Tunnel shooter. Rail shooter. LOL, pathetic. I expected more from a AAA dev house such as BioWare. So much for the guys that made Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 and KotOR 1.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Interplay which is a branch off Bioware did the greats in RPGs. Which was shut down. Working on Fallout Van Buren at the time to. Bethesda bought the rights which is why they released Oblivion and Fallout 3 which just made a big world with really no RPG elements. To think Bethesda did it right with Morrowind to. /facepalm
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Well atleast we will have Voiceovers and cutscenes every now and then, and to top that we have to click the mousebutton sometimes to make thoose difficult chooices!. If one want deep and imersive gameplay, large open living worlds, crafting, playerdriven economics ect ect its better to find an another MMO(is this game seriously an MMO btw?)
The insane budget Bioware has, and they produce a pile of steaming poo.
First taking the lazy way and just contracting the Heroes Journey graphics engine. Now this sorry excuse for space combat. I bet they spent the most time and cash on those cheesy cutscenes and voice acting.
A lot of these responses (well most of them anyway):
1. A Space-shooter MMO is another sci-fi sub-genre altogether at this time in MMO's creation. This niche does not seem to be very full but TOR is in no way ever going to be able to fill it by adding a "space combat" feature! (See Blackstar MMO on yutube - not developed for an interesting attempt at this).
2. The "on-rails" space combat is likely to be still very befitting and successful inclusion to the overall game with a lot of TOR players, I'm guessing, when it finally comes out, adding just another facet to the game.
3. Turning a small disappointment in expectation of one feature of this game into a global catastrophe for the game/company is not realistic is obvious enough. It could be a load of old... but the game is still moving a very promising direction whether you are going to try it or not.
Listening to a lot of the whinner here you'd be forgiven for thinking that Bioware had been commissioned to supply a bespoke game, taylor-made to fit their exact specifications.
I for one, am just happy that the game is coming out at all, because i know that:
a) It's being crafted with a lot of love, by designers who actually care about the subject matter.
b) Bioware are hands down the best story-tellers in the gaming industry.
and,
c) It's freekin' Star Wars. It's a universe burned into our collective psychi.
All this talk of "this game is gonna suck, cos it won't have X or Y feature" really saddens me. This game was not made with YOUR requirements in mind. Get over it.
This is Bioware's creation. It's their game.
Play it, or don't play it. It's a simple as that.
I for one, can't wait to set foot in their universe, because my heart tells me it's gonna be an amazing adventure.
Real space combat, as in JTL, X-Wing Alliance and its predecessors, would utterly overwhelm the vast majority of players today.
That simply isnt a good idea. Same goes for complexity: When you gun for the Farmville/Mafia Wars/Facebook crowd, with WoW as the top end players, you have to offer something that requires little or no coherent thought, otherwise people will not get it right the first time, and start to complain.
This is not 99, or 2004. Players today, by and large, are not capable of actually learning a game to any degree, nor do they wish to, nor is it feasible to expect them to. The best way to make money is giving even the worst player his daily dose of success.
There are genres in which skill, thought, tactics and sheer physical ability and reflexes matter, a lot. StarCraft 2 multiplayer, despite being from Blizzard, being new and trying to cater to the mass audience, is not toned down or dumbed to the level of WoW. If you are a bad to average player, you just get stomped most of the time, and thats it. Same goes for many shooters, which are merciless in online play, BUT: You get points, ranks, whatever for losing too.
MMORPGs are, by now, the bottom of the barrel, just above browser games, in terms of playerbase ability. Years of negative selection in that direction have ensured that today, your average WoW server actually consists of a mix slanted towards low skill, high ego, low attention span, high greed, because for years now, the game has filtered out those players who dont like these things, and invited others who do.
Since everyone and their dog makes MMOs these days, and dumbs them down once player subs dont look like they should, you end up with an entire genre mostly full of poor players or disinterested individuals, and Bioware would be stupid to put out a game that is made for that audience but requires them to change habits.
A complex, difficult, demanding MMORPG can only work if it does not target the mainstream MMORPG audience of today, since that audience is simply not an average, but the lowest level of the playerbase for PC games.
