The continual use of the false dichotomy of EVE or the 1983 Star Wars Arcade game is disgusting, since it completely ignores the elephant in the center of the room. Or elephants: X-Wing, BF2, Rogue Squadron. Those weren't about exploration, or flying forever. Those put you in the middle of it and were "cinematic" without sacrificing interactivity.
This fundamental dishonesty on Bioware's AND the press' part is shameful.
You are the second person to mention Rogue Squadron as though it was like X-Wing or Tie Fighter. As far as I have seen, how is the space combat in TOR NOT like Rogue Squadron's combat? They both are arcade-like systems that don't allow 100% free movement -- you have movement in the x-y axis of the screen (circular area more or less) and that area moves forward automatically, more or less.
Maybe I should be more specific and say "Rogue Squadron 3D" (PC) -- I'm not a console gamer so from my viewpoint Rogue Squadron had 3D controls (even though the mission areas has a ridiculously low flight ceiling). I'm guessing the original console game with that name wasn't?
As much as I love a good story, I fear Bioware makes a huge mistake focusing entirely on it. It is a known fact, that MMO players rarely read the quest text, and skip voice talk, especially in a group (its simply impossible). The concept Bioware seems to use for TOR souds like a linear adventure model, RPG on railtracks, which will hurt it badly in the end, because it is not flexible. MMO's are all about flexibility. Players want freedom, and they want to explore the Galaxy, as they see fit, without being taken by hand like in a movie. A sandbox system with added story lines would be much mroe flexible and offer somethign for everyone. It is something I think ArenaNet is doing in Guild Wars 2.
You haven't done much research yet have you. You obviously have no idea about what a real RPG story is, as in BW's SPG if you have played them. The main difference is choice.
Choice means that the RPG in not linear and is not on railtracks as you put it. You have three choices most of the time as seen in the demos. Usually a light, dark or grey choice. Then your quest changes based on the choice you make. And not only your current quest but future quests as DE has said in interives. In fact in the interview, they brought up a choice a sith made that was a light choice. He gave away items to help a fellow sith that he just killed for in a dungeon. He then found out that he had to go back in and do the quest all over again because he did something nice (light side). The freedom in TOR will be choice. No, you can not chose to be a nurf hearder. But your story and character progression will be based on choice and will change if you level the same class again by making new choices.
Now the open world quests and world story arc quests will be more linear. But the NPC interactions will be different based on your class quest choices. So you are wrong about the ground game experience and linear adventure model. Space, well that is another story.
GW2 on the other hand, I see as a themepark as well. It is not a sandbox by in means. You have events that happen on a timer. You can interact or not. You have quests that are available by just entering an area, but you have no freedom to just explore as in a sandbox. You just go from ride to ride for the action. We don't know much about the RPG side of it within cities and such. But from the big demo, it was just pick a ride and get on. Then have fun. So I will play GW2 for the rides. They do look fun.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? R.A.Salvatore
Now that i think about it..... where are the sandbox mmos.... i dont think that there are any in development. Thats dissappointing.
"Don't mistake a fun game for a good game... Checkers is fun to play but its not exactly the highest point of gaming design... and definatly not worth $60 plus $15 a month"
Everytime I read a new interview it just sounds like more and more excuses by BW to release the most mediocre mmo possible. I am not talking about the graphics either, I am referring to all the half-thought out mechanics in-game such as race-restricted classes and space combat on rails for example.
Now recently it sounds as if character creation is being added to the list of mediocrity in SWTOR;
(talking about Dan) "He believes players will be "PLENTY HAPPY" with the amount of visual customization available, even if they can’t tweak their nose length one centimeter at a time."
Excuse me, but I thought games were trying to evolve and add more immersion, not de-evolve into cloned character faces with probably 3 to choose from and only the eye colors being different.
Everytime I read a new interview it just sounds like more and more excuses by BW to release the most mediocre mmo possible. I am not talking about the graphics either, I am referring to all the half-thought out mechanics in-game such as race-restricted classes and space combat on rails for example.
Now recently it sounds as if character creation is being added to the list of mediocrity in SWTOR;
(talking about Dan) "He believes players will be "PLENTY HAPPY" with the amount of visual customization available, even if they can’t tweak their nose length one centimeter at a time."
