You can't say that games like Earthrise (!?!!?) and Fallen Earth are games that sandbox fans should have supported. These games were an embarassment to gamers because of the state they were released in.
You probably would have benefited from actually reading the article where I specifically outline EXACTLY what you just said.
On the one hand, if the game is a success with long term retention of subscribers and hot box sales, that makes a firm statement that players want to see story-driven, theme park designed AAA MMOs. It will set a precedent that if you want to succeed in this market you’re going to have to cough up the how many millions and millions of dollars that Star Wars’ budget is rumored to be.
On the other hand, if the game fails to live up to its own admittedly ridiculously heightened expectations, it has the potential to serve as a cautionary tale for big investors and big publishers. Too big and too broad is very likely to give way to smaller, niche targeted titles.
Sure you beat us to it saying this but "As has been said about every 'game-changer' since WoW spilled out into mainstream".
Whichever way the wind blows though, I think that the story of Star Wars: The Old Republic, its development, existence and eventual success or failure is as much about us as a player community as it is about Bioware, EA and their teams.
You see, it’s been a long progression getting here but we, as an MMO fan community, are watching the construction of a monolithic project that we helped to create. Not with our mad design skills or even our money (ok, some of our money, I’m sure), but with our participation in the MMO genre as a whole.
The game is, after all, the perfect representation of what MMORPG players have been pushing for (with their wallets, not with their forum posts). It’s a theme park, with questing and easy solo-ability. It’s got a lot of the hallmarks of the MMO genre, crafting, housing, PvP battlegrounds, questing, leveling, classes and the like. The UI looks exactly how you’d expect an MMO’s UI to look and will function the same. It’s going to look amazing, sound amazing, and run as close to lag-free as the developers can make it. It’s also going to be chock full of content. By last count, I think that they said it was the equivalent of five new Knights of the Old Republic RPGs. Like many of the recent MMOs, it’s going to have some kind of endgame that the developers just keep refusing to unveil.
Right-o, we don't have a lot of choices so while we have endured little respectable progression in the millenium, it's our fault. I mean we're playing something so it must be exactly what we want. Good thing they got it right the first time.
So how did we get to the point where we’re looking at the only successful MMOs being the games that meet the above description? The answer, at least as far as I’ve figured it out, is actually fairly simple if we stop to look at it:
We don’t and haven’t as a whole really supported anything else.
Those of us who talk about wanting to play another kind of MMO, the sandbox kind that grows and evolves with the players and is based more on player action than it is developer made content, just haven’t put our money where our mouths are.
Let’s for a moment exclude EVE Online, which is the exception to this rule and has been for quite some time. If we look at the games that have been even remotely sandbox over the last few years (titles like Fallen Earth and Earthrise spring immediately to mind) the support just hasn’t been there.
Where's the triple-A sandbox? Since we're not counting EVE, where's the sandbox that got as much dollar-sign-love as Warcraft? Releases that are full of bugs aren't fun just because the developers think they can meet a deadline and patch crap in later. Nothing takes you out of the immersion like a crash, a blue screen or especially character wipe/backup restoration.
What’s that you say and are immediately rushing to the forums to comment on before reading the rest of the article? The games felt buggy and only partly finished? They weren’t polished enough? They didn’t look good enough? They need to release a full game before they get your money? They weren’t enough of a sandbox?
Honestly, it’s comments like these and the attitudes that come with them that have contributed to building the Star Wars monolith. The reason that all of the money and all of the publishers turn away from open, sandbox MMOs is because they’re absolutely impossible to build in the current state of the market. Not because of the games being made, but because even the audience that screams as loudly as they can that they want something different isn’t willing to support the natural process that comes with that kind of game.
I read your article. I looked at the pretty pictures. I forget that we're supposed to tolerate poor quality and not just us, but our more casual friends as well. We're supposed to endure what we want them to make shinier so they know to make it shinier.
The industry-wide perception is that players today simply aren’t willing to stand by a sandbox game and give it the support that it needs in order to grow into the game experience that its community expects. The more direct interaction and control that the players are given, the less that the developers can or even should do right out of the gate.
Let’s look at EVE Online (ok, so we’re not so much setting it aside as I thought) as an example of a successful sandbox-style MMO. Like the game or not, you can’t deny its constant growth and the success and the expansion of its developers:
EVE Online started out a small, buggy little program with not a whole lot of variation in what players could do. Over time, and with a small group of devoted fans who stuck with the game, the developers added more and more, expanding their game, getting a handle on bugs (and creating some new ones), and with that came more and more subscribers.
Sandbox MMOs, the kind that many of us want to play and love, build up over time. They aren’t just magically pooped out of some machine at the end of a development cycle complete and ready to be populated. The start is supposed to be rocky and incomplete. If you want polished and finished and full of content, which honestly seems many of us do, then the theme park monoliths are your best bet. They were, after all, built out of the general public’s sharing of those same desires. Not everyone “gets” why they would pay for something that isn’t done just so that they can have an ideal experience down the line, and that’s fine. It’s a perfectly reasonable argument. Just don’t make said argument at the same time that you complain about wanting a great new sandbox to play in.
Do you think EVE would be a success today? I don't think it would be.
The first cars were amazing cars for their day. They were awesome! You can't look back on the early hand built and early mass production stuff without respect but they were for another time.
Vehicles today are expected (and required by law in that case lol) to have features and meet performance demands that the early cars wouldn't meet.
Hardcore dedicated communities stuck to EVE because there wasn't competition. Bugs and incomplete status was ok because... What else are you going to do? It's a different world today.
This isn’t to say that we’re entirely responsible for all of the ills of gaming. For example, there’s really nothing wrong with the Star Wars monolith and the vision of MMOs that it represents. It’s just not what old school hardcore players think of as an MMO.
Then there’s the fact that some sandbox developers don’t get that they may have to suffer through a long-term period of growth before player numbers really pick up and they fail to plan for that.
So whichever way the wind blows with Star Wars: The Old Republic and whatever the fallout from it may be, it’s a bed that we all made, from developers to the media to theme park players and even sandbox hopefuls. The most expensive MMO ever developed was created by the industry and the market that we helped to build.
am I the only one that thought this was a bank in dalaran at first glance? (Wotlk) That's not a comparison, I just got a good laugh out of it.
im going to post you a link, this is direct from ccp and its an idea of what they are trying to do with eve-online.... now this in my book is what mmo development is all about..
I've played mmo as long as the typical mmo player, started in UO back in 97 and played loads of games before that.
In pretty much all mmos, I read the quest text one time on my main chaqracter and then anytime I'm playin an alt I just burn through the options to get to the end. I imagine alot of mmo players are like me. I'm not going to get anything new from reading the quest text on my 7th max level character.
I enjoy the difference between classes and the vastness or worlds. I don't care much for what some npc has to say on some planet that costs them 30$ an hour. Wether he sounds like James Earl Jones or just has text.
