What makes people so certain BW can't make a good mmorpg?

jaxsundane · January 2011

I've been only half way in the loop as far as console and offline pc games go lately so I can admit there are quite a few games I've missed in these past few years one of them being Mass Effect 1 and 2.

I picked up a copy of ME2 for the PS3 release and after having played it these last few days it reminded me of what Bioware is capable of with a game that many other devs out there are incapable of and that's getting a player fully engrossed in what is going on in the game world. I haven't finished the game yet but just from what I've played I get the sense of being in a well made mmorpg until I remember that none of those other people are players like me.

This game gave me the same feeling I got when I played Baldurs Gate and the IWD games that I believe were inspired by the BG saga. At the end of the day Bioware has more games that feel like mmorpg's than many mmorpg developers do, I mean could you imagine if STO played even half way like ME2 does?

What in the world is it that people see to make them make statements suggesting because this is the first mmorpg they made they can't pull it off??

Drakynn · January 2011

There's probably a myriad of reasons but a few that come to mind is

EA hate transference since BW is part of EA.

Tall Poppy syndrome,people love too see successful people fall.

They feel SW:TOR threatens the success of their chosen game possibly coming out aroudn the same time and feel th eneed to rundown SW:TOR in defence of said game(You can see many examples of this in the DCUO and Rift forums of this site)

They are niche gamers and feel the need to attack and denigrate anything and anyone that doesn't subsribe to their niche,it's notihng personal in this case they'll attakc any game not in that niche.

They don't like one or two things they've learned so far from the scant information BW has released and have decided to judge the whole game on those things

Now SW:TOR may turn out to be the biggest flop in gaming history or it may be great and will be very successful or more likely sometihng inbetween.But I personally won't judge if the game is for me until I cna get the full skinny on all it's features and hopefulyl have some hands on before deciding.

Sioned · January 2011

Actually its BW themself that are the main source for this opinion.

I have seen the Alpha of SWOTOR and i have played it at GamesCom. I talked to the devs in 2009 and 2010. Both times i was amazed at the ignorance the devs have when it comes to MMOs.

BW aproachs SWOTOR like a single player game. Like most ppl i think BW makes GREAT or even awesome single player RPG but when it comes to MMO they seem to lack the basic and fundamental understanding of the genre itself.

The focus of BW for SWOTOR are things like:

- Voiceover for all ingame talks - clearly this is single player based (they find voiceover for all questtalk so amazing that they claim this as their main achievement..... sorry i am scared if that really is their main achievement)

- NPC COOP modus as the director stated himself you will be able to play much of the content either Solo or with NPC Coop - clearly single player, but who wants to play solo or with npc in an MMO ???

- interactive combat cover system - like we know it from console games - this doesnt even work in PVP or in an non instanced evironment if you have seen some trailers you know what i mean. Objects are highlighted when yoiu can find cover behind them compared to your target... with target switching all over like it is pvp this seems plain useless.

- Groupbased Quest response - the first thing that is really innovative in my eyes - even tho it means that you dont wanna go and do quests with random players because they could mess up your questline - still nice idea with a great potential in itself

These points cover most of the main focus - dont get me wrong - this is the focus stated by the devs and producers THEMSELF.

Their main acievement is a major problem in my eyes. Because if they plan to continue with the full voiceover, this will result in a long development time and high costs for updates and expansions. They cant just add a quest or a small event because they have voiceactors to play the quest for like 20 different voices. Even today players play content faster than the devs can supply it - so with this it will be even worse.

So why are so many ppl worried that BW cant make an MMO?

In an 2 hour presentation of SWOTOR at a game show the last line of the product director was...

Yes we will have PVP, yes we will have guild, yes we will have economy, yes we will have community, yes we will have housing .....

the reason he had to state that was because in an 2 hour presentation NONE of this was shown to the press - NONE.

We saw prerendered trailers - Voiceovered quest talk with group interaction and a combat system with cover and fire that is neither doable in mass scale PVP nor did we see any PVP at all.

Do you start to get the picture. BW can do great RPG many ppl just fear that they got carried away and forgot the - or never realised - the main part of MMORPG. MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER. In the current version SWOTOR gameplay feels like a COOP based action adventure were you and your 5 buddys are on a rampage in an starwars environment.