Excuse me, but I thought games were trying to evolve and add more immersion, not de-evolve into cloned character faces with probably 3 to choose from and only the eye colors being different.
and MMO players mostly don't care about story at all.
That's an...interesting...premise, but I'll have to disagree with you on that. I play MMOs, and in non-sandbox games I most definitely care about the story. In fact, I'm going to be picking up The Old Republic specifically for the story. I'm hoping for something like a multiplayer version of KOTOR, but one that can also be played solo if your friends are busy.
-Wrayeth "Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"
Everytime I read a new interview it just sounds like more and more excuses by BW to release the most mediocre mmo possible. I am not talking about the graphics either, I am referring to all the half-thought out mechanics in-game such as race-restricted classes and space combat on rails for example.
Now recently it sounds as if character creation is being added to the list of mediocrity in SWTOR;
(talking about Dan) "He believes players will be "PLENTY HAPPY" with the amount of visual customization available, even if they can’t tweak their nose length one centimeter at a time."
Excuse me, but I thought games were trying to evolve and add more immersion, not de-evolve into cloned character faces with probably 3 to choose from and only the eye colors being different.
Nice, even though it will get deleted soon. That map of hutta shows squares. The squares are about 2km x 2km per a post on the main swtor forums. Someone made a 3d model of a square on the map from gamescon demos. It was of Ord Mantel, but it is probably the same. And Hutta is the smallest of the starting planets. Ofc, none of the inside of buildings, dungeons or any flashpoints will be on the map to give us any idea of the true area of game play on a starting planet. But we do know that the main planets are at least 4 times larger than the starter planets. I doubt we will get a lot of info until the beta starts. Not the limited testing now, but a true beta when the game is ready in BW's eyes.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? R.A.Salvatore
If people thought SWG was the disaster of all Star Wars disasters in the MMO genre, guess what, we have the new King of SW MMO disasters.
What percentage of the MMO community actually gives a damn about "Story"? Seriously, am I wrong in thinking the majority of MMO players tend to just skip the storylines in favor of faster leveling?
If I want to read a novel, I will spend 5 bucks at local book store. Not gonna spend 15 bucks per month to read the same novel(only slightly different) over and over again.
The only real information that is good information is the open beta. Any wishing, wanting or crying for more information before then is asinine.
Also, having prejudice towards the game before the open beta without any hands on gameplay is idiotic.
From what I have seen of this game, it looks like all the other mmos that have come along. One major difference is that this one has an actual story that I can engage with. No other mmo that I have played has had something like this. The closest thing I can recall is the Epic quests from Dark Age of Camelot. No game has given a reason to read or listen to quests. There have been no choices up to this point in any mmo. It has been kill x get y. That in its self is worth the money imo
A player driven story is never going to change the world setting, you would need a world driven story for that. STOR has gone for the personal aspect of story rather than the feeling of a changing world. I don’t think one is better than the other, its swings and roundabouts.
You can go from dark to light force and then back again? What about the faction combat, if you are in a guild and some of your members end up on the wrong side that could cause huge issues.
Typo:
“but so far we haven’t been ale to get anyone to talk about it.” (able)
A player driven story is never going to change the world setting, you would need a world driven story for that. STOR has gone for the personal aspect of story rather than the feeling of a changing world. I don’t think one is better than the other, its swings and roundabouts.
You can go from dark to light force and then back again? What about the faction combat, if you are in a guild and some of your members end up on the wrong side that could cause huge issues.
Typo:
“but so far we haven’t been ale to get anyone to talk about it.” (able)
actually some clarification
There will be world stories, stated by the devs already.
There is no switching faction, but they said you can be a light sided sith working from within and vice versa. And guilds will be 1 faction only.
Not sure how many people played the actual 15 or so minute demo they gave you, but i'll give my expierence from playing it for about 15 mins myself.
I was spawned into a room with an npc and one of the tech guys pushed me forward to get the story going. This consisted of him pushing my avatar (it was the bounty hunter) into the green field and then having me right click on the npc to start the dialogue.
The story ran with 3 characters talking about a job they needed done and how i was suppose to go about doing it. Every so often the dialogue circle would show up and give me some choices (ala ME) clicking one of these choices would have my character say something around the context of the line of text i picked. After about 5 minutes of talking i was released back into the world with a quest objective.