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
Great article. you hit the nail on the head. And even though you explained the difference sandbox and themepark, some idiots on here still don't get it. Oh well. If DC Universe online is any indication of how well SWTOR will do, DCUO sold well, is still selling well and people are still playing it. Star Trek Online is another one. I love both games and play them equally. Honestly - Sandbox games take alot of time and effort on the gamers part. I remember playing Eve Online and Star Wars Galaxies on Day one. And it was absolutely horrible (by today's standard at least). I remember playing for whole weeks at a time. And I'm just not in that place where I can devote that much time to a game anymore. And I think alot of people fall into that category. We're the ones playing STO, & DCUO. And hopefully soon - SWTOR. I played Star Wars Galaxies up until the developers rewrote the game and made it less sandboxy (is that a word?) I felt as though they had slighted me because of all the time and effort I put into that game. They actually lost a lot of players because of it. True Sandbox games are risky. STO, DCUO, & SWTOR arent risky from a gaming standpoint. They (the developers) know that fans of the license are shoe-ins. And Hardcore gamers are going to (at the least) give it a try because its in their nature. And as long as people keep playing, they'll keep adding content. I like that I can come home from work, turn on a game (DCUO, or STO), play it for a few hours and call it quits. And when I stop playing my head doesn't hurt like it would after SWG or EO. I'm not saying those games weren't awesome because they were. I'm just saying that IMO there's room for both types and that each evolves in it's on way. I agree with the article - you can't say (well you can, but it won't do you any good) "I want a deep sandbox MMO experience" and at the same time expect said sandbox MMO to be complete with content on DAY 1. Theres nothing wrong with fast food gaming (even in MMOs). Its all in how it's presented. In the case of SWTOR, I'm a HUGE SW fan first, and a gamer second. I don't really care about it not being sandboxy (there's that word again) enough. What I care about is being able to jump into on day one and "get my star wars on" (that's slang for those not in the know) for a couple of hours. Truth be told I'll probably play way longer than that the first night because as I mentioned early, I'm big SW fanboy. I hope it succeeds. I don't wish any game to fail. I guess the answer to the question is what do you consider success or failure? Is it about the initial numbers or is it about consistant subscriber base?
Now if you all saw this from any of us in here,any,you could have said 'what a troll'..How much worse could it be when someone working (he gets payed for this,salaries mean money,money means motive,yes even in here) in this site writes it? I'd say its big bad mojo trolling..cause in this case,they have a profit behind their reasoning. Why do i bother? Good point..except 3 years ago,we had something called Gamespot. Before it became the commercial pimp it is today. That's why. MAybe the first,but doesn't mean the last..You may flame me away now for being so critical of MMORPG's intentions here. I wish you well.
Yup. You've got me. Every single positive thing that is ever said on this site is actually done for cash. In reality we're all hate mongers who don't even really like games. In fact, we sit around our Tuscan Villa (bought by all of our awesome ill gotten gains) and do nothing but talk about how crappy games are.
I remember when I heard about that Gamestop incident and thought to myself: Man, I'd like to swim in a vault of money like Scrooge McDuck, so to hell with my eithical and standards. to hell with my long term career, I'm going to write only paid articles for awesomeness from now on.
I just love living in a world where a person can't say a positive thing about anything without being accused of doing it for money. I love that people honestly think that myself and my profession are that shallow. It's awesome. Don't make me feel horrible at all.
Good thing I sold my principles long ago. Off to my money bin.
"to live up to its own admittedly ridiculously heightened expectations"
It's made by Bioware.....it's going to be awesome.
Sonic Chronicles, Dragon Age 2.
No company, not even Bioware, is infallible.
Lets say I eat at IHOP in Austin, TX and really enjoy it. Does that mean if I stop at the IHOP in Minneapolis, MN the food will taste exactly the same? Absolutely not. Sure, they are both IHOP restaurants, but they have different cooks, wait staff and so on. Take this into consideration when talking about TOR vs. DA2 which had completely separate teams working on them, even though they are both Bioware.
Yet it was the same publisher that pushed DA2 out early.
MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood has a thought or two about Star Wars: The Old Republic. The amount of money being used in the game's development will either serve as a warning for developers and publishers about the folly of big money investment should the game tank or it will be a shining example of what big money can do if it succeeds. Check out all of Jon's reasons behind these thoughts and then add your own voice to the mix in the comments.
On the one hand, if the game is a success with long term retention of subscribers and hot box sales, that makes a firm statement that players want to see story-driven, theme park designed AAA MMOs. It will set a precedent that if you want to succeed in this market you’re going to have to cough up the how many millions and millions of dollars that Star Wars’ budget is rumored to be.
Total nonsense. Another industry apologist blaming the consumer for not lining the pockets of incompetant devs and rewarding them for subpar products. Considering how many "themepark" games crashed and burned because they were released too early, you trying to make a case that only themepark games are capable of releasing "finished" is moronic. It doesnt matter if a game is sandbox or themepark when released a bug ridden technical unfinished mess. Sandbox games that so many old timers pine for are niche games to begin with, always have been, and always will be.
I like how you try to exclude the success of eve, which is just the type of sandbox game you claim isnt supported by gamers today. I played eve at release and for about a year afterwards. I encountered zero bugs, that isnt to say there werent any, only that if they did exist they were few and far between. I never crashed to desktop,had to "camp" and return to get an update,redo my ui every time i logged in,encounter stuck npcs, get stucked, or any of the million and one common bugs in rushed releases.
Now if you all saw this from any of us in here,any,you could have said 'what a troll'..How much worse could it be when someone working (he gets payed for this,salaries mean money,money means motive,yes even in here) in this site writes it? I'd say its big bad mojo trolling..cause in this case,they have a profit behind their reasoning. Why do i bother? Good point..except 3 years ago,we had something called Gamespot. Before it became the commercial pimp it is today. That's why. MAybe the first,but doesn't mean the last..You may flame me away now for being so critical of MMORPG's intentions here. I wish you well.
Yup. You've got me. Every single positive thing that is ever said on this site is actually done for cash. In reality we're all hate mongers who don't even really like games. In fact, we sit around our Tuscan Villa (bought by all of our awesome ill gotten gains) and do nothing but talk about how crappy games are.
I remember when I heard about that Gamestop incident and thought to myself: Man, I'd like to swim in a vault of money like Scrooge McDuck, so to hell with my eithical and standards. to hell with my long term career, I'm going to write only paid articles for awesomeness from now on.
I just love living in a world where a person can't say a positive thing about anything without being accused of doing it for money. I love that people honestly think that myself and my profession are that shallow. It's awesome. Don't make me feel horrible at all.
Good thing I sold my principles long ago. Off to my money bin.
can i come over please? i have always wanted to swim around in money like scrooge.
All that said, BioWare has done a great job in bringing the Star Wars universe to an MMO. And when you consider the entire game is different for each of the four player classes (Sith Warrior, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler and Trooper) with zero repetition of quests between them, you're looking at a doubly massive MMO.