I so hope they just havent shown us all the good stuff yet - but yes i share the opinion that BW is maybe unable to make MMOs.

whilan · January 2011

My personal feeling is that most of these people are jaded and see ToR as yet another game like the one they left (which is why they are here instead of say playing their desired MMO)

When they see ToR they see, X game instead of ToR. They want something different (maybe completely) like mine craft or a sandbox game. So when they see ToR they see bleh another theme park game like the one i just left, I better downplay this so they will make the kind of game I want instead.

Just my personal feeling but it's the only reason i can come up with why they would want to downplay another game, they haven't even played yet.

As for the first MMo made argument/BW only makes single player games so they can't make an MMO? Just things they throw out there to try and make the game seem worse then it really is, to try and back up their reasoning.

I can go off on a list of games that became sucesses from companies that never made an MMO before, heres the short list

UO

EQ

WoW

ToR

obviously the last one is speculation but i don't think anyone will disagree with the first three. They were big hits in the MMO genre and the companies never made an MMO before, yet somehow they became relatively famous in the MMO genre.

jaxsundane · January 2011

Originally posted by Sioned
Actually its BW themself that are the main source for this opinion.

I have seen the Alpha of SWOTOR and i have played it at GamesCom. I talked to the devs in 2009 and 2010. Both times i was amazed at the ignorance the devs have when it comes to MMOs.

BW aproachs SWOTOR like a single player game. Like most ppl i think BW makes GREAT or even awesome Single Player RPG but when it comes to MMO they seem to lack the basic and fundamental understanding of the genre itself.

The focus of BW for SWOTOR are things like:

- Voiceover for all ingame talks - clearly this is Single Player based (they find voiceover for all questtalk so amazing that they claim this this as their main achievement..... sorry i am scared if that really is their main achievement)

- NPC COOP Modus as the director statet himself you will be able to play much of the content either Solo or with NPC Coop. - clearly single player

- interactive combat cover system - like we know it from console games - this doesnt even work in PVP or in an non instanced evironment

- Groupbased Quest response - the first thing that is really innovative in my eyes - even tho it means that you dont wanna go and do quests with random players because they could mess up your questline - still nice idea

These points cover most of the main focus - dont get me wrong - this is the focus stated by the devs and producers THEMSELF.

So why are so many ppl worried that BW cant make an MMO?

In an 2 hour presentation of SWOTOR at a game show the last line of the product director was...

Yes we will have PVP, yes we will have guild, yes we will have economy, yes we will have community, yes we will have housing .....

the reason he had to state that was because in an 2 hour presentation NONE of this was shown to the press - NONE.

We saw prerendered trailers - Voiceovered quest talk with group interaction and a combat system with cover and fire that is neither doable in mass scale PVP nor did we see any PVP at all.

Do you start to get the picture. BW can do great RPG many ppl just fear that they got carried away and forgot the or never realised the main part of MMORPG. MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER. In the current version SWOTOR gameplay feels like a COOP based action Adventure were you and your 5 buddys are on a rampage in an starwars evironment.

I so hope they just haven shown us all the good stuff yet - but yes i share the opinion that BW is maybe unable to make MMOs.

This response makes me think along the lines of the first responder in a two hour presnetation to be honest the last thing I want to see from you is what is in every single mmorpg, Id rather have you show me what makes your mmorpg different than all the other ones out there (unless of course you feel that those features are so above and beyond what everyone else is doing you need to talk it up).

Meh I think maybe the issue really is that a vast majority of people who consider themselves "mmorpg players" like it is somehow better than any other type of gamer just can't see the forest for the trees, for a bunch of people who never made a single game how can we all be so certain that a good game developer can't deliver?

Yes I think the first responder is very much onto somethings.

ElendilasX · January 2011

It is not pure reason in itself in most cases. Of course there is some rare haters of BW and SW who just want to bash them, but they seem rare.

I can see somewhat both sides of coin in this case, strongest reason for each:

Fail. It is their first MMO (what is the saying in english? first pancake is always burnt?(at least that is word to word translation from my language)) and they dont have experience, also they choice well known IP, it is hard and risky thing, as they tend to fail, i think there was quite a few failures. So those simple reason may seem enough to condemn game/firm in some players eyes.

Success. They creating single player RPG in suit of MMO. From what I gathered so far (not following too closely) it will have awesome singleplayer, question how it will be in MMORPG division. And we know that BW is great with single player RPGs. That is enough to make huge ammount of box sales.

