Free Bump for an amazing read... Yes we all feel this OP.. they have missed the Boat it has sailed and they are standing on the shore scratching their heads whondering what they did Wrong muahhaa..
Only two things are in sandboxes, toys and cat poo.
I was raised with my father telling me "never bring up religion or politics unless yoou want to get into a fight"
Being a MMO player i will also add "never bring up what a game shold be"
We all have a differance here and becuase you feel that it should be X Y Z doesnt mean that is the same for everyone else. For the most past imo the people that post on these forums, we are the minority. We want more out of our games than the mass's. But the Mass's sit at their computers and click away in happy land and take what they are giving. And the few of us that are really......Nerdy? well we come here and jump up and down.
I was raised with my father telling me "never bring up religion or politics unless yoou want to get into a fight"
Being a MMO player i will also add "never bring up what a game shold be"
We all have a differance here and becuase you feel that it should be X Y Z doesnt mean that is the same for everyone else. For the most past imo the people that post on these forums, we are the minority. We want more out of our games than the mass's. But the Mass's sit at their computers and click away in happy land and take what they are giving. And the few of us that are really......Nerdy? well we come here and jump up and down.
They do? do they? I quick question for you Word of Warcaraft has around 10-12m subscribers world wide. Copy cat land (Aoc, Lotro, WAR, Champions online, Startrek online etc etc) dont even have 1m subscribers combined.. Are these games Sucky? no, are they bad? no, would they have become as successfull as World of Warcarft had they realeased before 2003? yes probably.... World of Warcraft came out at the right time, MMOs were begining to grow people were starting to get into them... Boom they come out with super polished game (for that time atleast) and they got themself a Smash Hit! What followed is the sad part of the story for over half a decade Suites with money have made other developers copy cat it... to the point that nobody even picks up a new MMO anymore for Fear it will play just like it..... That is the Sad truth of the Indutry today...
Another case of SGB, or "Storyline-Gameplay-Blindness" detected?
Storyline-Gameplay-Blindness - A common misconception induced by too much exposure to SWTORS narated storyline aspect, leading people to jump to the conclusion that SWTOR will be a textbook linear themepark game without much player choice or freedom.
I prescribe a thorough study of features and game mechanics for a quick cure of this predicament in order to foster the realization that the personal storylines are a great way to fluff up the leveling proces but not all there is to this game.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Now why I don't think Bioware have missed the boat, well lets see professional , forward thinking and one of the best in the business. SWTOR will be anything but a Theme park, the content variety and size of the game will put a finish to misguided assumption.
It's nice to see the SWG vets out in force, and also sad as usual.
Busy to the end of the year I'll pick up SWTOR some time end of 2011 no rush whatsoever.
To hate is to fail..........
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Because Star Wars is not about theme park, guiding you from one place to the next. Star Wars has always been about choosing your own destiny, your own path and yes it is more of a sandbox world. It is about you living in the world you built and reacting to the events that surround you. It isn't about go fetch/kill quests like the game will have. It is about the open world war between jedi and sith, not about instanced battlegrounds. Bioware has always been a favorite developer of mine but I think they are missing the boat on this one. I'm sure alot will try it out but for the long term I'm not convinced it will last.
Honestly I don't think this is one that can truly be pinned on the shoulders of Bioware atleast not alone. LA wants a themepark Star Wars MMO. They tried converting Galaxies into a more themepark MMO and ticked a ton of people off and SOE took the fall even though it was fairly common knowledge at the time they were changes LA was pushing for lol. Having failed there they washed there hands of it and worked on getting a new themepark Star Wars going.
LA has always been pretty hands on with the Star Wars IP, any direction the game takes is one in which LA wants or at least approves of.
With that all being said though, as far as a themepark Star Wars goes if anyone can pull it off it would be Bioware.
Nothing we can do at this point other than cross our fingers and hope for the best. Now by that I don't mean lets hope the game is a success because it pretty much a given regardless due to the companies and the funding behind it to push it (Ala WoW with the mass commercial and Ad campaigns). But lets hope it's something that even those not typically into the guided path gameplay can find fun in.
lol luke never chose his path he was pushed from one place to other by either Yoda or Obi-Wan...
*Ahem* Objection! Go watch Empire Strikes Back again. Yoda and Obi Wan both repeatedly warn Luke not to go rescue his friends and he chooses to ignore them.
I think this thread might have been better named by the OP as "Why I don't like what BioWare is doing and why they should follow my thinking on this."
Let's face it, this game is not being made for YOU or for ME. It is a game they are attempting to make for MULTITUDES in a way that is fun and engaging.
Regardless of how you feel about the style of this game, if you really look at the original Star Wars trilogy, you will find that the only time Luke had ANY choice in what to do was in the last part of Return of the Jedi when he refused to fight Vader. In every other part of the movies he was forced into action by the other people around him, be they Obi Wan, Yoda, Vader, and even Leia/Han Solo (when they get captured).
Heck, even the pre-quals showed more wiggle room for Anakin by letting him fall in love AND decide to turn to the dark side. Though that was about the only free choices he had in those movies.
I think in the end this game may very well give us a LOT more freedom in advancing our characters than Star Wars ever did for Luke or Anakin. There is a story line in this game for each Class, but after you earn your ship, you can abandon that if you choose and instead just do world missions, explore and kill, level by PvP, etc . . .
Hmm . . . now that I finished this post, I think maybe the OP should have named this thread "Why BioWare did EXACTLY the right thing with this game." Of course, that's just my humble opinion.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I think the Star Wars franchise leans itself for several types of games. KOTOR is a Star Wars game too but not one that I'd describe sandbox/GTA like.