You do realize there are eight classes. You forgot the inquisitor, both jedi classes, and the imperial agent.
Back on topic, I do agree with Jon in his assessment and have felt the same way for some time. This game will make the market take pause to see how it fares... at least until blizzard releases Titan, then it will happen again. We will all wonder if that game will change the market again. Hopefully this will continue to happen and each will meet success in order to increase budgets and polish for future projects.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
Biowatre have got their definition of mmo all wrong. you can have cenematic and themed gamplay where every single charecter is the savior of the universe. individual heroisation only works in single player games that is driven by story such as the 2 kotor games.
Maybe they are, but we won't know for sure until it comes out. If they got it wrong, then the game will tank and we will go back to what we have now, No real reason to get worried about it so much. But your entitled to your opinion, Below are just some of my reasons and opinions.
these methods and mechanics cannot and will not support a lasting interactive community in an mmo of this type.
reasons -
1/ companions remove litterally the requirement for multi player aspects of the game
As companions are never going to be more or even on level with players in terms of power and capability. (thus why they were removed from raids in the first place ala the...;your companion just walked into that beast? oh great we're dead, type of thing) AI is just never going to be as good as a human or as quick, thus are a supplement to the group mechanics. As they stand now, they are not allowed in raids, and they take up a group spot in flashpoints (as per the last UK article)
2/ companions doing your crafting removes litterally another aspect of mmo gam play resulting in even more limitation of content.
This removes nothing. It just makes it so you don't have to watch that little bar go by, instead you can stay in the action and have your companion do what your character would do normally. When you gather you still need to walk to the node and tell your companion to harvest it. Except in one instance where you send your companion off to find your mats, but then theres almost certainly a chance of failure and it can get costly. Other then that, they remove nothing. You still have to find the mats, you still have to find the schmatics you still have to tell them what to craft, you still have to take the item to the auction house/market what have you, and hawk your wares off to others.
3/ rail based space shooter encloses the feel of the mmo universe into a more confined space removeing anyfeel of scope and depth from the game universe.
I sorta understand the problem with this space shooter but people also need to understand this is a mini-game, it's not a fully fledge part of the game that you will be spending hours in. It gives you something along the lines of bejewled or card games to do while your waiting for something or just to throw a different play style in so the current one doesn't get stale.
4/ story in mmo is pointless, no one plays mmos to read stories and follow set paths crerated by devs to an eventual end game scenario, if they do then they are playing mmo's for the wrong reasons, an mmo is about an evolving realistic living world where players can interact and become part of it. this game doesnt allow for this.
The way they are doing the story is a tad bit different, we won't know if it's right or wrong, but the story is part of the RPG not the MMO. Remember Bioware is trying to put the RPG back into MMORPG. As for RPGs. Most of the best or at least best selling ones had great stories. So i don't see a problem here. Again though this doesn't exactly remove anything from the MMO it just adds to it.
5/ cenematic cut scenes to represent travel from one area to another just adds to the enclosure like feeling, a bit like being in pens with little gates leading into other little pens, game worlds today need to be flowing and transition free.
These transitions are between planets and instances, it's better then just jumping from one planet to the next, we will see how people like it. As for the worlds themselves they are big and generally don't have cutscenes or zoning.
Lastly in most cases these are used as transitions and thus generally short.
6/ this game is useing extremely old school methods for its combat system its mroe or less static combat, you select your target and all your hits are already aimed for you and automatically hit home. this renders any kind of combat/pvp boreing dull and nothing we havnt all seen in other games over the past 10 years.
While the general combat of attacking is using a RNG to run it. You do have enemy AI which hides behind barriers and the ability for you to do that as well. So that gives it a nice tweak as i'm sure as you get higher in levels they will get generally more sneaky about how they go about it. We will see how it works.
7/ end game stuff pvp dungeons and so on, these things have a life expectancy, players will play these until they get bored, then they will cancel subscriptions, this is imply the way of things with games of this type. no mmo should have end game, an mmo isnt suppsoed to end an mmo is supposed to be a living breathing persistant world that the players have a hand in at changeing and altering with lasting effects.. this game will not have this.
Unless the devs continuely generate content at a faster pace then people can consume it, at some point they will reach the end game. This is a fact of all..yes all games not just MMOs, They are just more noticable in MMOs because your doing them for longer. However i will point out that there is a ton of content...and before anyone rebutes with yes it runs out. If you do all of the personal class content at about 30 hours a week (pretty decent for an avid gamer) you'll be about 1 year before you finish it, and thats only touching one aspect of the game. Assuming of course you play all 8 classes.
it doesnt matter how much money you spend on a product!!!! if the product is limited to only one function then it can only be used for one thing. products as we are aware have life spans before they become obsolete. in the gameing world on average to the common gamer a new game of this type will last them at best aproximately 2 years tops. and thats pushing it. the entire games contents can be explored in less than a year just playing casual. once all content has been explored and experienced there is only one more reason to keep logging in, and thats to see your fake friends you have made online. thats not a good enough reason.
As i outlined above it would take a person playing 30 hours a week (consistantly) a little over a year..actually 1 year 1 and 1/3 month, thats not touching anything but the personal class story. As for products becoming obsolete. Well theres always world of warcraft..thats been going on for about 5 years now.
this game doesnt offer enough for the seasoned gamer, the seasoned gamer wants more from an mmo at end game other than running the same old dungeons over and over again for guild mates to get the same old crap.
hmm i'm not sure what seasoned gamers are or what they want, but as i'm almost 30, been playing games since i was about 6, played MMOs for 15 years. I'd like to call myself one of them seasoned gamers, and what i see from this game are raids, pvp, world events, class stories, exploration, crafting (Yes you can craft on par with end game gear with crafting skills) and interaction with other players through flashpoints that change based on not only your but their decisions as well.
i can think of only one games developer today that truely knows what an mmo is supposed to be and thats ccp.
They create sandbox. We are talking about themeparks. It's fine you like sandbox. I don't, but i think there is more then one way to make a game. I hope others do as well.
an mmo is about a community thats is constantly in touch with the ingame mechanics and persistancy of the game world. the players make the mmo great not what the developers put into it. its no good makeing a really polished game tyhat looks great and runs smooth if it can only be played for a few months before players get fed up and bored.
this game is going to be exactly that.
So sure about that? crafting, raiding, interactive dialog, able to group for everything, hub towns. Seems like a fair amount of community interaction there.
putting the player in the hero and savior spotlight works a treat in a single player game such as kotor, this is supposed to be an MMO............ that kind of philosphy wont work and never has worked.
I'm not so quick to assume what will and what won't work. I thought that people would hate doing end game over and over again. Apartently Blizzard proved that worng. Again we shall see.
how ever swtor will survive for one reaosn and one reason alone.. the starwars fans who dont know what an mmo is. im fairly confident that when the starwars galaxies vetts see the this new game they will stick with swg. they will do this because even though swg has been brutaly maimed by soe, its still a pretty awesome starwars experience. infact i predict swtor will bringing new life to swg
swg does everything swtor is trying to do and much much much more.