After making my way out of the building I saw the building i needed to the right with the doorway (not the archway but the opening) had a green barrier around it. After fighting one of the enemies using a combination of skills such as gernade, shooting my gun, and using my flamethrower. I was able to take the enemy down in about 3 to 5 skills depending on how well the skills hit, there is no auto attack if you were wondering.
After entering the building it was pretty linear to get to the end guy and kill him. Clicking on the datapad on the bed, my quest log was update. Returning back to the quest person started another sequence where i was able to make more changes and see how the people responded.
After which i went around randomly killing some npcs and looting their corpse because by this time my 15 minutes was almost up.
Basic details of the game consist of:
NPC that talk
PCs that talk.
Graphics are about on par with EQ2 and such (closer to this then say WoW which as i was looking at it wow and tor look nothing alike.)
A hud showing both your health and picture on the left and your enemies health and picture on the right.
A map with a magnifying glass that you can get a better look of if you hover over certain areas.
Character animation looked okay in some places and better in others and looked really good in the talking.
Fighting is about what you'd expect from a MMO, skill usage, but i did have one of the enemies hid behind a building once.
The instancing is seamless as they stated. Once i entered the building i noticed one of the "player controlled characters" disappeared but i never saw a loading screen.
Most quest are picked up by talking to an npc and going through the dialogue but a few of these are well hidden.
All in all, it's about what i expected when i thought of a Kotor based game. Nothing in the tutorial levels that blew my mind but i wasn't disappointed either.
I'm still buying this game because i like it. Hopefully i will get to see more of the game and play it longer but 15 minutes will hold me for a while.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
As much as I love a good story, I fear Bioware makes a huge mistake focusing entirely on it. It is a known fact, that MMO players rarely read the quest text, and skip voice talk, especially in a group (its simply impossible). The concept Bioware seems to use for TOR souds like a linear adventure model, RPG on railtracks, which will hurt it badly in the end, because it is not flexible. MMO's are all about flexibility. Players want freedom, and they want to explore the Galaxy, as they see fit, without being taken by hand like in a movie. A sandbox system with added story lines would be much mroe flexible and offer somethign for everyone. It is something I think ArenaNet is doing in Guild Wars 2.
I watched all Tortage quests in AoC but didn't bother read most after that, so clearly spoken/acted quests are better than pile of text. And how is Guild Wars 2 sandbox??? I haven't heard single sandboxie feature, player housing? No, dynamic crafting(aka make "unique" items)? No, Area control PvP? No. Only "unique" feature in GW2 seems to be that decided to ditch Healer classes in favor of all can heal system. Sure it's pretty but it's also very generic (serious) middle age fantasy MMO much like Tera, Rift and god knows what other.
Many people seem to drum on this player freedom but you can get lost in freedom and that is not fun.
What percentage of the MMO community actually gives a damn about "Story"? Seriously, am I wrong in thinking the majority of MMO players tend to just skip the storylines in favor of faster leveling?
I think you'd have a stronger point if all other MMOs didn't make story meaningless by giving players zero story choices. How much players care about story has a lot to do with how much they can interact with it, so you can't really judge how players will treat TOR's story based on how they deal with other MMOs.
My dreams of a new SWG is shattered. Sure it will be an awesome game but no longer sure it belongs in the MMO category.
"That isn’t, however, to say that there won’t be some kind of endgame experience, but so far we haven’t been ale to get anyone to talk about it." - if this fails....
"Sure you can still customize your ship, but don’t go into TOR expecting a world/universe/space simulator." - fail :'(
My dreams of a new SWG is shattered. Sure it will be an awesome game but no longer sure it belongs in the MMO category.
"That isn’t, however, to say that there won’t be some kind of endgame experience, but so far we haven’t been ale to get anyone to talk about it." - if this fails....
"Sure you can still customize your ship, but don’t go into TOR expecting a world/universe/space simulator." - fail :'(
I'll try and tackle this the best way i understand it, if i fail to understand a point, i apologize in advance.
Okay first off BW never stated this was a sequel or anything related to SWG. SWG is owned by sony and this is BW, so it's two different games with two different companies.
As for it belonging in the MMO category? how does it not fit. It has other players, in a world where you do quests and fight with other players. If this doesn't qualify it as an MMO then they better take down about what 60 percent of the MMOs out there including WoW.
Endgame isn't released yet as that tends to be at the end, so BW/LA haven't released anything therefore there isn't really anything to "talk about"
Finally they did create a world, as for the universe i can't coment but as for space i don't believe they are trying to do a space simulator, never stated they were either.