Also please define "Failure" (from you last phrase "cant pull it off") and "Good/Bad game" (taken from name of thread). I say any game which makes enough money to cover its making expenses is success. Good/Bad game comes to tastes. Personally for me bad game is anything which doesnt bring innovation (real innovation IMO, meaning it changes something drasticly compared to other MMORPG).

If you were to put definition people saying "it will fail" or something like that will lower and increase greatly. As someone saying it will fail means it wont kill WoW, even if it gather few million players and for other saying game will be "great success" it may mean they will make enough to get their money back and make some extra...

IMO SWTOR will be average game (population wise) peaking at 2-5M at beginning and setling to ~500k subs latter as I personally dont see anything to hold me for longer time except for old boring eq grind (never done, hate it to the very idea...), it will awesome singleplayer/multiplayer experience while you explore/go through well done content and then hitting the cap/exhausting content. Of course you can replay as other faction/race but there wont be too much difference would be my guess, maybe only in faction like Sith/Jedi side..

whilan · January 2011

Originally posted by Sioned
The focus of BW for SWOTOR are things like:

- Voiceover for all ingame talks - clearly this is single player based (they find voiceover for all questtalk so amazing that they claim this as their main achievement..... sorry i am scared if that really is their main achievement)

Curious, why does having voice overs make it a single player base thing? I thought Voice overs was a mechanic of the game not a deciding factor that it's single player driven or not. You may not be aware but in almost every single instance where you have VO you can have more then one player opting in right?

They are boosting more the fact of the presentation of the quest more so then the voice overs themselves. The idea that it feels like your in a movie instead of just a text box

- NPC COOP modus as the director stated himself you will be able to play much of the content either Solo or with NPC Coop - clearly single player, but who wants to play solo or with npc in an MMO ???

Ah the companions, yeah they do help a little. They can make some encounters duoable but the entire game is based around these companions. So some encounters are still grouped based and therefore require a group of people to do it.

- interactive combat cover system - like we know it from console games - this doesnt even work in PVP or in an non instanced evironment if you have seen some trailers you know what i mean. Objects are highlighted when yoiu can find cover behind them compared to your target... with target switching all over like it is pvp this seems plain useless.

I think this is just another mechanic in games not something that points towards a single player game experience. As for the PvP. I actually think this works really well, i'd go so far as to say that it reminds me of FPS games where you use cover to hide and shoot at your enemies.

- Groupbased Quest response - the first thing that is really innovative in my eyes - even tho it means that you dont wanna go and do quests with random players because they could mess up your questline - still nice idea with a great potential in itself

People messing up your quest (i'd rather think it just makes it more chaotic and thus more entertaining but *shrug*) is what happens when you group with other people.

I'm actually glad they are putting some elements that were in single player games into the MMO ones. They were direly missed when I switched genres.

Sioned · January 2011

I see your point yes. And you are partially right. Ofc they want to show us the USP of their game - "Their special" im just saying that their "special" is not that big of an improvement when it comes to MMOs. The only thing i am looking forward to, is the group based questing, because that is something NEW. Voiceover for everything is nice to have at best - and not a MAJOR achievemnt like they tend to state it. Their combat system needs to be adapted for pvp - i will look forward to see it then - atm its nice for a PVE only game.

If BW really wanted to score in 2 hours. Why not focus on innovative stuff in the strong field of MMORPG? Like Community - player interaction - mass scale combat / or even PVP - or even the internal econmy and crafting system. Because this is the CORE of a MMO.

If you go and show off a nice casing but not the core ppl start to get worried that a nice casing might all they get.

BTW i want SWOTOR to be a success because i would like to play a good SW MMO - but i fear i will be disappointed.

Jimmy562 · January 2011

Originally posted by Sioned
I see your point yes. And you are partially right. Ofc they want to show us the USP of their game - "Their special" im just saying that their "special" is not that big of an improvement when it comes to MMOs. The only thing i am locking forward to is the group based questing because that is something NEW. Voiceover for everything is nice to have at best. And not a MAJOR achievemnt like they tend to state it. Their combat system needs to be adapted for pvp - i will look forward to see it then atm its nice for a PVE only game.

If BW really wanted to score in 2 hours. Why not focus on innovative stuff in the strong field of MMORPG? Like Community - player interaction - mass scale combat / or even PVP - or even the internal econmy and crafting system. Because This is the CORE of a MMO.