Is it just me or am i sensing more of a sandbox vs theme park mentality going on here. Nothing wrong with it of course but i'm starting to get the feel it's not that it's what SW;ToR is doing content wise it's that it's a theme park.
size isnt everything -
People would disagree here actually.
so the op says he read somewhere this game will be the biggest, well i hate to chuck a spanner in the works but there is no way on this green earth that this game will ever manage to come close to the size of eve-online. now thats a huge game and is currently the biggest game world with the most players in a single server in the whole world.
You do have to look at how much content per feet there is. Granted EvE is huge, the biggest ever. What percentage of that actually has something you want in it? Not as much, must of that you pass by in warp to your destination. So most of it..just like space..is kinda empty.
there is no other game on the planet that can claim they have upto 40,000 players online at once in a single server!!! no game.. only eve can claim that. eve also has over 6000 areas for players to explore. and there is no level limits infact there are no levels at all, the game is in all sence of the word endless.
swtor wont flop for one reason,,, startrek online didnt flop and that has to be the worlds worst game........ and that didnt flop because of the massive fan base startrek has. starwars has a much much larger fan base. and it will be fans that are pleased with the product not the actual mmo gamers.
im both a starwars fan and mmo gamer and i wish for only one thing. they dont release this game and completely redevelop it so its more like swg crossed with eve online. playing a game as a fan isnt enough for me with my understand and experience of mmo's i know more is possible than what is being presented at present. and i also know bioware have little interest in what a true mmo is.
So what you want them to do...is trash a 1.5M budget that is catering to BW/SW fans and make it a sandbox game...that BW fans don't play...I'm not following.
Plus the sandbox crowd isn't as big as the theme park game. Like the article said Eve was the exception to the rule. If sandbox games (as thats what your arguing for. not better features but a sandbox game) were oh so great, they would be ruling. Not WoW.
I can understand people like sandbox, but you really need to understand what this game is after. It's after BW fans. Look at Bioware games. What are they by nature....themepark. Dang near everyone one of them from DA to Kotor to ME to BG (which is about as close to sandbox as you can get and thats still in my opinoin closer to theme park then sandbox)
Wether it succeeds or fails is not going to depend on wether its sandbox or theme park, it's going to be down to if the fans following it want what is in there. Theres over a year worth of content before you hit the MMO aspect at all. So hopefully that will keep them around a while.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Whats the point of this article? It comes off as "you made your bed now lay in it". But of course thats not it because that would be trolling. And the staff here doesnt troll, right? So.... whats the point of this article?
Whats the point of this article? It comes off as "you made your bed now lay in it". But of course thats not it because that would be trolling. And the staff here doesnt troll, right? So.... whats the point of this article?
I more of see it as, this is what the MMO genre wants, if they wanted different it would be going a different direction. So while some may be saying the MMO genre wants sandbox games. In reality the people in this genre want theme park games. Highly polished, lots of content, big fully explorable worlds with a indepth story...basically this is what the MMo genre as a whole is wanting..swtor. Assuming of course that it's a success.
If it is. Then the MMO gamers as a majority don't want sandbox. They want theme park. Which is what it's at currently. If they wanted sandbox so much they would have played those instead, but for one reason or another they dropped every..single...one...which means some may say they want one but they don't want to take the time to make one flourish as an example.
As a personal side note it's kind of funny really to me. That sandbox games require a whole bunch of commitment to them to get them running and yet the people wanting them, can't commit the time needed to get them up and running. /end personal side note
Thats not to say the people wanting sandbox games are wrong, but it does require bringing one to the forefront. Like EvE except you need quite a bit more then 300K to get your foot in the door at this time.
For now though themeparks rule the genre, and right now according to info swtor is the one that giving people what they been asking for when they vote with their wallets/purses.
At least in my personal opinoin.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I have definitely put 10 times more money into the sandboxes of the world than the themeparks. Unfortunately, all of the true sandboxes are all but dead and gone now to the point where EVE is considered a sandbox. Very sad indeed.
The industry has gone so far awry that I'm having to make my own MMO now just to have a single game to enjoy.
When small groups of people (or even single people) have very low hanging fruit to pursue, you know that overly large and myopic companies have been claiming the spotlight for far, far too long
Well, look, regardless of whether or not one likes the article is it really wrong? I mean, at its core.
If people don't buy something and other people do buy somethign then any industry is going to move toward what people want.
Unless some of you work in non-profits I HIGHLY doubt your companies create a product or service that doesn't make money.
And Jon is right, there are sandbox games out there, good ones that really aren't being supported. Even though I've seen some sandbox players say "it's about game play not about graphics" I don't see people lining up for Ryzom.
Ryzom is a good game (and I personally like the art design) and could easily fill a player's desire for a sandbox game. EVE is an awesome game if one has the patience to delve deeply into its folds.
Of course the point does stand that players shouldn't have to bite the bullet and sink money into games with issues just so they can support a development studio and hope they get their act together. And I would agree.
but reality is reality and unless people start sinking money into alternative games the larger developement studios aren't going to take notice. It sucks, I know. But players who aren't really into sandbox games are spending money on games such as wow or rift and most likely Star Wars.
If SWToR is polished and delivers what they say they will, and from what I've seen from PAX it looks like they can, then it's going to make quite a bit of money and cement the idea that more money and creating a polished "themepark" game is a recipe for success.
Because the suits in these larger companies aren't going to be saying "you know, if we sink a lot of money into a polished game but shoot for an alternative game concept then we can be successful too.
They will look at every aspect of SWToR and try to recreate it.
Heck, look at Twilight. Look at its success. Now look at all the books that are coming out that are trying to be the exact same thing as Twilight. And some of those books have generated movies.
If no one plays these sandbox games then more won't be made. It sucks but companies can be a bit mercenary.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Biowatre have got their definition of mmo all wrong. you can have cenematic and themed gamplay where every single charecter is the savior of the universe. individual heroisation only works in single player games that is driven by story such as the 2 kotor games.
Maybe they are, but we won't know for sure until it comes out. If they got it wrong, then the game will tank and we will go back to what we have now, No real reason to get worried about it so much. But your entitled to your opinion, Below are just some of my reasons and opinions.
these methods and mechanics cannot and will not support a lasting interactive community in an mmo of this type.
reasons -
1/ companions remove litterally the requirement for multi player aspects of the game
As companions are never going to be more or even on level with players in terms of power and capability. (thus why they were removed from raids in the first place ala the...;your companion just walked into that beast? oh great we're dead, type of thing) AI is just never going to be as good as a human or as quick, thus are a supplement to the group mechanics. As they stand now, they are not allowed in raids, and they take up a group spot in flashpoints (as per the last UK article)
2/ companions doing your crafting removes litterally another aspect of mmo gam play resulting in even more limitation of content.