Final note: this game reacts pretty much like every other MMO out there except it has a story. Which is what BW is trying to sell their game on.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I'm always surprised when I see a class "Jedi Knight".
Let's see how many thousands Jedai wanabee we will see at launch
What else would you expect in a game set in this timeline? The old SWG crying about Jedi is over...This is a new game, a new timeline in which Jedi were far from rare...Furthermore they are a HUGE part of this story...So get over it...There still some folks working out of their basements putting something together for those who still want to wail uncontrollably about Jedi population...SWTOR is not that place...
"Final note: this game reacts pretty much like every other MMO out there except it has a story. Which is what BW is trying to sell their game on."
Most games have stories, probably not as extensive as this one, but I think Lotro is a good example of a very good storyline. Wow makes great attempts at storyline, most people just don't notice it.
You can blame Blizzard for the way they are building this game, they are trying to out Blizzard Blizzard. Challenges will be few and you can bet there will be an endgame that is similar to Wow's if not better.
This game is a direct result of Bioware seeing what the vast majority of players want and giving it to them in a better way than what has been done previously.
Don't take that as a negative, there are a lot of people excited about this game and rightly so, it is designed for them.
"Final note: this game reacts pretty much like every other MMO out there except it has a story. Which is what BW is trying to sell their game on."
Most games have stories, probably not as extensive as this one, but I think Lotro is a good example of a very good storyline. Wow makes great attempts at storyline, most people just don't notice it.
You can blame Blizzard for the way they are building this game, they are trying to out Blizzard Blizzard. Challenges will be few and you can bet there will be an endgame that is similar to Wow's if not better.
This game is a direct result of Bioware seeing what the vast majority of players want and giving it to them in a better way than what has been done previously.
Don't take that as a negative, there are a lot of people excited about this game and rightly so, it is designed for them.
I agree with this post that the developers seem to be trying to outdo Blizzard and make this fantastic game everyone is going to want to play. I agree the game looks very interesting, but, it just strikes me the developers are getting bogged down with the need to outdo Blizzard. Maybe the best course is to release the game sooner(as I keep seeing the hype on this website continually going down) so all can play. The game can always be tweaked with additional or revised content.
Everytime I read a new interview it just sounds like more and more excuses by BW to release the most mediocre mmo possible. I am not talking about the graphics either, I am referring to all the half-thought out mechanics in-game such as race-restricted classes and space combat on rails for example.
Now recently it sounds as if character creation is being added to the list of mediocrity in SWTOR;
(talking about Dan) "He believes players will be "PLENTY HAPPY" with the amount of visual customization available, even if they can’t tweak their nose length one centimeter at a time."
Excuse me, but I thought games were trying to evolve and add more immersion, not de-evolve into cloned character faces with probably 3 to choose from and only the eye colors being different.
My dreams of a new SWG is shattered. Sure it will be an awesome game but no longer sure it belongs in the MMO category.
"That isn’t, however, to say that there won’t be some kind of endgame experience, but so far we haven’t been ale to get anyone to talk about it." - if this fails....
"Sure you can still customize your ship, but don’t go into TOR expecting a world/universe/space simulator." - fail :'(
They were very clear even a YEAR AGO that this was not going to be SWG2. I don't know why you suddenly have such dreams shattered since it has long been known that was never going to happen. Bioware has been focusing on making a story/experience that is inline with the Star Wars movies/novels, something SWG never did.
"Final note: this game reacts pretty much like every other MMO out there except it has a story. Which is what BW is trying to sell their game on."
Most games have stories, probably not as extensive as this one, but I think Lotro is a good example of a very good storyline. Wow makes great attempts at storyline, most people just don't notice it.
You can blame Blizzard for the way they are building this game, they are trying to out Blizzard Blizzard. Challenges will be few and you can bet there will be an endgame that is similar to Wow's if not better.
This game is a direct result of Bioware seeing what the vast majority of players want and giving it to them in a better way than what has been done previously.
Don't take that as a negative, there are a lot of people excited about this game and rightly so, it is designed for them.
I agree with this post that the developers seem to be trying to outdo Blizzard and make this fantastic game everyone is going to want to play. I agree the game looks very interesting, but, it just strikes me the developers are getting bogged down with the need to outdo Blizzard. Maybe the best course is to release the game sooner(as I keep seeing the hype on this website continually going down) so all can play. The game can always be tweaked with additional or revised content.