If you go and show off a nice casing but not the core ppl start to get worried that a nice casing might all they get.

The combat system seems fine for both PvP and PvE to me.

ZERMINUS · January 2011

Originally posted by Sioned
Actually its BW themself that are the main source for this opinion.

I have seen the Alpha of SWOTOR and i have played it at GamesCom. I talked to the devs in 2009 and 2010. Both times i was amazed at the ignorance the devs have when it comes to MMOs.

BW aproachs SWOTOR like a single player game. Like most ppl i think BW makes GREAT or even awesome single player RPG but when it comes to MMO they seem to lack the basic and fundamental understanding of the genre itself.

The focus of BW for SWOTOR are things like:

- Voiceover for all ingame talks - clearly this is single player based (they find voiceover for all questtalk so amazing that they claim this as their main achievement..... sorry i am scared if that really is their main achievement)

- NPC COOP modus as the director stated himself you will be able to play much of the content either Solo or with NPC Coop - clearly single player, but who wants to play solo or with npc in an MMO ???

- interactive combat cover system - like we know it from console games - this doesnt even work in PVP or in an non instanced evironment if you have seen some trailers you know what i mean. Objects are highlighted when yoiu can find cover behind them compared to your target... with target switching all over like it is pvp this seems plain useless.

- Groupbased Quest response - the first thing that is really innovative in my eyes - even tho it means that you dont wanna go and do quests with random players because they could mess up your questline - still nice idea with a great potential in itself

These points cover most of the main focus - dont get me wrong - this is the focus stated by the devs and producers THEMSELF.

Their main acievement is a major problem in my eyes because if they plan to continue with the full voiceover this will result in a long development time and high costs for updates and expansions. They cant just add a quest or a small event because they have voiceactors to play the quest for like 20 different voices. Even today players play content than the devs can supply it so with this it will be even worse.

So why are so many ppl worried that BW cant make an MMO?

In an 2 hour presentation of SWOTOR at a game show the last line of the product director was...

Yes we will have PVP, yes we will have guild, yes we will have economy, yes we will have community, yes we will have housing .....

the reason he had to state that was because in an 2 hour presentation NONE of this was shown to the press - NONE.

We saw prerendered trailers - Voiceovered quest talk with group interaction and a combat system with cover and fire that is neither doable in mass scale PVP nor did we see any PVP at all.

Do you start to get the picture. BW can do great RPG many ppl just fear that they got carried away and forgot the or never realised the main part of MMORPG. MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER. In the current version SWOTOR gameplay feels like a COOP based action Adventure were you and your 5 buddys are on a rampage in an starwars evironment.

I so hope they just haven shown us all the good stuff yet - but yes i share the opinion that BW is maybe unable to make MMOs.

Very interesting post from someone who has actually had hands on experience with the product and spoken to the developers - yes, Bioware is good at making SRPGs but SWTOR seems like it's going to be an SRPG Networked rather than a true MMORPG.

whilan · January 2011

Might i suggest taking a look at this page?

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=188836

I to had a hands on with the game believe it or not. Know what i got from it? feels like an MMO to me. Link seems to prove it as well.

PvP/grouping/crafting/endgame/chat box/ all the goodies. It's impossible to tell if they are going to be good or bad at it now. But i think it looks good for an MMO. Seems to point towards one. I don't think ti's a good idea to start saying if it will be good or bad at this time as we don't have the game in front of us.

As for the SPRG with network (rolls eyes)

ZERMINUS · January 2011

Originally posted by whilan
Might i suggest taking a look at this page?

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=188836

I to had a hands on with the game believe it or not. Know what i got from it? feels like an MMO to me. Link seems to prove it as well.

PvP/grouping/crafting/endgame/chat box/ all the goodies. It's impossible to tell if they are going to be good or bad at it now. But i think it looks good for an MMO. Seems to point towards one. I don't think ti's a good idea to start saying if it will be good or bad at this time as we don't have the game in front of us.

As for the SPRG with network (rolls eyes)

And? So have I.

It feels like an MMO to you but it feels like a SRPG to Sioned.

We're going to find out which one of you is right when open beta begins, aren't we?