We've seen SWG which was one of the best sandbox MMO around and that had a limited amount of success, although nothing earth shattering. Now we'll see a themepark styled MMO game with SWTOR. We'll have to see how that one goes, although I'd be surprised if it didn't enjoy a larger degree of success than SWG did. I think a 'KOTOR MMO' will do quite well.
ok a few things of note:
kotor was only a sinbgle player game designed to make the single player feel important in a sigular role of importance through story. the game focused on you as a charecter and you rimpact to the galaxy.
swtor : is online but they are trying to use the same kotor philosophy where the game is about the individual charecter again and their individual efforts on the galaxy, the story and quest will focus primarily on the individual player. this simply does not work in an mmo enviroment.
theme park mmo would work fine for single charecter engaugments. but the whole starwars thing like the op has said is infact more of a sandbax galaxy where the people in it define its existance through their actions alone. and not any preditermined direction quest guides that drive you through the game as swtor is going to be doing.
none of this know what your going to do next and how it will allpan out business like we get in your typical wow clone.
sandbox is about the players and what they decide to do and where they decide to go, while swg was concidered by most to be a sandbox, it was still goiverned by progresive quest systems ultimately directing your charecter across the galaxy through a s eries of quests. its not until later levels that the game turns mroe snadbox and more about exploration that you start to make your own choices. and i think the sandbox feel of swg is all down to its guild system and open market.
you have to love the market system in swg. it shows you everything for sale in the galaxy. but to get the item you have to travel to the exact vendor its being sold from. i love that in a game. and also the player guild system with its city builder. a bit flawed but omg does it put freedom in the hands of its players. the fact you and your guild can construct your own private or public city is just one of the best features of swg in my oppinion. that alone gives it the sandbox feel.
ok the planets are not as vast as some would like but their are a number of them to visit and the game also has a pretty vast space part to the game too with full control of flight and combat. giving you the rogue sqaudron feel and control in space. swg space battles is the best todate. and swtor are not bothering to be better. swg has sandbox space more or less. i know their isnt alot to do in space but its freeform asteroids to mine and places to visit. and a great place for rp and to grind some space xp.
swg space makes the game feel like starwars. swtor space does not.
then you have swg crafting - and oh wow what a crafting system it is. sure its been nulled down and chooped up to please the less stable minded, thats right the ones that cant hold their concentration for more than a few minutes. the devs made crafting in swg more user friendly but its still better than any other crafting in any other game. and its not because of wqhat you can make, but because of how the resoucre system works too. swg has more resources than ive ever seen in a game. and they all play a signnificant part in the result of crafting. unless your a tailor ofcourse then its all about reverse engineering.
the best crafting class in swg has to be the starship engineer, you have to use high qaulity resources of the best types to get the best results and you have to find them and e xtract them. then once you have your ingredients you have to make the items. then you have to experiment to get the best results. and this ofcourse is all based of the crafting machines you the player/crafter are useing. and the crafting machines also have to be crafted too requireing the best resources to make the best crafting stations. and the same with crafting tools.
in swg you can only get the best results, if you have can craft or aquire the best crafting stations and the craft or aquire the best c r afting tools. and the best resoruces.
ive played swg now on and off for close to 7 years. ive managed to aquire these items through begging stealing and borrowing from friends. 15.0 tools 15.0crafting staitons. but the resources are difficult to find.
however with the decline in players in swg resources are far easier to aquire now than they ever was before as their isnt any one breaking their necks to get the 990 qaulity rare resources that randomly spawn on certain planets in the galaxy.
thats right you cant get everything you need from one location,you have to track it down and it keeps changeing possition too. and some times its not as good a qaulity as you might like it to be.
thats what sandbox is about. its about the player creating their own game in a world designed for them to do so.
i really dont think this new swtor game is going to be as good as swg was in its hay day.
to me swtor looks like another wow clone but with a starwars skin. its style of game is old and out of date.
more sandbox games should be made so people can actually try them out. i see alot of negative feelings about sandbox games from people that havnt even tried them.
ive tried both and i have to say the sandbox is a far greater playing expeirence and alot more enjoyable. you actually feel like you are accomplishing something in a sandbox.
i really enjoyed crafting my advanced x-wing parts in swg. she is a beast of a fighter. all painted in black with hints of red on her hull. and she is so so fast and turns like a bike from tron. how ever my multiplayer ships isnt so nimble lol but it has some firpower to make up for the lack in agility.
I think the Star Wars franchise leans itself for several types of games. KOTOR is a Star Wars game too but not one that I'd describe sandbox/GTA like.
We've seen SWG which was one of the best sandbox MMO around and that had a limited amount of success, although nothing earth shattering. Now we'll see a themepark styled MMO game with SWTOR. We'll have to see how that one goes, although I'd be surprised if it didn't enjoy a larger degree of success than SWG did. I think a 'KOTOR MMO' will do quite well.
ok a few things of note:
kotor was only a sinbgle player game designed to make the single player feel important in a sigular role of importance through story. the game focused on you as a charecter and you rimpact to the galaxy.
The personal story that each person has (the one that makes you feel like a hero) is just for you, to define you and your place in it. It defines if your good or evil. Just or not. Helpful or hurtful those sort of things. Then you have the world arc quests. Those are the ones that put you into the star wars lore, and tell the games exprience. As for having an impact on the world. Perfectly doable in both types of games. They sorta did it with WoW with phasing (just has to be done right).
swtor : is online but they are trying to use the same kotor philosophy where the game is about the individual charecter again and their individual efforts on the galaxy, the story and quest will focus primarily on the individual player. this simply does not work in an mmo enviroment.
See above. It's possible if done right
theme park mmo would work fine for single charecter engaugments. but the whole starwars thing like the op has said is infact more of a sandbax galaxy where the people in it define its existance through their actions alone. and not any preditermined direction quest guides that drive you through the game as swtor is going to be doing.
I dont' think this is true. I feel you can do star wars just fine in a theme park world. Most star wars games are themepark in nature (if all be it single player) It's kinda hard to tell if it will work in a theme park world if it's never been done before in an MMO. The only star wars MMO we have is the sandbox version. I'd say give it a chance and see how it goes. Might actually be fun.
none of this know what your going to do next and how it will allpan out business like we get in your typical wow clone.
Don't know if this is a "typical wow clone yet"
sandbox is about the players and what they decide to do and where they decide to go, while swg was concidered by most to be a sandbox, it was still goiverned by progresive quest systems ultimately directing your charecter across the galaxy through a s eries of quests. its not until later levels that the game turns mroe snadbox and more about exploration that you start to make your own choices. and i think the sandbox feel of swg is all down to its guild system and open market.