This removes nothing. It just makes it so you don't have to watch that little bar go by, instead you can stay in the action and have your companion do what your character would do normally. When you gather you still need to walk to the node and tell your companion to harvest it. Except in one instance where you send your companion off to find your mats, but then theres almost certainly a chance of failure and it can get costly. Other then that, they remove nothing. You still have to find the mats, you still have to find the schmatics you still have to tell them what to craft, you still have to take the item to the auction house/market what have you, and hawk your wares off to others.
3/ rail based space shooter encloses the feel of the mmo universe into a more confined space removeing anyfeel of scope and depth from the game universe.
I sorta understand the problem with this space shooter but people also need to understand this is a mini-game, it's not a fully fledge part of the game that you will be spending hours in. It gives you something along the lines of bejewled or card games to do while your waiting for something or just to throw a different play style in so the current one doesn't get stale.
4/ story in mmo is pointless, no one plays mmos to read stories and follow set paths crerated by devs to an eventual end game scenario, if they do then they are playing mmo's for the wrong reasons, an mmo is about an evolving realistic living world where players can interact and become part of it. this game doesnt allow for this.
The way they are doing the story is a tad bit different, we won't know if it's right or wrong, but the story is part of the RPG not the MMO. Remember Bioware is trying to put the RPG back into MMORPG. As for RPGs. Most of the best or at least best selling ones had great stories. So i don't see a problem here. Again though this doesn't exactly remove anything from the MMO it just adds to it.
5/ cenematic cut scenes to represent travel from one area to another just adds to the enclosure like feeling, a bit like being in pens with little gates leading into other little pens, game worlds today need to be flowing and transition free.
These transitions are between planets and instances, it's better then just jumping from one planet to the next, we will see how people like it. As for the worlds themselves they are big and generally don't have cutscenes or zoning.
Lastly in most cases these are used as transitions and thus generally short.
6/ this game is useing extremely old school methods for its combat system its mroe or less static combat, you select your target and all your hits are already aimed for you and automatically hit home. this renders any kind of combat/pvp boreing dull and nothing we havnt all seen in other games over the past 10 years.
While the general combat of attacking is using a RNG to run it. You do have enemy AI which hides behind barriers and the ability for you to do that as well. So that gives it a nice tweak as i'm sure as you get higher in levels they will get generally more sneaky about how they go about it. We will see how it works.
7/ end game stuff pvp dungeons and so on, these things have a life expectancy, players will play these until they get bored, then they will cancel subscriptions, this is imply the way of things with games of this type. no mmo should have end game, an mmo isnt suppsoed to end an mmo is supposed to be a living breathing persistant world that the players have a hand in at changeing and altering with lasting effects.. this game will not have this.
Unless the devs continuely generate content at a faster pace then people can consume it, at some point they will reach the end game. This is a fact of all..yes all games not just MMOs, They are just more noticable in MMOs because your doing them for longer. However i will point out that there is a ton of content...and before anyone rebutes with yes it runs out. If you do all of the personal class content at about 30 hours a week (pretty decent for an avid gamer) you'll be about 1 year before you finish it, and thats only touching one aspect of the game. Assuming of course you play all 8 classes.
it doesnt matter how much money you spend on a product!!!! if the product is limited to only one function then it can only be used for one thing. products as we are aware have life spans before they become obsolete. in the gameing world on average to the common gamer a new game of this type will last them at best aproximately 2 years tops. and thats pushing it. the entire games contents can be explored in less than a year just playing casual. once all content has been explored and experienced there is only one more reason to keep logging in, and thats to see your fake friends you have made online. thats not a good enough reason.
As i outlined above it would take a person playing 30 hours a week (consistantly) a little over a year..actually 1 year 1 and 1/3 month, thats not touching anything but the personal class story. As for products becoming obsolete. Well theres always world of warcraft..thats been going on for about 5 years now.
this game doesnt offer enough for the seasoned gamer, the seasoned gamer wants more from an mmo at end game other than running the same old dungeons over and over again for guild mates to get the same old crap.
hmm i'm not sure what seasoned gamers are or what they want, but as i'm almost 30, been playing games since i was about 6, played MMOs for 15 years. I'd like to call myself one of them seasoned gamers, and what i see from this game are raids, pvp, world events, class stories, exploration, crafting (Yes you can craft on par with end game gear with crafting skills) and interaction with other players through flashpoints that change based on not only your but their decisions as well.
i can think of only one games developer today that truely knows what an mmo is supposed to be and thats ccp.
They create sandbox. We are talking about themeparks. It's fine you like sandbox. I don't, but i think there is more then one way to make a game. I hope others do as well.
an mmo is about a community thats is constantly in touch with the ingame mechanics and persistancy of the game world. the players make the mmo great not what the developers put into it. its no good makeing a really polished game tyhat looks great and runs smooth if it can only be played for a few months before players get fed up and bored.
this game is going to be exactly that.
So sure about that? crafting, raiding, interactive dialog, able to group for everything, hub towns. Seems like a fair amount of community interaction there.
putting the player in the hero and savior spotlight works a treat in a single player game such as kotor, this is supposed to be an MMO............ that kind of philosphy wont work and never has worked.
I'm not so quick to assume what will and what won't work. I thought that people would hate doing end game over and over again. Apartently Blizzard proved that worng. Again we shall see.
how ever swtor will survive for one reaosn and one reason alone.. the starwars fans who dont know what an mmo is. im fairly confident that when the starwars galaxies vetts see the this new game they will stick with swg. they will do this because even though swg has been brutaly maimed by soe, its still a pretty awesome starwars experience. infact i predict swtor will bringing new life to swg
swg does everything swtor is trying to do and much much much more.
Is it just me or am i sensing more of a sandbox vs theme park mentality going on here. Nothing wrong with it of course but i'm starting to get the feel it's not that it's what SW;ToR is doing content wise it's that it's a theme park.
size isnt everything -
People would disagree here actually.
so the op says he read somewhere this game will be the biggest, well i hate to chuck a spanner in the works but there is no way on this green earth that this game will ever manage to come close to the size of eve-online. now thats a huge game and is currently the biggest game world with the most players in a single server in the whole world.
You do have to look at how much content per feet there is. Granted EvE is huge, the biggest ever. What percentage of that actually has something you want in it? Not as much, must of that you pass by in warp to your destination. So most of it..just like space..is kinda empty.
there is no other game on the planet that can claim they have upto 40,000 players online at once in a single server!!! no game.. only eve can claim that. eve also has over 6000 areas for players to explore. and there is no level limits infact there are no levels at all, the game is in all sence of the word endless.
swtor wont flop for one reason,,, startrek online didnt flop and that has to be the worlds worst game........ and that didnt flop because of the massive fan base startrek has. starwars has a much much larger fan base. and it will be fans that are pleased with the product not the actual mmo gamers.
im both a starwars fan and mmo gamer and i wish for only one thing. they dont release this game and completely redevelop it so its more like swg crossed with eve online. playing a game as a fan isnt enough for me with my understand and experience of mmo's i know more is possible than what is being presented at present. and i also know bioware have little interest in what a true mmo is.