The most rational and well written post I've read on these forums in months. Thank you, you are spot on.
Tunnel shooter. Rail shooter. LOL, pathetic. I expected more from a AAA dev house such as BioWare. So much for the guys that made Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 and KotOR 1.
What? KOTOR is not a space sim???!! I expected KOTOR Online, which is what they are giving us, not EVE in Star Wars universe.
The funny part about this is all the WOW/Bioware/EA fanatics are soo willing to accept whatever they get, they actually see NO SPACE COMBAT in STAR WARS as a BONUS.
I mean when I think Star Wars I'm like, yeh I can Pilot my own ship, program my own droids out of selection of hundreds maybe even thousands, of course all the parts are modular so I can come up with some kind of strange combination the Solo's Falcom and I wont have the same thing everyone else has. I can traverse space and get into fights with bounty hunters hiding behind moons and in asteroid fields, I can play both sides as a Smuggler or Bounty hunter or I can infiltrate Republic infrastructure with my Sith. I can create my own lightsaber and fight with rebellions and uprisings against evil on Sith planets.
BUT this is what you are getting.
I can have a ship created for me and shoot through a roller coaster where I can shoot at AI in an allocated amount of time, this will second as my player housing ( my only player housing) and I cannot tamper with it in any way. I WILL farm a new lightsaber off high level Jawas every ten levels I cannot modify this lightsaber or change the colors, I can enhance it at level 30+ with special sockets, I will not be able to get the colors Red,Blue, Yellow or White until max level, actually my only choice at lower levels will be purple shades so that I will level even faster. I will not be able to fight Sith/Jedi in cross faction battles or infiltrate their base or attack them unwillingly in any way, unless I join a Warzone which is not like world pvp at all, but its all I get. I WILL be pigeonholed into whatever Faction they throw my Smuggler or Bounty hunter in no matter what. I WILL spend more time crawling in instance caves that look strangely like the caves in Korriban from KOTOR one and two, then I spend on doing actual Star Wars things.
Seriously making this game like a single player console is a mistake, as soon as most people get done playing it through the first time they realize hey, this game has no replay value.
wow this looks like any other OFFLINE rpg from bioware ... the space part is nothing more than a single player tunnel shooter
no offense here and i'm sure if you like modern bioware games you will like swtor but as friend of old school/style mmorpg's i can't find a single reason to play this game
That leads to a site where the first paragraph in German says that Space battles are a Tunnel shooter system that is quest based LOL.
This voicing we call "Tunnel-Shooter". These are specially designed Level, where a particular path follows. The player is a selection of weapon systems available, which he committed against his enemies. You get a Quest before there is reingeht. And if you in space, in addition is triggered Quests.
Thats what translator gets out of it but you get the idea. But heres the Rest translated for your pleasure.
The missions should not be more than a few minutes, are as such a short rather "Action" for zwischendurch Snack. To Release will be no honor-Raumschiffkämpfe. Later close BioWare something but not out. The Mission, the PC Action test could, included hunters, Corvettes and cruisers. Their task was 20 hunters shoot and the enemy Großschiff to destroy them. The missions are beautifully orchestrated, simply flying around in boring nothing does not exist.
The Jedi Knight, between the specializations guardians and guards. The Guardian may very well harm plugging, while the guardian rather take the offensive approach. We have here is probably a Tank and a DPS-class. The soldier will also decide between two specialisation: "Waffenplattform" and "Super Soldier" [note: The real names will probably be].
Jedi Knight can be a first companion on a small T7-droid happy. This little unity will be very kampfkräftig and Blaster and missiles. Otherwise, no new information PC Action but repeatedly again everything under classes and planets is already known. There is also a few, new media. Thanks to its subscribers ranzino Version has made available, and SWTOR Worlds for forward!
It looks pretty bad, it looks like you dont even get to do the Rail battles unless you get a quest for it...... WOW.
Also something about Jedi being Stuck with a T7 that shoots missiles.
BTW I at some point am using Zwischendurch Snack as a guild name or possibly an Orc Banner for the Relic RTS.
I would have preferred something more in the vein of Tie Fighter and XWA, but this should be fine, if it's visceral enough. Hopefully you'll have access to ship systems and whatnot.