ToR is not a sandbox I will give you that, It's themepark. However they do focus on exploration (it's why the worlds are so large) and their stories are all about choices. Along with the crafting system, you'l end up having to work with other players. They've also said only some of the crafters will be able to make the best stuff and that both crafters and raiders will need each other.
you have to love the market system in swg. it shows you everything for sale in the galaxy. but to get the item you have to travel to the exact vendor its being sold from. i love that in a game. and also the player guild system with its city builder. a bit flawed but omg does it put freedom in the hands of its players. the fact you and your guild can construct your own private or public city is just one of the best features of swg in my oppinion. that alone gives it the sandbox feel.
ok the planets are not as vast as some would like but their are a number of them to visit and the game also has a pretty vast space part to the game too with full control of flight and combat. giving you the rogue sqaudron feel and control in space. swg space battles is the best todate. and swtor are not bothering to be better. swg has sandbox space more or less. i know their isnt alot to do in space but its freeform asteroids to mine and places to visit. and a great place for rp and to grind some space xp.
swg space makes the game feel like starwars. swtor space does not.
I can understand that you love star wars galaxy, it was indeed fun and i enjoyed it for quite some time. I sadly didn't get to expreience it before the NGE and all that went into effect. So i can't attest to how good or not it was. However i did get to experience the sapce part, quite a bit. It was nice to be able to flly around, but for the bit i got to do it, it didn't feel very star warsy to me. Granted i got to blow up a rebel ship here and there. But otherwise it felt like flying through space. I guess i didn't get the same feeling from it. To each their own. As for swtor? granted you don't get to fly everywhere but i'm hopiing it will capture the feeling alright. Its made as a side venture. I think each one is about 5 or so minutes long, and most of the time it's optional. I'm hoping they add more later but i think it's okay for launch
then you have swg crafting - and oh wow what a crafting system it is. sure its been nulled down and chooped up to please the less stable minded, thats right the ones that cant hold their concentration for more than a few minutes. the devs made crafting in swg more user friendly but its still better than any other crafting in any other game. and its not because of wqhat you can make, but because of how the resoucre system works too. swg has more resources than ive ever seen in a game. and they all play a signnificant part in the result of crafting. unless your a tailor ofcourse then its all about reverse engineering.
the best crafting class in swg has to be the starship engineer, you have to use high qaulity resources of the best types to get the best results and you have to find them and e xtract them. then once you have your ingredients you have to make the items. then you have to experiment to get the best results. and this ofcourse is all based of the crafting machines you the player/crafter are useing. and the crafting machines also have to be crafted too requireing the best resources to make the best crafting stations. and the same with crafting tools.
in swg you can only get the best results, if you have can craft or aquire the best crafting stations and the craft or aquire the best c r afting tools. and the best resoruces.
ive played swg now on and off for close to 7 years. ive managed to aquire these items through begging stealing and borrowing from friends. 15.0 tools 15.0crafting staitons. but the resources are difficult to find.
however with the decline in players in swg resources are far easier to aquire now than they ever was before as their isnt any one breaking their necks to get the 990 qaulity rare resources that randomly spawn on certain planets in the galaxy.
thats right you cant get everything you need from one location,you have to track it down and it keeps changeing possition too. and some times its not as good a qaulity as you might like it to be.
thats what sandbox is about. its about the player creating their own game in a world designed for them to do so.
From what i heard that was an amazing crafting system. I never got into it much but thats my general nature. I thrive off the crafters. I don't know how the crafting system works in swtor beyond that you have to have a relationship with your crew, some crew members will be better at it then others and that you have to work at it. It's also time based which means it's closer to Fallen earth's crafting system then say WoW's (because it gets compared to that alot). Which means you can't suddenly decide i'm going to be the best X crafter so i'll gather X amount of items and shove it into the crafting window and become master in 10 mins.
i really dont think this new swtor game is going to be as good as swg was in its hay day.
On the crafting end, i won't disagree with you here. I don't think it's going to be as complex as SWG was. I also however don't think you need quite that complex of a crafting system to get people involved. Most people when the crafting system for ToR came out were very impressed and liked it a lot. We will have to see how it does.
to me swtor looks like another wow clone but with a starwars skin. its style of game is old and out of date.
The wow clone in the way your using it says theme park to me. which isn't really out of date.
more sandbox games should be made so people can actually try them out. i see alot of negative feelings about sandbox games from people that havnt even tried them.
I agree more sandbox games should be made. especially by tripple A studios so we can get the real experience. I will say from my experiences from sandbox games that they are indeed fun. But in most cases they lack the hook to get players in. Most players get in start walking around and then go. Now what? what am i suppose to do. Also typically (not always mind you) they are rather complicated. I will take a tale in the desert as the example. When you log in and create your character. You are set into the world (this was before all the tutorials) You were told to make a raft to go to the mainland. That was pretty much it, You weren't told how or where. Just to go to the mainland. Now i figured it out eventually with the help of the other players and it was fun. But the problem is i often saw people get mad, frustrated and leave because it either A) required too much to do to get done was too hard to understand or C) felt to boring, aka no hook for them.
I don't expect games to hold my hand all the way but at least give me a general direction at the start would be nice, even if i don't have to go that way.
ive tried both and i have to say the sandbox is a far greater playing expeirence and alot more enjoyable. you actually feel like you are accomplishing something in a sandbox.
As in affect the world itself like buildings? If so you can stil do that in theme park games, again just using phasing it's possible. Group of people take down a structure (most likely with explosives) and it blows up. Now the building is down and everyone can see it. No idea if that will happen in game but it's certainlly possible.
i really enjoyed crafting my advanced x-wing parts in swg. she is a beast of a fighter. all painted in black with hints of red on her hull. and she is so so fast and turns like a bike from tron. how ever my multiplayer ships isnt so nimble lol but it has some firpower to make up for the lack in agility.
I do understand these are your feelings and my responses are just my feelings in response to them in red.
I can certainly understand the appeal of a star wars sandbox game, and granted theme park games in some areas won't get that feeling, but i think it's entirely too soon to judge a game based on a style of play. I don't feel that you can really say an IP like star wars (or any ip really) is X style of play or works better in X type of game. It's down to the creators and how they put it together.
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.
Because Star Wars is not about theme park, guiding you from one place to the next. Star Wars has always been about choosing your own destiny, your own path and yes it is more of a sandbox world. It is about you living in the world you built and reacting to the events that surround you. It isn't about go fetch/kill quests like the game will have. It is about the open world war between jedi and sith, not about instanced battlegrounds. Bioware has always been a favorite developer of mine but I think they are missing the boat on this one. I'm sure alot will try it out but for the long term I'm not convinced it will last.