So what you want them to do...is trash a 1.5M budget that is catering to BW/SW fans and make it a sandbox game...that BW fans don't play...I'm not following.
Plus the sandbox crowd isn't as big as the theme park game. Like the article said Eve was the exception to the rule. If sandbox games (as thats what your arguing for. not better features but a sandbox game) were oh so great, they would be ruling. Not WoW.
I can understand people like sandbox, but you really need to understand what this game is after. It's after BW fans. Look at Bioware games. What are they by nature....themepark. Dang near everyone one of them from DA to Kotor to ME to BG (which is about as close to sandbox as you can get and thats still in my opinoin closer to theme park then sandbox)
Wether it succeeds or fails is not going to depend on wether its sandbox or theme park, it's going to be down to if the fans following it want what is in there. Theres over a year worth of content before you hit the MMO aspect at all. So hopefully that will keep them around a while.
no no no not trash it. amd no not bnetter features, more depth and more player control over the game universe and mechanics like swg and eve offer you..
for example take a look at swtors answer to space flight.. i dont think they could have made it any worse, you literally have no control over your ship. you dont fly it you cant mod it and well its pretty much useless. that shouldnt be how it is in an starwars game, your ship should eb your primary tool its what enables you to travel around the galaxy.
then you have companions which completely remove the very fabric of an mmo!!! thats the playing with other people aspect. if you have npc charecters you can take with you like kotor then the game isnt an mmo.. mmo stands for masive multiplayer online it may be massive but im struggling to see where they fit the multi play into the game.. it may have some multi play but its certainly not going to be massive multiplay, atleast not like the likes of eve and swg.. do you see my point!!....
the game is lacking in depth of mechanics and player interaction.. and one more thing take a brief look into the charecter customisation and clothing options and you will see yet more restrictive content.. from what i saw with the jedi how you look is based of your level and progression in the game, this basically means every jedi will look very much the same at max level... thats something else i dont like about todays new mmo's
its almost as if they lack the imagination required to develop a fantasy world with unpresidented freedom of play.. i dont want to be guided from one area to the next by a tring of quests thaty will eventually lead me to the grand finale and end game battle with some uber boss.. i dont want this because i know that once ive reached this pivital point in the game their will be nothing else for me to do with this charecter other than pvp!!! pvp as you and i both know is only fun for a while before it becomes boreing and tedious and samey..
mmos need what i call the hook factor, something to keep players hooked once they ahve maxed out a char and reach max level.. in swg they do this with a deep complex economy and crafting system.. swg has kept me busy and playing for the best part of 6 years now and im still not bored with it..
but when i talk about games like wow and sto.. and lotro all i can think about is how their is nothing to do once i reach max level and finish all the qeusts and aquire all the best items for my class...
there is no way on this earth im going to run through all the same story and quests again for another charecter, thats just boreing to me. and while im doing that i already know whats at the end because ive already done it once.
im trying to explain myself as best as possible without sounding like im trolling and flameing the new swtor game. there is no room for story in an mmo people simply dont spend their time following stories in an mmo. some will but the majority just steam through it to the end game stuff which is whaty matter most as the games today revolve around one thing and one thing only ... and thats pvp. and if i may!! pvp is only entertaining for a few months before it becomes boreing as hell..
i dont have these problems with swg or eve, i find that these games are so diverse and content rich that their is always something to do thats worthwhile and well fun and enjoyable.
i dont get that with wow or lotro or sto or other games of their genre.
ive played many many mmo's mmorts mmorpg mmofps mmog's mmosim you name it ive played them. and only a few stand out, the rest seem to be the same thing just repeating over and over again..
i guess im asking for something diffrent to come out of the wood work not just another wow clone.. themeparks are just boreing. you already know how its all going to work and how its alll going to end before you even start playing them.
Well, look, regardless of whether or not one likes the article is it really wrong? I mean, at its core.
If people don't buy something and other people do buy somethign then any industry is going to move toward what people want.
Unless some of you work in non-profits I HIGHLY doubt your companies create a product or service that doesn't make money.
And Jon is right, there are sandbox games out there, good ones that really aren't being supported. Even though I've seen some sandbox players say "it's about game play not about graphics" I don't see people lining up for Ryzom.
Ryzom is a good game (and I personally like the art design) and could easily fill a player's desire for a sandbox game. EVE is an awesome game if one has the patience to delve deeply into its folds.
Of course the point does stand that players shouldn't have to bite the bullet and sink money into games with issues just so they can support a development studio and hope they get their act together. And I would agree.
but reality is reality and unless people start sinking money into alternative games the larger developement studios aren't going to take notice. It sucks, I know. But players who aren't really into sandbox games are spending money on games such as wow or rift and most likely Star Wars.
If SWToR is polished and delivers what they say they will, and from what I've seen from PAX it looks like they can, then it's going to make quite a bit of money and cement the idea that more money and creating a polished "themepark" game is a recipe for success.
Because the suits in these larger companies aren't going to be saying "you know, if we sink a lot of money into a polished game but shoot for an alternative game concept then we can be successful too.
They will look at every aspect of SWToR and try to recreate it.
Heck, look at Twilight. Look at its success. Now look at all the books that are coming out that are trying to be the exact same thing as Twilight. And some of those books have generated movies.
If no one plays these sandbox games then more won't be made. It sucks but companies can be a bit mercenary.
Biowatre have got their definition of mmo all wrong. you can have cenematic and themed gamplay where every single charecter is the savior of the universe. individual heroisation only works in single player games that is driven by story such as the 2 kotor games.
Maybe they are, but we won't know for sure until it comes out. If they got it wrong, then the game will tank and we will go back to what we have now, No real reason to get worried about it so much. But your entitled to your opinion, Below are just some of my reasons and opinions.
these methods and mechanics cannot and will not support a lasting interactive community in an mmo of this type.
reasons -
1/ companions remove litterally the requirement for multi player aspects of the game
As companions are never going to be more or even on level with players in terms of power and capability. (thus why they were removed from raids in the first place ala the...;your companion just walked into that beast? oh great we're dead, type of thing) AI is just never going to be as good as a human or as quick, thus are a supplement to the group mechanics. As they stand now, they are not allowed in raids, and they take up a group spot in flashpoints (as per the last UK article)
2/ companions doing your crafting removes litterally another aspect of mmo gam play resulting in even more limitation of content.
This removes nothing. It just makes it so you don't have to watch that little bar go by, instead you can stay in the action and have your companion do what your character would do normally. When you gather you still need to walk to the node and tell your companion to harvest it. Except in one instance where you send your companion off to find your mats, but then theres almost certainly a chance of failure and it can get costly. Other then that, they remove nothing. You still have to find the mats, you still have to find the schmatics you still have to tell them what to craft, you still have to take the item to the auction house/market what have you, and hawk your wares off to others.