Ralphie2449 · January 2011

I agree with third post. Pretty simply mmorpgs are a lot bigger and a lot different from single player rpgs. Being very good at making single player rpgs doesnt make them good on making mmos since these 2 are completely different thinks

whilan · January 2011

For your consideration heres some video from 2010 games com, apologies for the quality the camera must not be one of the top of the line ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZZLRcqb4bs

Sioned · January 2011

Originally posted by Jimmy562

Originally posted by Sioned

I see your point yes. And you are partially right. Ofc they want to show us the USP of their game - "Their special" im just saying that their "special" is not that big of an improvement when it comes to MMOs. The only thing i am locking forward to is the group based questing because that is something NEW. Voiceover for everything is nice to have at best. And not a MAJOR achievemnt like they tend to state it. Their combat system needs to be adapted for pvp - i will look forward to see it then atm its nice for a PVE only game.

If BW really wanted to score in 2 hours. Why not focus on innovative stuff in the strong field of MMORPG? Like Community - player interaction - mass scale combat / or even PVP - or even the internal econmy and crafting system. Because This is the CORE of a MMO.

If you go and show off a nice casing but not the core ppl start to get worried that a nice casing might all they get.

The combat system seems fine for both PvP and PvE to me.

To spcify: their combat system itself is ofc ready for pvp but for example the smuggler relies on cover and ignoring cover skills. in PVP where players can flank you at any given time a cover system were you have to take a posture to benefit for firing in one direction - and also be highly vulnerable to flanking - loses its meaning - and so do the classes loose meaning who rely on this cover system.

But a combat system that gives some classes such a huge disadvantage in PVP has definitely its flaws which need to be corrected. Thats the reason for my statement. They either have to ease the way to make use and unuse of the coverstance or implemment cover in a dynamic environment (atm the cover system is too static to be used in PVP. Cover places are too limited and too easy to flank)

ZERMINUS · January 2011

Originally posted by whilan
For your consideration heres some video from 2010 games com, apologies for the quality the camera must not be one of the top of the line ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZZLRcqb4bs

Exactly. Just look at the barriiers and walls there. A real rat-run themepark zone, straight out of Kotor 1 or 2. Perhaps it opens up a litle more outside the starter zones as they have said.

Fdzzaigl · January 2011

Originally posted by Sioned
Actually its BW themself that are the main source for this opinion.

I have seen the Alpha of SWOTOR and i have played it at GamesCom. I talked to the devs in 2009 and 2010. Both times i was amazed at the ignorance the devs have when it comes to MMOs.

BW aproachs SWOTOR like a single player game. Like most ppl i think BW makes GREAT or even awesome single player RPG but when it comes to MMO they seem to lack the basic and fundamental understanding of the genre itself.

It's SWTOR, not SWOTOR, there is nothing to stand for the extra "O"

The focus of BW for SWOTOR are things like:

- Voiceover for all ingame talks - clearly this is single player based (they find voiceover for all questtalk so amazing that they claim this as their main achievement..... sorry i am scared if that really is their main achievement)

I fail to see how VO is specifically a single player thing, there are plenty of MMO's with VO's, they just don't have the amount this game will have.

They never claimed it was their main achievement either in my knowledge, but a major thing to achieve the presentation they wanted.

- NPC COOP modus as the director stated himself you will be able to play much of the content either Solo or with NPC Coop - clearly single player, but who wants to play solo or with npc in an MMO ???

Like pet classes that are in almost every MMO? Companions never replace other players but are meant to give you more flexibility in your group roles of all things.

- interactive combat cover system - like we know it from console games - this doesnt even work in PVP or in an non instanced evironment if you have seen some trailers you know what i mean. Objects are highlighted when yoiu can find cover behind them compared to your target... with target switching all over like it is pvp this seems plain useless.

How does cover not work in PvP or a non-instanced area, really, explain this to me.

Interactive combat is just making sure you get animations of sabers clashing and deflecting stuff etc once in a while, there's no reason it wouldn't work in PvP, though it is sure to happen less in any hectic fight.

- Groupbased Quest response - the first thing that is really innovative in my eyes - even tho it means that you dont wanna go and do quests with random players because they could mess up your questline - still nice idea with a great potential in itself

Like Daniel Erickson said: "That's the horrible thing that happens when you socialise with other human beings." in other words: live with it, it won't destroy your gameplay experience in the end either.

How this is supposed to make the game single player is beyond me.

In an 2 hour presentation of SWOTOR at a game show the last line of the product director was...

Yes we will have PVP, yes we will have guild, yes we will have economy, yes we will have community, yes we will have housing .....

the reason he had to state that was because in an 2 hour presentation NONE of this was shown to the press - NONE.