Star Wars was ALL about going from one place to the next. Who chose their own destiny in Star Wars?
I think you're thinking of pre-CU SWG, not "Star Wars".
Current fans destroyed Star Wars IMO. Old Star Wars is about rebel vs empire, it was awesome, lots of pew pew and the like.
Current SW is about jedi, which is...meh.
Edit: Come to think about it, EvE engine + star wars lore + star wars ships.......*drool*.
I am not ahuge star wars finatic, but even i know that the rebel vs empire is not the old star wars, its what the movies were based on, but from waht i understand it is when the sith were all but destroyed, the jedi are dying off and not many left and it happens thousands of years towards the end of the timeline.
KOTOR, and SWTOR are based in the old republic, the era when the primary advisaries were the jedi and the sith both were abundant unlike in the movies were they arent so much specifically because of the events of the great war which SWTOR is based in.
No one wants to play a space ship game either, that is why the space combat is just some minigame, if they had some crazy ass flight mechanic the game would be stretched to thin, something has to be the focus, and they chose story, and traditional combat over space combat, people just gotta deal with it.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I can certainly understand the appeal of a star wars sandbox game, and granted theme park games in some areas won't get that feeling, but i think it's entirely too soon to judge a game based on a style of play. I don't feel that you can really say an IP like star wars (or any ip really) is X style of play or works better in X type of game. It's down to the creators and how they put it together.
That's my feeling as well. Take it from someone who played that era of SWG and doesn't look back at it with rose colored glasses: It wasn't all that. There were parts of it that I liked, but the negatives far outweighed the positives. If they're still up you'll see plenty of rantings and complaints about the game before the NGE happened here or on the official site. While I think that what SOE did was a mistake and they should have worked to fix the many problems that the game had, it's also a mistake to say that sandbox is the ONLY way to make a Star Wars mmo work. There is no efficient data to support that hypothesis so I'm only left to conclude that this is just more sour grapes from folks who are still pissed that TOR is not bringing back PRE-NGE SWG.
lol luke never chose his path he was pushed from one place to other by either Yoda or Obi-Wan...
*Ahem* Objection! Go watch Empire Strikes Back again. Yoda and Obi Wan both repeatedly warn Luke not to go rescue his friends and he chooses to ignore them.
*Bangs Gavel* OVERRULLED!
Do not watch that movie! If you havent watched it by now, you dont want to, because it is outdated and has nothing to do with the current game in question, story wise. The jist of your arguement is true, Luke was pushed around, sure he grew a backbone several movies in but the level of choice to carve out his own destiny definately was not availble to him.
Too the people who think the story will get in the way of the game, they demonstrate how they have NEVER played a bioware game, because if they had, this wouldnt even be something they bring up, cause they would know bioware does a fantastic job of using story to facilitate the game play, not get in the way of it.
Bioware games are like movies, but instead of watching them you are in them, and instead of being told the story you are apart of it, and just when you think the plot is going one way, SURPRISE, you just decided to kill some guy, or save some guy, or blow up something, or break something else and now everything has changed.
Everyone has gotten used to ignoring the story because everytime you accepta new quest, you get a gaint wall of quest, you say "Fuck this, im not reading that!" you get in the habit of tracking down gaint Yellow exclaimation marks and speed scrolling to the accept button and you look for the X/10 counter at the right side of your screen.
Now if you are really serious about role playing games, in the sense that you get a great story, which is immersive and interactive then you should be looking forward to this game, otherwise, you probably want an action game with no real depth.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I can certainly understand the appeal of a star wars sandbox game, and granted theme park games in some areas won't get that feeling, but i think it's entirely too soon to judge a game based on a style of play. I don't feel that you can really say an IP like star wars (or any ip really) is X style of play or works better in X type of game. It's down to the creators and how they put it together.
That's my feeling as well. Take it from someone who played that era of SWG and doesn't look back at it with rose colored glasses: It wasn't all that. There were parts of it that I liked, but the negatives far outweighed the positives. If they're still up you'll see plenty of rantings and complaints about the game before the NGE happened here or on the official site. While I think that what SOE did was a mistake and they should have worked to fix the many problems that the game had, it's also a mistake to say that sandbox is the ONLY way to make a Star Wars mmo work. There is no efficient data to support that hypothesis so I'm only left to conclude that this is just more sour grapes from folks who are still pissed that TOR is not bringing back PRE-NGE SWG.
Well, as I have mentioned several times over my years here, a friend of mine played SWG in earnest until one day he realized he was doing a second job that he wasn't getting for. Then he discovered Everquest and never looked back.
It takes a particular type of person to revel in that type of game play.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I can certainly understand the appeal of a star wars sandbox game, and granted theme park games in some areas won't get that feeling, but i think it's entirely too soon to judge a game based on a style of play. I don't feel that you can really say an IP like star wars (or any ip really) is X style of play or works better in X type of game. It's down to the creators and how they put it together.
That's my feeling as well. Take it from someone who played that era of SWG and doesn't look back at it with rose colored glasses: It wasn't all that. There were parts of it that I liked, but the negatives far outweighed the positives. If they're still up you'll see plenty of rantings and complaints about the game before the NGE happened here or on the official site. While I think that what SOE did was a mistake and they should have worked to fix the many problems that the game had, it's also a mistake to say that sandbox is the ONLY way to make a Star Wars mmo work. There is no efficient data to support that hypothesis so I'm only left to conclude that this is just more sour grapes from folks who are still pissed that TOR is not bringing back PRE-NGE SWG.
Well, as I have mentioned several times over my years here, a friend of mine played SWG in earnest until one day he realized he was doing a second job that he wasn't getting for. Then he discovered Everquest and never looked back.
It takes a particular type of person to revel in that type of game play.
I said something about sand box on the SWTOR forums that i will just echo here:
"Fuck Sandbox, yeah i said it.
Sand box often means no direction at all, It means often you have nothing to do in the game besides try and create your own fun. The sandbox in gta is fun, until about 2 hours in and you get bored of stealing the same cars and joyriding over the city.
I personally enjoy playing a game with a purpose, with some direction, i like the rails, i want the rails, leave the rails alone."