If it's just point and click and a life bar, ala Syberia, these optional space bits, for me, will probably be "opted out".
get ready to be surprised people , because space combat is going to be nothing like that fringe gaming magazine said it was. They have no facts and have no clue what they are talking about. They took a few posts off the swtor forums and took what one of the dev team said out of context and ran with it, to make it seem as if they know what they are talking about....
Personally I'm bewildered as to why people are so surprised at this news. People have obviously been expecting far more than what Bioware told us. Read their original announcement and you'll see that they emphasised that space combat wasn't going to be a primary focus or like JTL in its depth.
Now, IF the concept proves to be popular after launch, then maybe they'll develop it further. But right now, Bioware have too much on their plate to launch a polished "land based" game, let alone divert resources to incorporating what people are expecting to be a whole expansion into a game that has yet to be launched.
Personally, I see it a tad silly an excuse that space combat was never intended to be nothing but a side burner project. Yet, time and time again Bioware have come out and explained that they cannot reveal details from, say, end-game because the concepts are not 110 % ready. Logically then, Bioware are happy with their concept of space combat and treating the present concept as a mere stepping stone for grander things to come is overtly optimistic. Why would they waste resources on ideas they are 110% confident with, and then change them to something totally different? It would be much like them deciding that instead of having voice overs they will use sign language. Therefore, the critique posed on the concept is equally valid as that pointed towards other released features and no amount of "side project" argumenting will amend it.
All-in-all, it is a curious argumentative coup-d-etat that when resources are spent on voice overs it is never away from anything and with those resources they couldn't provide any other content. On the other hand, spending resources on space combat would sidetrack the entire project and, hence, Bioware's decision to limit its scope was the only rational one. Am I missing something or are resources and resources a different thing altogether where other projects don't affect them at all and others consume them like there's no tomorrow.
I find the space combat, if its correctly described, to be disapointing. I think we all wish that "space" in this MMO will have a sense of freedom and sandboxyness. Who wouldn't want to hop in their ship and fly to a moon or planet, disembark and contiue your adventures. Its the ultimate experience for a sci-fi mmo like Star Wars.
With that said I just dont know how feasable technically that is to implement. Although Eve seems to do a good job of a vast space enviroment, they don't have planet content or even space station (correct me if I'm wrong) content for the owners of the space ships.
Maybe one day we can have the feel of the vastness of space coupled with the expanse of a planets surface to explore. I just wish that day would be the release of SW:TOR.
Comments
Tunnel shooter. Rail shooter. LOL, pathetic. I expected more from a AAA dev house such as BioWare. So much for the guys that made Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 and KotOR 1.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Interplay which is a branch off Bioware did the greats in RPGs. Which was shut down. Working on Fallout Van Buren at the time to. Bethesda bought the rights which is why they released Oblivion and Fallout 3 which just made a big world with really no RPG elements. To think Bethesda did it right with Morrowind to. /facepalm
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Two words = MASS APPEAL
Those 300,000 odd souls who at one time played EVE online are a minority.
But for those who want a non completely horribly translated version look here, from PC Gamer
http://s1018.photobucket.com/albums/af305/Imperialagent0110/SWTOR/
AWESOME!!! This is great news. I am so glad to hear that Bioware will focus on Star Wars stuff and not so much on the afterthought of space combat..
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
Well atleast we will have Voiceovers and cutscenes every now and then, and to top that we have to click the mousebutton sometimes to make thoose difficult chooices!. If one want deep and imersive gameplay, large open living worlds, crafting, playerdriven economics ect ect its better to find an another MMO(is this game seriously an MMO btw?)
Just make an movie instead.
The insane budget Bioware has, and they produce a pile of steaming poo.
First taking the lazy way and just contracting the Heroes Journey graphics engine. Now this sorry excuse for space combat. I bet they spent the most time and cash on those cheesy cutscenes and voice acting.
Shame on you Bioware!
space combat on rails? yea...ill buy a different game... lol stupid bioware....
