yourself super hyped about this game. It's not amazingly innovative or a complete genre changer. It's not re-inventing the wheel, but it is taking that wheel and giving it the gold plating it needs.
Comments
Hyped... No, they seem to be positive in a more sane and sensible manner. I really can not stand the 8 year old mentality of kids screaming "I Want, its the BEST EVAH!!!" all the time.. or "THIS SUCKS!" and have no grey zone between those two. It is really immature and completly non constructive... They say its a good game without being innovative and key word "gold plating" meaning it's perfectly ok without breaking new ground.
I am more willing ot listen to that as a fact, than "ITS SO UBER!!!" because seriously... that is just kiddie talk.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
I liked WoW but I'm glad I quit playing it. If this game keeps the good things about WoW I'm not sure I'd complain. What I really want out of the game is that it FEELS like Star Wars and the writer seemed to get that feeling at least part of the time. Combine that with the level of polish one can expect from Bioware and even if the game isn't super inventive, it should be a really entertaining gaming experience... at least until it feels too much like playing WoW again.
Not positive. Not negative. But its realistic.
With all the hype generating silly rumours and over-positive writeups, its great to see a review that puts everything into place and shoots down all the overhyped crap.
They didnt say this game was bad in any way, but dont expect it to be 100% unique compared to current MMOs. Go in expecting a good experience in the star wars universe, dont go in expecting everything to be reinvented.
Which, to my mind is really what Bioware THEMSELVES have been saying to those who would listen.
Yes, they are excited about the stories they have put together for us in an MMO setting, and yes they think the stories gives MMO gameplay more of a purpose, but that is it.
Anyone with half a brain would have realised long ago that Bioware is not setting out to be innovative in the same way as Anet are with Guild Wars 2.
The problem is that it is Star Wars and people go a bit silly.
Not a completely bad thing.
Outside of being Star Wars and having an actually story driven MMO, I'm pretty sure most people knew this wasn't going to be a game jumping off a cliff of what works into something that's never been tried before.
Dunno, but what was said seems positive to me. I guess if you want a sandbox game, or a game similar to MO or Darkfall, you are looking in the wrong spot.
I don't really mean to sound like a fanboy but this article is a little LOL-worthy. The writer's main problem is that he is still taking damage while behind a wall... OK, I understand that gripe but I think he was expecting to be invincible. That would be a HORRIBLE game mechanic and atleast BW gave the Smuggler a defensive bonus since it would be pretty stupid if the smuggler could pop out, take 2 shots at you and you cant return fire. BUT like I said I understand the problem and I wish there were a way to balance out the fact that your hiding behind a wall but you can still take damage (Even though a defensive bonus is as good as it gets)
And his other problem is that the "Cover System" feels like stealth to this guy... As far as I remember... In stealth you can't be fired at and you can move around at your lesiure, while in cover you are visible to the naked eye and can't move. The only correlation between the two is the abilities that appear while using the two systems.
Just my take on it, although like I said I understand his problem with still taking damage while in the cover system but he doesn't see a problem with smugglers being unable to take damage while in cover? Thats a tad bit of an OP mechanic...
The problem is when it "feels" like a shooter being able to take damage while in cover is extremely immersion breaking even if it makes sense as an RPG to only gain a "bonus." After playing through mass effect 2 for example with an extremely fun shooting and cover system, I for one could completely understand and be dissappointed in a cover system that wasn't nearly as good.
The counter to that is to simply make bolts travel faster, if you're out of cover for two seconds the NPC's must be able to hit you in that time frame, either you take bonus damage done to yourself for being hit while in cover and peeking out, or you must just be hit consistently when you do peek.
As far as stealth goes, if your bar changes and you can't be immidiately detected by enemies while in that mode... how else would you define stealth, he says its like stealth without moving, that seems fairly accurate by his description, at least compared to how stealth is handled in WoW.
So why is this a bad review?
So they are copying WoW style game play to appeal to the McDonald eaters... Well it wont be as big as WoW (i dont play or like WoW !!) but it will make them some good cash.
Spose I'll be keeping my eye on other titles instead
I'm curious to try the cover system out for myself. The smuggler is possibly the last class I will try though as it just doesn't attract me in the least.
I'd say I'll be trying Jedi Consular, then Trooper, then maybe Bounty Hunter for a walk on the darkish side, then possibly a Jedi Knight.
You do always hope though that the AI of MMO mobs would improve. If they had any sense they'd use the opportunity to take cover too, or if they were brave they'd close in or circle round if they can.
Blowing things way out there skippy, he had some positive things to say about it, he just wasn't claiming it to be the God of MMOs that everyone hopes it will be. I'm honestly not surprised that this game would have some features of WoW, as WoW had many features from previous MMOs, and as the saying goes: If it works, why bother changing it?
EDIT: Also, this game is not even in Closed Beta, it wouldn't make sense to criticize the game at this point.
I'm free on Friday.
Low-level combat in WoW is perfectly good. Does ANYONE have a problem with that aspect of WoW?
What I dislike about WoW is the end-game and how quests feel like the story is tacked on rather than an immersive part of the experience. Well, I don't care for the Holy Trinity either. TOR looks like it is changing those things to one degree or another, so I'm pretty excited about it.
I'll be the first to admit though, that GW2 looks like it is better in some ways. I like how in GW2 you supposedly have quests start just by BEING THERE, such as seeing a village under attacked and you choose to defend it or not. Hopefully TOR can do some of that too, as that would add a lot to immersion. Public questing is good too (which I think we are likely to see in TOR).