I dont understand why people think sandbox is so great, Star Wars has an Overlaying conflict, that is why you want to be in that universe, dont you want to have some inflence over that conflict? The only way to do that is to add some direction, if a game were a true sandbox, players would just destroy every building because its funny and kill every npc.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I can certainly understand the appeal of a star wars sandbox game, and granted theme park games in some areas won't get that feeling, but i think it's entirely too soon to judge a game based on a style of play. I don't feel that you can really say an IP like star wars (or any ip really) is X style of play or works better in X type of game. It's down to the creators and how they put it together.
That's my feeling as well. Take it from someone who played that era of SWG and doesn't look back at it with rose colored glasses: It wasn't all that. There were parts of it that I liked, but the negatives far outweighed the positives. If they're still up you'll see plenty of rantings and complaints about the game before the NGE happened here or on the official site. While I think that what SOE did was a mistake and they should have worked to fix the many problems that the game had, it's also a mistake to say that sandbox is the ONLY way to make a Star Wars mmo work. There is no efficient data to support that hypothesis so I'm only left to conclude that this is just more sour grapes from folks who are still pissed that TOR is not bringing back PRE-NGE SWG.
Well, as I have mentioned several times over my years here, a friend of mine played SWG in earnest until one day he realized he was doing a second job that he wasn't getting for. Then he discovered Everquest and never looked back.
It takes a particular type of person to revel in that type of game play.
I said something about sand box on the SWTOR forums that i will just echo here:
"Fuck Sandbox, yeah i said it.
Sand box often means no direction at all, It means often you have nothing to do in the game besides try and create your own fun. The sandbox i gta is fun, until about 2 hours in and you get bored of stealing the same cars and joyriding over the city.
I personally enjoy playing a game with a purpose, with some direction, i like the rails, i want the rails, leave the rails alone."
I dont understand why people think sandbox is so great, Star Wars has an Overlaying conflict, that is why you want to be in that universe, dont you want to have some inflence over that conflict? The only way to do that is to add some direction, if a game were a truth sandbox, players would just destroy every building because its funny and kill every npc.
Good point. I don't think anyone who is shelling out money on a monthly basis for a game should have to provide his own content. I'm all for being creative and allowing players some freedom, but you have to have SOME restrictions and SOME sense of purpose. SWG had no sense of purpose . Once you grinded out your character's template there wasn't much to do as a combat player except the same events over and over again. And grinding that template was SO boring. It's no wonder that game was bleeding so many subs. People play games to have fun, not to have another chore to do.
Sand box often means no direction at all, It means often you have nothing to do in the game besides try and create your own fun. The sandbox in gta is fun, until about 2 hours in and you get bored of stealing the same cars and joyriding over the city.
I personally enjoy playing a game with a purpose, with some direction, i like the rails, i want the rails, leave the rails alone."
I dont understand why people think sandbox is so great, Star Wars has an Overlaying conflict, that is why you want to be in that universe, dont you want to have some inflence over that conflict? The only way to do that is to add some direction, if a game were a true sandbox, players would just destroy every building because its funny and kill every npc.
Just to clarify...sandbox elements are great! I enjoy joyriding as much as anyone else, but I also like playing a game that entertains me.
I think the problem is rooted in the personal point of view of every player. Sand boxers see every world as more of a sandbox, while theme parkers will see it as more that way. Being objective and having played, and loved both genres, I can say Star Wars does not scream sand box. At least not this era of Star Wars. Here is why, in the old republic if you were born with force talent you were usually spirited away by the sith or jedi to become one of them. Their ways were taught to you, yes your strengths were your own, but it was very much a cast society. Likewise the mandalorians lived by their codes, it was a ridged structure.
While yes many races did have free will, and could be anything they wanted, among the sith empire what race you were dictated your place in their society as well. In a way imposing a pseudo cast structure, which was only bent if you were born sensitive to the force. On the other hand the republic is very much like our own world, lending itself to a sandbox. This is why SWG worked as a sand box, the republic had won out in the past and fallen by that games time line. Any game in or shortly after the original trilogy can function as a sandbox without running into problems.
As you get further from the trilogy into the extended universe you run into the reemergence of the Jedi order, the founding of the imperial knights, and the return of the new sith. Once again forming a force based cast system, all be it only for those with force powers.
For my money if I was going to have picked the setting for the game I'd of went to the legacy era, simply because you have three factions, which to me would have been more fun.
The reasons i will be pre ordering 4 copies of this game is very simple.
1)Me, wife and two friends love bioware games (check)
2)We love starwars (check)
3)We love single player games (check)
4)Tired of mmo's with shallow storylines and generic quests (check)
We are social but we don't play mmo's where we are forced to group (I love to group but won't play a game where if I want to solo it is a negative experience)
Even when we play mass effect 2, we do it while on teamspeak so even that is a social experience.
Unless bioware makes SW completely none bioware style game we will love it, because for the last couple of years the main thing we have complained about in mmo's is the lack of story, the lack of quests and goals that stay with you for years the lack of connection and moral choices.
I belive that the biggest problem for this game is actually that it is based on the Star Wars franchise.
Hardcore SW fans will alway tear it apart anyways. Others might not have the star wars interest or even be a bit tired of it. Its probably milked too much already.
And missing Darth Vader and all the Starwarsy icons that most non fans will think of when hearing Star Wars is probably not the best thing either.
I belive that Bioware would have been much smarter if they had made an MMORPG based upon Neverwinter nights or Baldurs gate. It just seems like MMORPG based upon movies etc does not cut it the way that those that bases their games upon more "unique" IP / comptuter franchises (like Warcraft).
Because Star Wars is not about theme park, guiding you from one place to the next. Star Wars has always been about choosing your own destiny, your own path and yes it is more of a sandbox world. It is about you living in the world you built and reacting to the events that surround you. It isn't about go fetch/kill quests like the game will have. It is about the open world war between jedi and sith, not about instanced battlegrounds. Bioware has always been a favorite developer of mine but I think they are missing the boat on this one. I'm sure alot will try it out but for the long term I'm not convinced it will last.
I'm sorry but you just described basically any game with a story as a foundation so basically every game that is not 'sandbox' has missed the boat by your definition. Your outline on what Star Wars is "supposedly" about is no different than anything else. Heck we can take even a story like WoW. Do you really think that world is about; 'Hey go kill those ten boars! Nevermind that there is an army of undead out there killing and pillaging everything and demons over on that other side of the world too! The boars are the true menace! That damn cursed Hogger!'