I think in SOME ways they've done this, I think. However, they've clearly detoured often into making a game that feels like Star Wars. Early on the combat system didn't have Lightsabers interact with each other at all, and they decided that didn't feel Star Warsy enough so they redid the whole thing. That's certainly an example of something that decided should not be WoW-like (though in fact, this was very similar to many non-WoW MMOs). Some WoW-like vestiges remain (such as loot), but that sort of thing is also a lot older than WoW.
Overall they have a lot of differneces from WoW. You'll never see player Housing in WoW for instance. Nor does it look like WoW will ever have story-based decision-making.
The biggest lift though is probably the interface, but why make something new for the sole reason of being different? The interface in WoW works well.
Comments
Maybe I should be more specific and say "Rogue Squadron 3D" (PC) -- I'm not a console gamer so from my viewpoint Rogue Squadron had 3D controls (even though the mission areas has a ridiculously low flight ceiling). I'm guessing the original console game with that name wasn't?
If story sucks this game is doomed.... and MMO players mostly don't care about story at all.
You haven't done much research yet have you. You obviously have no idea about what a real RPG story is, as in BW's SPG if you have played them. The main difference is choice.
Choice means that the RPG in not linear and is not on railtracks as you put it. You have three choices most of the time as seen in the demos. Usually a light, dark or grey choice. Then your quest changes based on the choice you make. And not only your current quest but future quests as DE has said in interives. In fact in the interview, they brought up a choice a sith made that was a light choice. He gave away items to help a fellow sith that he just killed for in a dungeon. He then found out that he had to go back in and do the quest all over again because he did something nice (light side). The freedom in TOR will be choice. No, you can not chose to be a nurf hearder. But your story and character progression will be based on choice and will change if you level the same class again by making new choices.
Now the open world quests and world story arc quests will be more linear. But the NPC interactions will be different based on your class quest choices. So you are wrong about the ground game experience and linear adventure model. Space, well that is another story.
GW2 on the other hand, I see as a themepark as well. It is not a sandbox by in means. You have events that happen on a timer. You can interact or not. You have quests that are available by just entering an area, but you have no freedom to just explore as in a sandbox. You just go from ride to ride for the action. We don't know much about the RPG side of it within cities and such. But from the big demo, it was just pick a ride and get on. Then have fun. So I will play GW2 for the rides. They do look fun.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
Now that i think about it..... where are the sandbox mmos.... i dont think that there are any in development. Thats dissappointing.
"Don't mistake a fun game for a good game... Checkers is fun to play but its not exactly the highest point of gaming design... and definatly not worth $60 plus $15 a month"
Everytime I read a new interview it just sounds like more and more excuses by BW to release the most mediocre mmo possible. I am not talking about the graphics either, I am referring to all the half-thought out mechanics in-game such as race-restricted classes and space combat on rails for example.
Now recently it sounds as if character creation is being added to the list of mediocrity in SWTOR;
(talking about Dan) "He believes players will be "PLENTY HAPPY" with the amount of visual customization available, even if they can’t tweak their nose length one centimeter at a time."
Excuse me, but I thought games were trying to evolve and add more immersion, not de-evolve into cloned character faces with probably 3 to choose from and only the eye colors being different.
http://leakerz.net/wp/2010/07/11/star-wars-the-old-republic-beta-screenshots/
Don't think we'll be seeing clones anytime soon.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
That's an...interesting...premise, but I'll have to disagree with you on that. I play MMOs, and in non-sandbox games I most definitely care about the story. In fact, I'm going to be picking up The Old Republic specifically for the story. I'm hoping for something like a multiplayer version of KOTOR, but one that can also be played solo if your friends are busy.
-Wrayeth
"Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"
Nice, even though it will get deleted soon. That map of hutta shows squares. The squares are about 2km x 2km per a post on the main swtor forums. Someone made a 3d model of a square on the map from gamescon demos. It was of Ord Mantel, but it is probably the same. And Hutta is the smallest of the starting planets. Ofc, none of the inside of buildings, dungeons or any flashpoints will be on the map to give us any idea of the true area of game play on a starting planet. But we do know that the main planets are at least 4 times larger than the starter planets. I doubt we will get a lot of info until the beta starts. Not the limited testing now, but a true beta when the game is ready in BW's eyes.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
If people thought SWG was the disaster of all Star Wars disasters in the MMO genre, guess what, we have the new King of SW MMO disasters.