A lot of these responses (well most of them anyway):
1. A Space-shooter MMO is another sci-fi sub-genre altogether at this time in MMO's creation. This niche does not seem to be very full but TOR is in no way ever going to be able to fill it by adding a "space combat" feature! (See Blackstar MMO on yutube - not developed for an interesting attempt at this).
2. The "on-rails" space combat is likely to be still very befitting and successful inclusion to the overall game with a lot of TOR players, I'm guessing, when it finally comes out, adding just another facet to the game.
3. Turning a small disappointment in expectation of one feature of this game into a global catastrophe for the game/company is not realistic is obvious enough. It could be a load of old... but the game is still moving a very promising direction whether you are going to try it or not.
4. Good scoop btw whoever dug this one up.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Listening to a lot of the whinner here you'd be forgiven for thinking that Bioware had been commissioned to supply a bespoke game, taylor-made to fit their exact specifications.
I for one, am just happy that the game is coming out at all, because i know that:
a) It's being crafted with a lot of love, by designers who actually care about the subject matter.
b) Bioware are hands down the best story-tellers in the gaming industry.
and,
c) It's freekin' Star Wars. It's a universe burned into our collective psychi.
All this talk of "this game is gonna suck, cos it won't have X or Y feature" really saddens me. This game was not made with YOUR requirements in mind. Get over it.
This is Bioware's creation. It's their game.
Play it, or don't play it. It's a simple as that.
I for one, can't wait to set foot in their universe, because my heart tells me it's gonna be an amazing adventure.
The most rational and well written post I've read on these forums in months. Thank you, you are spot on.
What? KOTOR is not a space sim???!! I expected KOTOR Online, which is what they are giving us, not EVE in Star Wars universe.
The funny part about this is all the WOW/Bioware/EA fanatics are soo willing to accept whatever they get, they actually see NO SPACE COMBAT in STAR WARS as a BONUS.
I mean when I think Star Wars I'm like, yeh I can Pilot my own ship, program my own droids out of selection of hundreds maybe even thousands, of course all the parts are modular so I can come up with some kind of strange combination the Solo's Falcom and I wont have the same thing everyone else has. I can traverse space and get into fights with bounty hunters hiding behind moons and in asteroid fields, I can play both sides as a Smuggler or Bounty hunter or I can infiltrate Republic infrastructure with my Sith. I can create my own lightsaber and fight with rebellions and uprisings against evil on Sith planets.
BUT this is what you are getting.
I can have a ship created for me and shoot through a roller coaster where I can shoot at AI in an allocated amount of time, this will second as my player housing ( my only player housing) and I cannot tamper with it in any way. I WILL farm a new lightsaber off high level Jawas every ten levels I cannot modify this lightsaber or change the colors, I can enhance it at level 30+ with special sockets, I will not be able to get the colors Red,Blue, Yellow or White until max level, actually my only choice at lower levels will be purple shades so that I will level even faster. I will not be able to fight Sith/Jedi in cross faction battles or infiltrate their base or attack them unwillingly in any way, unless I join a Warzone which is not like world pvp at all, but its all I get. I WILL be pigeonholed into whatever Faction they throw my Smuggler or Bounty hunter in no matter what. I WILL spend more time crawling in instance caves that look strangely like the caves in Korriban from KOTOR one and two, then I spend on doing actual Star Wars things.
Seriously making this game like a single player console is a mistake, as soon as most people get done playing it through the first time they realize hey, this game has no replay value.
New screenshot of space combat posted. http://www.swtor-station.com/index.php?p=news&newsid=396
Looks a lot like Lylat wars.
I'm gonna go with 'straw'.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
wow this looks like any other OFFLINE rpg from bioware ... the space part is nothing more than a single player tunnel shooter
no offense here and i'm sure if you like modern bioware games you will like swtor but as friend of old school/style mmorpg's i can't find a single reason to play this game
This approach is actually paying homage to the KotOR series.
That leads to a site where the first paragraph in German says that Space battles are a Tunnel shooter system that is quest based LOL.
This voicing we call "Tunnel-Shooter". These are specially designed Level, where a particular path follows. The player is a selection of weapon systems available, which he committed against his enemies. You get a Quest before there is reingeht. And if you in space, in addition is triggered Quests.