In other words...there are very view gaming worlds that have true lore behind them that are about theme park. Star Wars isn't some special exception.
Really don't see how this is difficult for some to grasp. There are those who like sandbox and that's great. Everyone has different taste. But this game has investors...quite a bit at that...they can not go for a niche market and whether anyone likes it or not sandbox at this time is a niche market. Like many say 'This copied WoW!' Well boys and girls...that is what we call the business world. If something has success then guess what, others will follow suit with a tweak here and there. That has been the blueprint to many successful business whether right or wrong or like it or not. In the end it will have to simply boil down to if we enjoy the game or we don't.
So chance that with the level of investment placed into this project that they would go for a niche market instead of the more commerical one is slim to nil. If it isn't your thing, it just isn't. Niche markets are not easily maintained and sometimes even takes time to build up that the investors on this project will not wait for. It worked for EvE, yes, but this is a different animal. Already they have stated 500k in subs is necessary.
So when will we stop posting about this game being a sandbox. It isn't. Period. Move on and judge the content and development that it does have instead of worrying that it won't have over...and over...and over again.
I think the Star Wars franchise leans itself for several types of games. KOTOR is a Star Wars game too but not one that I'd describe sandbox/GTA like.
We've seen SWG which was one of the best sandbox MMO around and that had a limited amount of success, although nothing earth shattering. Now we'll see a themepark styled MMO game with SWTOR. We'll have to see how that one goes, although I'd be surprised if it didn't enjoy a larger degree of success than SWG did. I think a 'KOTOR MMO' will do quite well.
SWG was successful after about the first two updates to the game. Pre-CU and most definately pre-NGE SWG were NOT very successful. Servers were very active and populations were even growing. However, SOE chose to follow a new (and if hindsight is an indicator) but less successful path. What SWG lacked was coherent content that made since with the Star Wars mythos. There was nothing to do relative to advancing either Jedi vs Sith or the Rebellion vs Empire. What Bioware is doing is providing what was missing in SWG but without the sandbox. Will this work out? Only time will tell. I tend to agree IN PART with the OP that the game may flourish at the beginning but because it ONLY has story that what could make it great will be what will be its eventual shortcoming...no sandbox with the story.
lol SWG was a failure from the start. Had it been a success, they wouldn't have gone to such lengths to fix it with these patches so many whiners still have nightmares about.
SWG was a succes for that time! 300k subs is not a failure in my book. And even today many companies would be praying to have that amount of loyal subs.
The problem was, that for SOE and Lucas Arts it was not enough.
The problem was, that WoW released and was more succesful and caused major panic at SOE and LA and caused them to make the jerk reaction called NGE.
As they thought turning SWG into WoW in space would be more succesful. Which ofcourse wasn't!
Comments
Only two things are in sandboxes, toys and cat poo.
In Bioware we trust!
I was raised with my father telling me "never bring up religion or politics unless yoou want to get into a fight"
Being a MMO player i will also add "never bring up what a game shold be"
We all have a differance here and becuase you feel that it should be X Y Z doesnt mean that is the same for everyone else. For the most past imo the people that post on these forums, we are the minority. We want more out of our games than the mass's. But the Mass's sit at their computers and click away in happy land and take what they are giving. And the few of us that are really......Nerdy? well we come here and jump up and down.
They do? do they? I quick question for you Word of Warcaraft has around 10-12m subscribers world wide. Copy cat land (Aoc, Lotro, WAR, Champions online, Startrek online etc etc) dont even have 1m subscribers combined.. Are these games Sucky? no, are they bad? no, would they have become as successfull as World of Warcarft had they realeased before 2003? yes probably.... World of Warcraft came out at the right time, MMOs were begining to grow people were starting to get into them... Boom they come out with super polished game (for that time atleast) and they got themself a Smash Hit! What followed is the sad part of the story for over half a decade Suites with money have made other developers copy cat it... to the point that nobody even picks up a new MMO anymore for Fear it will play just like it..... That is the Sad truth of the Indutry today...
Fun read
+1
(NB: also GREAT sig, hilarious!)
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
SWG SWTG SWTOG SWTOR ===============================>
lets try that again
SWG SWGL FWGL FAGL FAIL=======>
The Boat ======================================>
Now why I don't think Bioware have missed the boat, well lets see professional , forward thinking and one of the best in the business. SWTOR will be anything but a Theme park, the content variety and size of the game will put a finish to misguided assumption.
It's nice to see the SWG vets out in force, and also sad as usual.
Busy to the end of the year I'll pick up SWTOR some time end of 2011 no rush whatsoever.
To hate is to fail..........
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Honestly I don't think this is one that can truly be pinned on the shoulders of Bioware atleast not alone. LA wants a themepark Star Wars MMO. They tried converting Galaxies into a more themepark MMO and ticked a ton of people off and SOE took the fall even though it was fairly common knowledge at the time they were changes LA was pushing for lol. Having failed there they washed there hands of it and worked on getting a new themepark Star Wars going.
LA has always been pretty hands on with the Star Wars IP, any direction the game takes is one in which LA wants or at least approves of.
With that all being said though, as far as a themepark Star Wars goes if anyone can pull it off it would be Bioware.
Nothing we can do at this point other than cross our fingers and hope for the best. Now by that I don't mean lets hope the game is a success because it pretty much a given regardless due to the companies and the funding behind it to push it (Ala WoW with the mass commercial and Ad campaigns). But lets hope it's something that even those not typically into the guided path gameplay can find fun in.
*Ahem* Objection! Go watch Empire Strikes Back again. Yoda and Obi Wan both repeatedly warn Luke not to go rescue his friends and he chooses to ignore them.
Always read the small print.
I think this thread might have been better named by the OP as "Why I don't like what BioWare is doing and why they should follow my thinking on this."
Let's face it, this game is not being made for YOU or for ME. It is a game they are attempting to make for MULTITUDES in a way that is fun and engaging.
Regardless of how you feel about the style of this game, if you really look at the original Star Wars trilogy, you will find that the only time Luke had ANY choice in what to do was in the last part of Return of the Jedi when he refused to fight Vader. In every other part of the movies he was forced into action by the other people around him, be they Obi Wan, Yoda, Vader, and even Leia/Han Solo (when they get captured).