What percentage of the MMO community actually gives a damn about "Story"? Seriously, am I wrong in thinking the majority of MMO players tend to just skip the storylines in favor of faster leveling?
If I want to read a novel, I will spend 5 bucks at local book store. Not gonna spend 15 bucks per month to read the same novel(only slightly different) over and over again.
The only real information that is good information is the open beta. Any wishing, wanting or crying for more information before then is asinine.
Also, having prejudice towards the game before the open beta without any hands on gameplay is idiotic.
From what I have seen of this game, it looks like all the other mmos that have come along. One major difference is that this one has an actual story that I can engage with. No other mmo that I have played has had something like this. The closest thing I can recall is the Epic quests from Dark Age of Camelot. No game has given a reason to read or listen to quests. There have been no choices up to this point in any mmo. It has been kill x get y. That in its self is worth the money imo
A player driven story is never going to change the world setting, you would need a world driven story for that. STOR has gone for the personal aspect of story rather than the feeling of a changing world. I don’t think one is better than the other, its swings and roundabouts.
You can go from dark to light force and then back again? What about the faction combat, if you are in a guild and some of your members end up on the wrong side that could cause huge issues.
Typo:
“but so far we haven’t been ale to get anyone to talk about it.” (able)
actually some clarification
There will be world stories, stated by the devs already.
There is no switching faction, but they said you can be a light sided sith working from within and vice versa. And guilds will be 1 faction only.
Not sure how many people played the actual 15 or so minute demo they gave you, but i'll give my expierence from playing it for about 15 mins myself.
I was spawned into a room with an npc and one of the tech guys pushed me forward to get the story going. This consisted of him pushing my avatar (it was the bounty hunter) into the green field and then having me right click on the npc to start the dialogue.
The story ran with 3 characters talking about a job they needed done and how i was suppose to go about doing it. Every so often the dialogue circle would show up and give me some choices (ala ME) clicking one of these choices would have my character say something around the context of the line of text i picked. After about 5 minutes of talking i was released back into the world with a quest objective.
After making my way out of the building I saw the building i needed to the right with the doorway (not the archway but the opening) had a green barrier around it. After fighting one of the enemies using a combination of skills such as gernade, shooting my gun, and using my flamethrower. I was able to take the enemy down in about 3 to 5 skills depending on how well the skills hit, there is no auto attack if you were wondering.
After entering the building it was pretty linear to get to the end guy and kill him. Clicking on the datapad on the bed, my quest log was update. Returning back to the quest person started another sequence where i was able to make more changes and see how the people responded.
After which i went around randomly killing some npcs and looting their corpse because by this time my 15 minutes was almost up.
Basic details of the game consist of:
NPC that talk
PCs that talk.
Graphics are about on par with EQ2 and such (closer to this then say WoW which as i was looking at it wow and tor look nothing alike.)
A hud showing both your health and picture on the left and your enemies health and picture on the right.
A map with a magnifying glass that you can get a better look of if you hover over certain areas.
Character animation looked okay in some places and better in others and looked really good in the talking.
Fighting is about what you'd expect from a MMO, skill usage, but i did have one of the enemies hid behind a building once.
The instancing is seamless as they stated. Once i entered the building i noticed one of the "player controlled characters" disappeared but i never saw a loading screen.
Most quest are picked up by talking to an npc and going through the dialogue but a few of these are well hidden.
All in all, it's about what i expected when i thought of a Kotor based game. Nothing in the tutorial levels that blew my mind but i wasn't disappointed either.
I'm still buying this game because i like it. Hopefully i will get to see more of the game and play it longer but 15 minutes will hold me for a while.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I watched all Tortage quests in AoC but didn't bother read most after that, so clearly spoken/acted quests are better than pile of text. And how is Guild Wars 2 sandbox??? I haven't heard single sandboxie feature, player housing? No, dynamic crafting(aka make "unique" items)? No, Area control PvP? No. Only "unique" feature in GW2 seems to be that decided to ditch Healer classes in favor of all can heal system. Sure it's pretty but it's also very generic (serious) middle age fantasy MMO much like Tera, Rift and god knows what other.