3/ rail based space shooter encloses the feel of the mmo universe into a more confined space removeing anyfeel of scope and depth from the game universe.
I sorta understand the problem with this space shooter but people also need to understand this is a mini-game, it's not a fully fledge part of the game that you will be spending hours in. It gives you something along the lines of bejewled or card games to do while your waiting for something or just to throw a different play style in so the current one doesn't get stale.
4/ story in mmo is pointless, no one plays mmos to read stories and follow set paths crerated by devs to an eventual end game scenario, if they do then they are playing mmo's for the wrong reasons, an mmo is about an evolving realistic living world where players can interact and become part of it. this game doesnt allow for this.
The way they are doing the story is a tad bit different, we won't know if it's right or wrong, but the story is part of the RPG not the MMO. Remember Bioware is trying to put the RPG back into MMORPG. As for RPGs. Most of the best or at least best selling ones had great stories. So i don't see a problem here. Again though this doesn't exactly remove anything from the MMO it just adds to it.
5/ cenematic cut scenes to represent travel from one area to another just adds to the enclosure like feeling, a bit like being in pens with little gates leading into other little pens, game worlds today need to be flowing and transition free.
These transitions are between planets and instances, it's better then just jumping from one planet to the next, we will see how people like it. As for the worlds themselves they are big and generally don't have cutscenes or zoning.
Lastly in most cases these are used as transitions and thus generally short.
6/ this game is useing extremely old school methods for its combat system its mroe or less static combat, you select your target and all your hits are already aimed for you and automatically hit home. this renders any kind of combat/pvp boreing dull and nothing we havnt all seen in other games over the past 10 years.
While the general combat of attacking is using a RNG to run it. You do have enemy AI which hides behind barriers and the ability for you to do that as well. So that gives it a nice tweak as i'm sure as you get higher in levels they will get generally more sneaky about how they go about it. We will see how it works.
7/ end game stuff pvp dungeons and so on, these things have a life expectancy, players will play these until they get bored, then they will cancel subscriptions, this is imply the way of things with games of this type. no mmo should have end game, an mmo isnt suppsoed to end an mmo is supposed to be a living breathing persistant world that the players have a hand in at changeing and altering with lasting effects.. this game will not have this.
Unless the devs continuely generate content at a faster pace then people can consume it, at some point they will reach the end game. This is a fact of all..yes all games not just MMOs, They are just more noticable in MMOs because your doing them for longer. However i will point out that there is a ton of content...and before anyone rebutes with yes it runs out. If you do all of the personal class content at about 30 hours a week (pretty decent for an avid gamer) you'll be about 1 year before you finish it, and thats only touching one aspect of the game. Assuming of course you play all 8 classes.
it doesnt matter how much money you spend on a product!!!! if the product is limited to only one function then it can only be used for one thing. products as we are aware have life spans before they become obsolete. in the gameing world on average to the common gamer a new game of this type will last them at best aproximately 2 years tops. and thats pushing it. the entire games contents can be explored in less than a year just playing casual. once all content has been explored and experienced there is only one more reason to keep logging in, and thats to see your fake friends you have made online. thats not a good enough reason.
As i outlined above it would take a person playing 30 hours a week (consistantly) a little over a year..actually 1 year 1 and 1/3 month, thats not touching anything but the personal class story. As for products becoming obsolete. Well theres always world of warcraft..thats been going on for about 5 years now.
this game doesnt offer enough for the seasoned gamer, the seasoned gamer wants more from an mmo at end game other than running the same old dungeons over and over again for guild mates to get the same old crap.
hmm i'm not sure what seasoned gamers are or what they want, but as i'm almost 30, been playing games since i was about 6, played MMOs for 15 years. I'd like to call myself one of them seasoned gamers, and what i see from this game are raids, pvp, world events, class stories, exploration, crafting (Yes you can craft on par with end game gear with crafting skills) and interaction with other players through flashpoints that change based on not only your but their decisions as well.
i can think of only one games developer today that truely knows what an mmo is supposed to be and thats ccp.
They create sandbox. We are talking about themeparks. It's fine you like sandbox. I don't, but i think there is more then one way to make a game. I hope others do as well.
an mmo is about a community thats is constantly in touch with the ingame mechanics and persistancy of the game world. the players make the mmo great not what the developers put into it. its no good makeing a really polished game tyhat looks great and runs smooth if it can only be played for a few months before players get fed up and bored.
this game is going to be exactly that.
So sure about that? crafting, raiding, interactive dialog, able to group for everything, hub towns. Seems like a fair amount of community interaction there.
putting the player in the hero and savior spotlight works a treat in a single player game such as kotor, this is supposed to be an MMO............ that kind of philosphy wont work and never has worked.
I'm not so quick to assume what will and what won't work. I thought that people would hate doing end game over and over again. Apartently Blizzard proved that worng. Again we shall see.
how ever swtor will survive for one reaosn and one reason alone.. the starwars fans who dont know what an mmo is. im fairly confident that when the starwars galaxies vetts see the this new game they will stick with swg. they will do this because even though swg has been brutaly maimed by soe, its still a pretty awesome starwars experience. infact i predict swtor will bringing new life to swg
swg does everything swtor is trying to do and much much much more.
Is it just me or am i sensing more of a sandbox vs theme park mentality going on here. Nothing wrong with it of course but i'm starting to get the feel it's not that it's what SW;ToR is doing content wise it's that it's a theme park.
size isnt everything -
People would disagree here actually.
so the op says he read somewhere this game will be the biggest, well i hate to chuck a spanner in the works but there is no way on this green earth that this game will ever manage to come close to the size of eve-online. now thats a huge game and is currently the biggest game world with the most players in a single server in the whole world.
You do have to look at how much content per feet there is. Granted EvE is huge, the biggest ever. What percentage of that actually has something you want in it? Not as much, must of that you pass by in warp to your destination. So most of it..just like space..is kinda empty.
there is no other game on the planet that can claim they have upto 40,000 players online at once in a single server!!! no game.. only eve can claim that. eve also has over 6000 areas for players to explore. and there is no level limits infact there are no levels at all, the game is in all sence of the word endless.
swtor wont flop for one reason,,, startrek online didnt flop and that has to be the worlds worst game........ and that didnt flop because of the massive fan base startrek has. starwars has a much much larger fan base. and it will be fans that are pleased with the product not the actual mmo gamers.
im both a starwars fan and mmo gamer and i wish for only one thing. they dont release this game and completely redevelop it so its more like swg crossed with eve online. playing a game as a fan isnt enough for me with my understand and experience of mmo's i know more is possible than what is being presented at present. and i also know bioware have little interest in what a true mmo is.
So what you want them to do...is trash a 1.5M budget that is catering to BW/SW fans and make it a sandbox game...that BW fans don't play...I'm not following.