Heck, even the pre-quals showed more wiggle room for Anakin by letting him fall in love AND decide to turn to the dark side. Though that was about the only free choices he had in those movies.
I think in the end this game may very well give us a LOT more freedom in advancing our characters than Star Wars ever did for Luke or Anakin. There is a story line in this game for each Class, but after you earn your ship, you can abandon that if you choose and instead just do world missions, explore and kill, level by PvP, etc . . .
Hmm . . . now that I finished this post, I think maybe the OP should have named this thread "Why BioWare did EXACTLY the right thing with this game." Of course, that's just my humble opinion.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
ok a few things of note:
kotor was only a sinbgle player game designed to make the single player feel important in a sigular role of importance through story. the game focused on you as a charecter and you rimpact to the galaxy.
swtor : is online but they are trying to use the same kotor philosophy where the game is about the individual charecter again and their individual efforts on the galaxy, the story and quest will focus primarily on the individual player. this simply does not work in an mmo enviroment.
theme park mmo would work fine for single charecter engaugments. but the whole starwars thing like the op has said is infact more of a sandbax galaxy where the people in it define its existance through their actions alone. and not any preditermined direction quest guides that drive you through the game as swtor is going to be doing.
none of this know what your going to do next and how it will allpan out business like we get in your typical wow clone.
sandbox is about the players and what they decide to do and where they decide to go, while swg was concidered by most to be a sandbox, it was still goiverned by progresive quest systems ultimately directing your charecter across the galaxy through a s eries of quests. its not until later levels that the game turns mroe snadbox and more about exploration that you start to make your own choices. and i think the sandbox feel of swg is all down to its guild system and open market.
you have to love the market system in swg. it shows you everything for sale in the galaxy. but to get the item you have to travel to the exact vendor its being sold from. i love that in a game. and also the player guild system with its city builder. a bit flawed but omg does it put freedom in the hands of its players. the fact you and your guild can construct your own private or public city is just one of the best features of swg in my oppinion. that alone gives it the sandbox feel.
ok the planets are not as vast as some would like but their are a number of them to visit and the game also has a pretty vast space part to the game too with full control of flight and combat. giving you the rogue sqaudron feel and control in space. swg space battles is the best todate. and swtor are not bothering to be better. swg has sandbox space more or less. i know their isnt alot to do in space but its freeform asteroids to mine and places to visit. and a great place for rp and to grind some space xp.
swg space makes the game feel like starwars. swtor space does not.
then you have swg crafting - and oh wow what a crafting system it is. sure its been nulled down and chooped up to please the less stable minded, thats right the ones that cant hold their concentration for more than a few minutes. the devs made crafting in swg more user friendly
but its still better than any other crafting in any other game. and its not because of wqhat you can make, but because of how the resoucre system works too. swg has more resources than ive ever seen in a game. and they all play a signnificant part in the result of crafting. unless your a tailor ofcourse then its all about reverse engineering.
the best crafting class in swg has to be the starship engineer, you have to use high qaulity resources of the best types to get the best results and you have to find them and e xtract them. then once you have your ingredients you have to make the items. then you have to experiment to get the best results. and this ofcourse is all based of the crafting machines you the player/crafter are useing. and the crafting machines also have to be crafted too requireing the best resources to make the best crafting stations. and the same with crafting tools.
in swg you can only get the best results, if you have can craft or aquire the best crafting stations and the craft or aquire the best c r afting tools. and the best resoruces.
ive played swg now on and off for close to 7 years. ive managed to aquire these items through begging stealing and borrowing from friends. 15.0 tools 15.0crafting staitons. but the resources are difficult to find.
however with the decline in players in swg resources are far easier to aquire now than they ever was before as their isnt any one breaking their necks to get the 990 qaulity rare resources that randomly spawn on certain planets in the galaxy.
thats right you cant get everything you need from one location,you have to track it down and it keeps changeing possition too. and some times its not as good a qaulity as you might like it to be.
thats what sandbox is about. its about the player creating their own game in a world designed for them to do so.
i really dont think this new swtor game is going to be as good as swg was in its hay day.
to me swtor looks like another wow clone but with a starwars skin. its style of game is old and out of date.
more sandbox games should be made so people can actually try them out. i see alot of negative feelings about sandbox games from people that havnt even tried them.
ive tried both and i have to say the sandbox is a far greater playing expeirence and alot more enjoyable. you actually feel like you are accomplishing something in a sandbox.
i really enjoyed crafting my advanced x-wing parts in swg. she is a beast of a fighter. all painted in black with hints of red on her hull. and she is so so fast and turns like a bike from tron. how ever my multiplayer ships isnt so nimble lol but it has some firpower to make up for the lack in agility.
I do understand these are your feelings and my responses are just my feelings in response to them in red.
I can certainly understand the appeal of a star wars sandbox game, and granted theme park games in some areas won't get that feeling, but i think it's entirely too soon to judge a game based on a style of play. I don't feel that you can really say an IP like star wars (or any ip really) is X style of play or works better in X type of game. It's down to the creators and how they put it together.
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.
Star Wars was ALL about going from one place to the next. Who chose their own destiny in Star Wars?
I think you're thinking of pre-CU SWG, not "Star Wars".
I am not ahuge star wars finatic, but even i know that the rebel vs empire is not the old star wars, its what the movies were based on, but from waht i understand it is when the sith were all but destroyed, the jedi are dying off and not many left and it happens thousands of years towards the end of the timeline.
KOTOR, and SWTOR are based in the old republic, the era when the primary advisaries were the jedi and the sith both were abundant unlike in the movies were they arent so much specifically because of the events of the great war which SWTOR is based in.
No one wants to play a space ship game either, that is why the space combat is just some minigame, if they had some crazy ass flight mechanic the game would be stretched to thin, something has to be the focus, and they chose story, and traditional combat over space combat, people just gotta deal with it.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
*Bangs Gavel* OVERRULLED!
Do not watch that movie! If you havent watched it by now, you dont want to, because it is outdated and has nothing to do with the current game in question, story wise. The jist of your arguement is true, Luke was pushed around, sure he grew a backbone several movies in but the level of choice to carve out his own destiny definately was not availble to him.