Many people seem to drum on this player freedom but you can get lost in freedom and that is not fun.
I think you'd have a stronger point if all other MMOs didn't make story meaningless by giving players zero story choices. How much players care about story has a lot to do with how much they can interact with it, so you can't really judge how players will treat TOR's story based on how they deal with other MMOs.
I'm always surprised when I see a class "Jedi Knight".
Let's see how many thousands Jedai wanabee we will see at launch
My dreams of a new SWG is shattered. Sure it will be an awesome game but no longer sure it belongs in the MMO category.
"That isn’t, however, to say that there won’t be some kind of endgame experience, but so far we haven’t been ale to get anyone to talk about it." - if this fails....
"Sure you can still customize your ship, but don’t go into TOR expecting a world/universe/space simulator." - fail :'(
Wumi - SWG - Bloodfin - Cancelled
Wumi - WoW - Eu-Kazzak - Cancelled
Bulldozer - Aion - Eu-Kahrun - Cancelled
Wumi - Rift - EU-Riptalon - Cancelled
I'll try and tackle this the best way i understand it, if i fail to understand a point, i apologize in advance.
Okay first off BW never stated this was a sequel or anything related to SWG. SWG is owned by sony and this is BW, so it's two different games with two different companies.
As for it belonging in the MMO category? how does it not fit. It has other players, in a world where you do quests and fight with other players. If this doesn't qualify it as an MMO then they better take down about what 60 percent of the MMOs out there including WoW.
Endgame isn't released yet as that tends to be at the end, so BW/LA haven't released anything therefore there isn't really anything to "talk about"
Finally they did create a world, as for the universe i can't coment but as for space i don't believe they are trying to do a space simulator, never stated they were either.
Final note: this game reacts pretty much like every other MMO out there except it has a story. Which is what BW is trying to sell their game on.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
What else would you expect in a game set in this timeline? The old SWG crying about Jedi is over...This is a new game, a new timeline in which Jedi were far from rare...Furthermore they are a HUGE part of this story...So get over it...There still some folks working out of their basements putting something together for those who still want to wail uncontrollably about Jedi population...SWTOR is not that place...
"Final note: this game reacts pretty much like every other MMO out there except it has a story. Which is what BW is trying to sell their game on."
Most games have stories, probably not as extensive as this one, but I think Lotro is a good example of a very good storyline. Wow makes great attempts at storyline, most people just don't notice it.
You can blame Blizzard for the way they are building this game, they are trying to out Blizzard Blizzard. Challenges will be few and you can bet there will be an endgame that is similar to Wow's if not better.
This game is a direct result of Bioware seeing what the vast majority of players want and giving it to them in a better way than what has been done previously.
Don't take that as a negative, there are a lot of people excited about this game and rightly so, it is designed for them.
I agree with this post that the developers seem to be trying to outdo Blizzard and make this fantastic game everyone is going to want to play. I agree the game looks very interesting, but, it just strikes me the developers are getting bogged down with the need to outdo Blizzard. Maybe the best course is to release the game sooner(as I keep seeing the hype on this website continually going down) so all can play. The game can always be tweaked with additional or revised content.
this game is looking terrible =(
lmao isnt that exactly the same as WoW's customization interface? i hope youre being sarcastic. oh man this is looking bad.
and i agree with someone else's post. most MMO'ers couldnt care less about the story. it's all about mechanics, replayability and depth.
They were very clear even a YEAR AGO that this was not going to be SWG2. I don't know why you suddenly have such dreams shattered since it has long been known that was never going to happen. Bioware has been focusing on making a story/experience that is inline with the Star Wars movies/novels, something SWG never did.
I think in SOME ways they've done this, I think. However, they've clearly detoured often into making a game that feels like Star Wars. Early on the combat system didn't have Lightsabers interact with each other at all, and they decided that didn't feel Star Warsy enough so they redid the whole thing. That's certainly an example of something that decided should not be WoW-like (though in fact, this was very similar to many non-WoW MMOs). Some WoW-like vestiges remain (such as loot), but that sort of thing is also a lot older than WoW.
Overall they have a lot of differneces from WoW. You'll never see player Housing in WoW for instance. Nor does it look like WoW will ever have story-based decision-making.
The biggest lift though is probably the interface, but why make something new for the sole reason of being different? The interface in WoW works well.