We saw prerendered trailers - Voiceovered quest talk with group interaction and a combat system with cover and fire that is neither doable in mass scale PVP nor did we see any PVP at all.

Like every other MMO out there does in trailers? Sorry dude, how much live action trailers for MMO's that are in closed beta showing raids and PvP do you usually see? Don't hold double standards.

Do you start to get the picture. BW can do great RPG many ppl just fear that they got carried away and forgot the or never realised the main part of MMORPG. MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER. In the current version SWOTOR gameplay feels like a COOP based action Adventure were you and your 5 buddys are on a rampage in an starwars evironment.

That's funny cause I reckon I saw all those dudes running around in the world at the convention and there were way more than 5.

In fact, it was just like any other MMO out there.

whilan · January 2011

Heres some combat video, about as much as i can get of it in one video. Theres music over it, so hope you like it. Or you can turn the sound down. This one hopefully shows how open the worlds are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWx5gcrubiA

Note: my previous video was to show that there are indeed other players in the world (at around 5 mins on) so it shows it's not a single player game (otherwise the other people wouldn't be there :P )

fivoroth · January 2011

Voiced quests are a must! After playing ME2 I simply can't be bothered to read quests. They don't feel engaging at all.

And all hail Bioware. Everyone who doesn't like Bioware....well I certainly don't understand you They are games are brilliant!

Top developers for me:

1. Bioware /bow

2. Blizzard

3. Bethesda

4. ArenaNet

5. Valve ^_^

Kost · January 2011

Originally posted by Wolfy2449
I agree with third post. Pretty simply mmorpgs are a lot bigger and a lot different from single player rpgs. Being very good at making single player rpgs doesnt make them good on making mmos since these 2 are completely different thinks

That's a pretty narrowminded viewpoint.

Blizzard was known primarily for RTS games prior to unleashing WoW upon the world. Food for thought.

DeserttFoxx · January 2011

Well i am a bioware fanboy, which i am not ashamed of, and even i have to admit that their combat systems in all of their games does rely heavily on pausing, which is a single player thing. Mass effect 2 was more action oriented and while the pause was still there i played the entire game without using it very often, maybe on a few difficult encounters but for the most part i got by without it.

However like blizzard, i am more then willing to give bioware a chance, the reason i played WoW even though blizzard never made an MMO before was because i loved diablo 1 and 2 and starcraft, and for that reason i will give SWTOR a real chance because bioware has yet to dissapoint me.

whilan · January 2011

My personal feeling is this, every company and it's brother can make a theme park MMO. It's not that hard to make a theme park MMO. It's not like it's a big mystery as to how you go about making one. It's making it good.

I think BW has enough experience in how to do story to make the story interesting at least for a little while. It's the other aspects. As long as they follow the basic standard of how MMOs work i think they can hit it just fine.

It really inst that complicated. Make a big world. Throw some NPCS in there to give you quests, throw in a town with merchants. Fill the exterior areas with mobs to kill. Add in some loot. There ya go. An MMO.

The things they keep talking about are the things that you don't normally see in a MMO, like massive amounts of Voice overs, the cover system, the idea you can change the quest/dungeons based on your decisions in those cinematics. How the quests are displayed.

Everything you see in a normal MMO should be (I would hope) a given. Mobs to kill, areas to explore, people to talk to, items to gather.

If your curious heres another video of them confirming things are in there. Take note that some of the stuff they are listing off as of course they are in there have been revealed to be in game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqflV4zsTqQ&feature=related

The major things that make an MMO good is the things that keep us there and don't bore us. What bores us the most in MMOs? for me it's grinding either through quests or mobs. Well they are suppose to correct that by allowing you to quest (which removes the need to grind on mobs) and making the quests interesting by adding story (and BW is really good at that) makes the quests not feel like a grind. Change up how combat works and make it more thrilling and i think your golden.

Swanea · January 2011

I would gladly correct Sioned with more up to date information regarding the game, but sadly, I am unable to silence his fears at this point.

whilan · January 2011

For more consideration heres a short video comparing Swtor with 3 other games

Champions online, WoW, and AoC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VLJMBADsD8&NR=1

Sioned · January 2011

Originally posted by Fdzzaigl

It's SWTOR, not SWOTOR, there is nothing to stand for the extra "O"

Sorry for my typo thanks for correcting

I fail to see how VO is specifically a single player thing, there are plenty of MMO's with VO's, they just don't have the amount this game will have.