Too the people who think the story will get in the way of the game, they demonstrate how they have NEVER played a bioware game, because if they had, this wouldnt even be something they bring up, cause they would know bioware does a fantastic job of using story to facilitate the game play, not get in the way of it.
Bioware games are like movies, but instead of watching them you are in them, and instead of being told the story you are apart of it, and just when you think the plot is going one way, SURPRISE, you just decided to kill some guy, or save some guy, or blow up something, or break something else and now everything has changed.
Everyone has gotten used to ignoring the story because everytime you accepta new quest, you get a gaint wall of quest, you say "Fuck this, im not reading that!" you get in the habit of tracking down gaint Yellow exclaimation marks and speed scrolling to the accept button and you look for the X/10 counter at the right side of your screen.
Now if you are really serious about role playing games, in the sense that you get a great story, which is immersive and interactive then you should be looking forward to this game, otherwise, you probably want an action game with no real depth.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
Well, as I have mentioned several times over my years here, a friend of mine played SWG in earnest until one day he realized he was doing a second job that he wasn't getting for. Then he discovered Everquest and never looked back.
It takes a particular type of person to revel in that type of game play.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I said something about sand box on the SWTOR forums that i will just echo here:
"Fuck Sandbox, yeah i said it.
Sand box often means no direction at all, It means often you have nothing to do in the game besides try and create your own fun. The sandbox in gta is fun, until about 2 hours in and you get bored of stealing the same cars and joyriding over the city.
I personally enjoy playing a game with a purpose, with some direction, i like the rails, i want the rails, leave the rails alone."
I dont understand why people think sandbox is so great, Star Wars has an Overlaying conflict, that is why you want to be in that universe, dont you want to have some inflence over that conflict? The only way to do that is to add some direction, if a game were a true sandbox, players would just destroy every building because its funny and kill every npc.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Just to clarify...sandbox elements are great! I enjoy joyriding as much as anyone else, but I also like playing a game that entertains me.
OMG he said it! I'm reporting...
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!! It's a suppository.
Also!
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE! There are more boats on the way for Bioware!
I think the problem is rooted in the personal point of view of every player. Sand boxers see every world as more of a sandbox, while theme parkers will see it as more that way. Being objective and having played, and loved both genres, I can say Star Wars does not scream sand box. At least not this era of Star Wars. Here is why, in the old republic if you were born with force talent you were usually spirited away by the sith or jedi to become one of them. Their ways were taught to you, yes your strengths were your own, but it was very much a cast society. Likewise the mandalorians lived by their codes, it was a ridged structure.
While yes many races did have free will, and could be anything they wanted, among the sith empire what race you were dictated your place in their society as well. In a way imposing a pseudo cast structure, which was only bent if you were born sensitive to the force. On the other hand the republic is very much like our own world, lending itself to a sandbox. This is why SWG worked as a sand box, the republic had won out in the past and fallen by that games time line. Any game in or shortly after the original trilogy can function as a sandbox without running into problems.
As you get further from the trilogy into the extended universe you run into the reemergence of the Jedi order, the founding of the imperial knights, and the return of the new sith. Once again forming a force based cast system, all be it only for those with force powers.
For my money if I was going to have picked the setting for the game I'd of went to the legacy era, simply because you have three factions, which to me would have been more fun.
The reasons i will be pre ordering 4 copies of this game is very simple.
1)Me, wife and two friends love bioware games (check)
2)We love starwars (check)
3)We love single player games (check)
4)Tired of mmo's with shallow storylines and generic quests (check)
We are social but we don't play mmo's where we are forced to group (I love to group but won't play a game where if I want to solo it is a negative experience)
Even when we play mass effect 2, we do it while on teamspeak so even that is a social experience.
Unless bioware makes SW completely none bioware style game we will love it, because for the last couple of years the main thing we have complained about in mmo's is the lack of story, the lack of quests and goals that stay with you for years the lack of connection and moral choices.
I belive that the biggest problem for this game is actually that it is based on the Star Wars franchise.
Hardcore SW fans will alway tear it apart anyways. Others might not have the star wars interest or even be a bit tired of it. Its probably milked too much already.
And missing Darth Vader and all the Starwarsy icons that most non fans will think of when hearing Star Wars is probably not the best thing either.
I belive that Bioware would have been much smarter if they had made an MMORPG based upon Neverwinter nights or Baldurs gate. It just seems like MMORPG based upon movies etc does not cut it the way that those that bases their games upon more "unique" IP / comptuter franchises (like Warcraft).
I'm sorry but you just described basically any game with a story as a foundation so basically every game that is not 'sandbox' has missed the boat by your definition. Your outline on what Star Wars is "supposedly" about is no different than anything else. Heck we can take even a story like WoW. Do you really think that world is about; 'Hey go kill those ten boars! Nevermind that there is an army of undead out there killing and pillaging everything and demons over on that other side of the world too! The boars are the true menace! That damn cursed Hogger!'
In other words...there are very view gaming worlds that have true lore behind them that are about theme park. Star Wars isn't some special exception.
Really don't see how this is difficult for some to grasp. There are those who like sandbox and that's great. Everyone has different taste. But this game has investors...quite a bit at that...they can not go for a niche market and whether anyone likes it or not sandbox at this time is a niche market. Like many say 'This copied WoW!' Well boys and girls...that is what we call the business world. If something has success then guess what, others will follow suit with a tweak here and there. That has been the blueprint to many successful business whether right or wrong or like it or not. In the end it will have to simply boil down to if we enjoy the game or we don't.
So chance that with the level of investment placed into this project that they would go for a niche market instead of the more commerical one is slim to nil. If it isn't your thing, it just isn't. Niche markets are not easily maintained and sometimes even takes time to build up that the investors on this project will not wait for. It worked for EvE, yes, but this is a different animal. Already they have stated 500k in subs is necessary.
So when will we stop posting about this game being a sandbox. It isn't. Period. Move on and judge the content and development that it does have instead of worrying that it won't have over...and over...and over again.
SWG was a succes for that time! 300k subs is not a failure in my book. And even today many companies would be praying to have that amount of loyal subs.
The problem was, that for SOE and Lucas Arts it was not enough.
The problem was, that WoW released and was more succesful and caused major panic at SOE and LA and caused them to make the jerk reaction called NGE.
As they thought turning SWG into WoW in space would be more succesful. Which ofcourse wasn't!