We still don't know a LOT about how these areas I am largely concerned with will be different from WoW. Bioware has said they'll be different, but we don't have a lot of specifics. For example, with crafting we know it is "similar, but different" which is extremely vague. Is it craft-by-numbers like WoW or are there base recipes that you modify as you see fit? Is it something else? We don't know.
Overall though, I am liking what I am seeing. We'll have to wait and see how things come together over the next 12 months or so.
And it is kinda sad from game with the biggest EA (and probably any other company's) budget of all time
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
So the cover isn't actually a cover? You take hits even if you don't pop your head out? I can see how that would be annoying.
People seem to forget that this is a business, they aren't here to please the hardcore gamer like myself cause it only sells to a few. If they are gonna please the masses they are gonna appease those who wanna play at an easier level, like the ones who have pured their cash into blizzards coffers forever.
hardcore/Gamers who want a challenge/FFA Pvp'rs and the like, like myself are gonna have to get over the crying and stick to poorly made niche games.
No longer are we going to be able to prey on the timid gamers, pk them and steal their gear. 1997 is over, no more UO.
It sucks, i hate it, i know and i'm dealing with it. Thats why i no longer play MMO's. Nothing in the last 7 years has peaked my interest, too easy, no challenge, no consequence. (except maybe u game like DF, but ive been working. Earthrise may be one to look at though)
So whilst it isnt gonna be revolutionary in terms of how we go through our mmo's, and those who have played wow will feel at home with swtor, what we are gonna get by the sounds of it is a highly polished AAA title right out the door? whats wrong with that? if you dont like star wars, or you dont like wow-esque mmo's, then dont play, there are plenty of other style mmo's to choose from. The fact that its gonna be polished, full of content and star wars is enought to have me sold, i wasnt expecting some sand box game anyway, i have darkfall or eventually mortal online hopefully for that experiance. We all know what the game is gonna feel like when we get it, so no one can complain when it arrives and it isnt like swg.
You're right.
Hell i didnt think SWG was that good either, but then again i know it drew a huge player base.
Lets just hope something will come along worthwhile. Earthrise? Meh who knows what that wil turn out to be, indy/niche developers are just struggling to keep their games alive to go gold.
A serious article with a balanced view on positives and negatives. There's nothing wrong with the road BW has taken with SWTOR. It's legitimate that with big numbers in mind they've chosen the conservative approach. And to their credit, BW is hyping everything but not their "originality". I suppose most of us are just a bit upset because with the biggest budget, the biggest developer and the biggest corporation behind we would have expected something more than WoW with lightsabers...
Lets not forget that having a cover and being completely out of sight are two different positions. As a side note, in WoW you still can cast and fire through hills and trees with no penalty. That doesnt break immersion?
I'm not a huge fan of BW, and my WoW days are already in the past. However, this review gave me some positive expectations about this game. Maybe I check it out when it comes out.
I agree that i was a little surprised when i found out that this was the approach BW were taking, but we all have to remember that wow is not a bad game, whether you love it or loathe it, it is an excellent game and very well made. Im expecting SWTOR to follow suit, with better story telling.
Sounds to me that the Gold plating is a very positive thing, means we are going to have another company other than Blizzard put some effort into releasing a product that is both finished and polished.
So we can take from this that it is pushing the genre forward but not a great deal, well again isn't that better than just letting the genre stand still, any movement forward is better than nothing, and it would be a rare thing indeed to see any MMO come out and be totally innovative, many other studio's have found to their detriment that being too innovative does not guarantee a player base large enough to sustain your game, players still want familar aspects to their gameplay, hence why WoW still beats other MMO's hands down, nothing innovative but plenty of polish ontop of whats come before, Bioware are just going to be following in that same vein.
I think the overall tone of the article was positive. The only things the author was dissapointed was the lack of new innovative featurs and some polish issues.
I enjoyed my time in WoW and I love Star Wars.
As fashionable as it is to criticize WoW you can truly say that what it does, it does very well...there's a reason that it's so emulated.
I can honestly say that I find the idea of a game with the epic and familiar setting of Old Republic era Star Wars and the sleek, accessible and familiar interface of WoW is a potent sounding combination.
Yes, innovation is good but sometimes all you want from a wheel is that it's round.
What I got from the review was "Like WoW... but better!" and "less of a learning curve if you've played WoW."
Whoopie-do!
Don't see a problem with that.
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
After reading the various articles about TOR I find it suffers from the same curse of LOTR, it's locked in to a specific mythos and has to follow rules that don't comprimise the lore universe which constricts activities and what the dev's can and cannot do. Whereas games such as AION. WoW, Perfect World, Runes of Magic and the like can make up what they want and have a lot more creative freedom and rule creation. TOR dev's are constrained to what they can and cannot put in, and because of this, classes are cookie cut-outs which are very stereotyped and have to fit in to the Star Wars scene, such as bounty hunters, smugglers and the unavoidable Jedi, etc. So there's already a smothering of innovation and players will be expected to behave like this, and do that and they can't become a Sith death knight demon hunter necromancer because the dev's are restriced and could not create such a silly cool class even if they wanted to. That is but one of the weaknesses I am finding with TOR so far and yes, it is negative, but I'm only trying to relate why it's putting me off the game in comparison to building up my desire to purchase it, because I will be expected to act in a certain way, and while I might enjoy the RP for a while, haven't we already seen it in the movies to the point of franchise fatigue?