Thats what translator gets out of it but you get the idea. But heres the Rest translated for your pleasure.
The missions should not be more than a few minutes, are as such a short rather "Action" for zwischendurch Snack. To Release will be no honor-Raumschiffkämpfe. Later close BioWare something but not out. The Mission, the PC Action test could, included hunters, Corvettes and cruisers. Their task was 20 hunters shoot and the enemy Großschiff to destroy them. The missions are beautifully orchestrated, simply flying around in boring nothing does not exist.
The Jedi Knight, between the specializations guardians and guards. The Guardian may very well harm plugging, while the guardian rather take the offensive approach. We have here is probably a Tank and a DPS-class. The soldier will also decide between two specialisation: "Waffenplattform" and "Super Soldier" [note: The real names will probably be].
Jedi Knight can be a first companion on a small T7-droid happy. This little unity will be very kampfkräftig and Blaster and missiles. Otherwise, no new information PC Action but repeatedly again everything under classes and planets is already known. There is also a few, new media. Thanks to its subscribers ranzino Version has made available, and SWTOR Worlds for forward!
It looks pretty bad, it looks like you dont even get to do the Rail battles unless you get a quest for it...... WOW.
Also something about Jedi being Stuck with a T7 that shoots missiles.
BTW I at some point am using Zwischendurch Snack as a guild name or possibly an Orc Banner for the Relic RTS.
My only hope is space combat IS a side issue. I can take part in it if I want to. Space/Flight sims suck balls.
I would have preferred something more in the vein of Tie Fighter and XWA, but this should be fine, if it's visceral enough. Hopefully you'll have access to ship systems and whatnot.
If it's just point and click and a life bar, ala Syberia, these optional space bits, for me, will probably be "opted out".
But because you demand it here is the Official English Article from PC gamer a direct link to each page.
http://s1018.photobucket.com/albums/af305/Imperialagent0110/SWTOR/
I admire your blind optimism, sir.
Personally I'm bewildered as to why people are so surprised at this news. People have obviously been expecting far more than what Bioware told us. Read their original announcement and you'll see that they emphasised that space combat wasn't going to be a primary focus or like JTL in its depth.
Now, IF the concept proves to be popular after launch, then maybe they'll develop it further. But right now, Bioware have too much on their plate to launch a polished "land based" game, let alone divert resources to incorporating what people are expecting to be a whole expansion into a game that has yet to be launched.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Personally, I see it a tad silly an excuse that space combat was never intended to be nothing but a side burner project. Yet, time and time again Bioware have come out and explained that they cannot reveal details from, say, end-game because the concepts are not 110 % ready. Logically then, Bioware are happy with their concept of space combat and treating the present concept as a mere stepping stone for grander things to come is overtly optimistic. Why would they waste resources on ideas they are 110% confident with, and then change them to something totally different? It would be much like them deciding that instead of having voice overs they will use sign language. Therefore, the critique posed on the concept is equally valid as that pointed towards other released features and no amount of "side project" argumenting will amend it.
All-in-all, it is a curious argumentative coup-d-etat that when resources are spent on voice overs it is never away from anything and with those resources they couldn't provide any other content. On the other hand, spending resources on space combat would sidetrack the entire project and, hence, Bioware's decision to limit its scope was the only rational one. Am I missing something or are resources and resources a different thing altogether where other projects don't affect them at all and others consume them like there's no tomorrow.
Let's keep this thread civil everyone.
I don't like locking posts, but if flamewars and trolling are going to take over this discussion, it will be locked.
Thank you and have a great day.
I find the space combat, if its correctly described, to be disapointing. I think we all wish that "space" in this MMO will have a sense of freedom and sandboxyness. Who wouldn't want to hop in their ship and fly to a moon or planet, disembark and contiue your adventures. Its the ultimate experience for a sci-fi mmo like Star Wars.
With that said I just dont know how feasable technically that is to implement. Although Eve seems to do a good job of a vast space enviroment, they don't have planet content or even space station (correct me if I'm wrong) content for the owners of the space ships.
Maybe one day we can have the feel of the vastness of space coupled with the expanse of a planets surface to explore. I just wish that day would be the release of SW:TOR.