They never claimed it was their main achievement either in my knowledge, but a major thing to achieve the presentation they wanted.

Voiceover slows the development of content on a massive level. I prefer content and especially future content over nice to have voice over. Voiceover doesnt make the game single player like. But the very concept of voiceover comes from single player - where you don't have to supply steadily new content. And to be profitable you have to develop cheap. It just shows that BW is comming from single player games, which is a fact. I just fear they are sacrificing fast content development over gimmick voiceover.

And no they do state that the voiceover of TOR is the main key feature currently - mail the product manager if you like he will state so too.

Like pet classes that are in almost every MMO? Companions never replace other players but are meant to give you more flexibility in your group roles of all things.

Pets dont replace players as far as the devs told, they plan more like a guild wars 1 system - Where you can have player like companions tag along. Pets normally just support the pethandler or the group not replace the need of a group. There is difference to have a few tigers tag along - or a healer a tank and a CC class... in the later i would somehow feel not needed.

How does cover not work in PvP or a non-instanced area, really, explain this to me.

Interactive combat is just making sure you get animations of sabers clashing and deflecting stuff etc once in a while, there's no reason it wouldn't work in PvP, though it is sure to happen less in any hectic fight.

To spcify: their combat system itself is ofc ready for pvp but for example the smuggler relies on cover and ignoring cover skills. in PVP where players can flank you at any given time a cover system were you have to take a posture to benefit for firing in one direction - and also be highly vulnerable to flanking - loses its meaning - and so do the classes loose meaning who rely on this cover system.

But a combat system that gives some classes such a huge disadvantage in PVP has definitely its flaws which need to be corrected. Thats the reason for my statement. They either have to ease the way to make use and unuse of the cover stance or implemment cover in a dynamic environment (atm the cover system is too static to be used in PVP. Cover places are too limited and too easy to flank)

Like Daniel Erickson said: "That's the horrible thing that happens when you socialise with other human beings." in other words: live with it, it won't destroy your gameplay experience in the end either.

How this is supposed to make the game single player is beyond me.

I never said that this makes the game more single player i just stated it as part of their focus. For me this is currently the only USP that TOR has. I am really looking forward to see this in action and the social trouble will just spice this experience up. But i am sure many ppl will get angry about that - even tho i agree - "live with it"

Like every other MMO out there does in trailers? Sorry dude, how much live action trailers for MMO's that are in closed beta showing raids and PvP do you usually see? Don't hold double standards.

Oh i am fully aware that you dont see mass scale pvp on a demo but you would at least expect to see the battlefield or have at least hear their plan on how to do this. 6 month ago they didnt even have an IDEA on HOW to implement PVP AT ALL. Mass fights ? Arena Fights ? open PVP ? Factional PVP ? Guild PVP - all we got was a we are looking into PVP later... yeah sure a core feature like all the other core features will be looked into later....

lemme rephrase - we are polishing the casing so that it looks nice but the CORE of a MMO ( community - player interaction - mass scale combat / or even PVP at all - the internal economy and crafting system) WILL BE DONE LATER.

My point is i just fear they are building an empty shell.

That's funny cause I reckon I saw all those dudes running around in the world at the convention and there were way more than 5.

In fact, it was just like any other MMO out there.

Yeah funny how many of them were actually in the same group ?`in the alpha it was limited to i guess 6 ppl this is why you and your 5 dudes. Oh and yeah there is currently no raid system or alliance system. It will be looked into later..... (again) This also means that there is currently no CONTENT done or planned for more than 6 ppl because for that you would need such a system.

Understand me i am not saying this game will be bad i hope it will be a blast, because i had a blast playing the last SW MMO - Star wars Galaxies. I just state that up to now BW has not focused on developing a good MMO - atm the have focused on developing a good Coop game. I just hope their focus changes.

You cant develop a car by developing a bike and then do some tweaks. You have to start with the core. Currently i fear that their core is not MMO. I can just hope that they do the core like it should be and just dont see any reason for showing the OBVIOUS....

Sioned · January 2011

Originally posted by Swanea
I would gladly correct Sioned with more up to date information regarding the game, but sadly, I am unable to silence his fears at this point.

I would be glad if you could too.

on a further notice its "her fears"

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What makes people so certain BW can't make a good mmorpg?

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