Plus the sandbox crowd isn't as big as the theme park game. Like the article said Eve was the exception to the rule. If sandbox games (as thats what your arguing for. not better features but a sandbox game) were oh so great, they would be ruling. Not WoW.
I can understand people like sandbox, but you really need to understand what this game is after. It's after BW fans. Look at Bioware games. What are they by nature....themepark. Dang near everyone one of them from DA to Kotor to ME to BG (which is about as close to sandbox as you can get and thats still in my opinoin closer to theme park then sandbox)
Wether it succeeds or fails is not going to depend on wether its sandbox or theme park, it's going to be down to if the fans following it want what is in there. Theres over a year worth of content before you hit the MMO aspect at all. So hopefully that will keep them around a while.
no no no not trash it. amd no not bnetter features, more depth and more player control over the game universe and mechanics like swg and eve offer you..
for example take a look at swtors answer to space flight.. i dont think they could have made it any worse, you literally have no control over your ship. you dont fly it you cant mod it and well its pretty much useless. that shouldnt be how it is in an starwars game, your ship should eb your primary tool its what enables you to travel around the galaxy.
then you have companions which completely remove the very fabric of an mmo!!! thats the playing with other people aspect. if you have npc charecters you can take with you like kotor then the game isnt an mmo.. mmo stands for masive multiplayer online it may be massive but im struggling to see where they fit the multi play into the game.. it may have some multi play but its certainly not going to be massive multiplay, atleast not like the likes of eve and swg.. do you see my point!!....
the game is lacking in depth of mechanics and player interaction.. and one more thing take a brief look into the charecter customisation and clothing options and you will see yet more restrictive content.. from what i saw with the jedi how you look is based of your level and progression in the game, this basically means every jedi will look very much the same at max level... thats something else i dont like about todays new mmo's
its almost as if they lack the imagination required to develop a fantasy world with unpresidented freedom of play.. i dont want to be guided from one area to the next by a tring of quests thaty will eventually lead me to the grand finale and end game battle with some uber boss.. i dont want this because i know that once ive reached this pivital point in the game their will be nothing else for me to do with this charecter other than pvp!!! pvp as you and i both know is only fun for a while before it becomes boreing and tedious and samey..
mmos need what i call the hook factor, something to keep players hooked once they ahve maxed out a char and reach max level.. in swg they do this with a deep complex economy and crafting system.. swg has kept me busy and playing for the best part of 6 years now and im still not bored with it..
but when i talk about games like wow and sto.. and lotro all i can think about is how their is nothing to do once i reach max level and finish all the qeusts and aquire all the best items for my class...
there is no way on this earth im going to run through all the same story and quests again for another charecter, thats just boreing to me. and while im doing that i already know whats at the end because ive already done it once.
im trying to explain myself as best as possible without sounding like im trolling and flameing the new swtor game. there is no room for story in an mmo people simply dont spend their time following stories in an mmo. some will but the majority just steam through it to the end game stuff which is whaty matter most as the games today revolve around one thing and one thing only ... and thats pvp. and if i may!! pvp is only entertaining for a few months before it becomes boreing as hell..
i dont have these problems with swg or eve, i find that these games are so diverse and content rich that their is always something to do thats worthwhile and well fun and enjoyable.
i dont get that with wow or lotro or sto or other games of their genre.
ive played many many mmo's mmorts mmorpg mmofps mmog's mmosim you name it ive played them. and only a few stand out, the rest seem to be the same thing just repeating over and over again..
i guess im asking for something diffrent to come out of the wood work not just another wow clone.. themeparks are just boreing. you already know how its all going to work and how its alll going to end before you even start playing them.
i love playing bioware games, but bioware games are all solo games, single player titles and thats why they are so great, bioware is fantastic at story and giving the player that hero feeling.. but this only works in a game of this type.. not every one can be a hero in a mmo. if every one is a hero then there really isnt any hero's at all just lots of redefined player titles.. instewad of being called a server full of players its a server full of heroes.. there is no diffinitive diffrence. every one is the same every one is identicle the hero feeling and system only works in single player titles. mmo's are for scores of people who want to play cooperative in teams together to overcome puzzles and challanges. swtor wont really have much of this at all, so far all it has that works this way is several flashpoints, and lets not forget what a flashpoiint really is, its just a dungeon like any other. its not new not even close. and it seems to be the only apparent aspect of the game that requires other players..
but im guessing you can take companions in too. and might i add that its companions that took the fun out of guild wars too. all of a sudden players could solo every aspect of guild wars. it no longer required you to team with other players. your companions filled that gape rendering guild wars a single player experience.. but with an mmo label..
its hard to explain without makeing it looking like im belittleing people or accuseing them of having no experience with mmo's. so i wish to oppologise if i have come across this way to any one. it was not my intention i have been playing video games since the day i could talk and hold a controller or press keys.. i started off gameing with the old atari not the 2700 the really old one with the round nobs on the controller and the slider which was used to select the games.. like ping pong and misile command. im talking the very first kind of games.. like scrolling text adventures. my first real computer was the zx spectrum which was one of the most powerful home computers in its day.. it had games like manic miner and frogger and r-type and such... ok they have nothing on todays games. but im just trying to give some insight into how long ive been playing video games. im 32 now and ive always played video games, ive played online games ever since the internet was a public thing.. dont ask me the date as i cant remember all i can remember is the crappy opperating systems lol.
but yea as ive watched games come out ive seen then become sophisticated and then ive watched them go back in time get worse so to speak. i dont know!! maybe im too old for these kind of things now. maybe ive passed my enjoyment thresh hold. maybe im no longer capable of being entertained by simple things.
but eve - online still stimulates my mind. the game is just well.... its enveloping and addictive. and makes you want to keep going back for more to see whats around the next corner. no other games do that for me
hope this gives you some insight into how i think and see things, i dont want people to think im a party pooper cause im not, i just want better games for us all and the recent stuff is as far as im concerned lacking in all areas,, startrek online was just heart breakingly poor qaulity when it was released and its not much better now, just more of the same rubbish.
Well, look, regardless of whether or not one likes the article is it really wrong? I mean, at its core.
If people don't buy something and other people do buy somethign then any industry is going to move toward what people want.
Unless some of you work in non-profits I HIGHLY doubt your companies create a product or service that doesn't make money.
And Jon is right, there are sandbox games out there, good ones that really aren't being supported. Even though I've seen some sandbox players say "it's about game play not about graphics" I don't see people lining up for Ryzom.
Ryzom is a good game (and I personally like the art design) and could easily fill a player's desire for a sandbox game. EVE is an awesome game if one has the patience to delve deeply into its folds.
Of course the point does stand that players shouldn't have to bite the bullet and sink money into games with issues just so they can support a development studio and hope they get their act together. And I would agree.
but reality is reality and unless people start sinking money into alternative games the larger developement studios aren't going to take notice. It sucks, I know. But players who aren't really into sandbox games are spending money on games such as wow or rift and most likely Star Wars.
If SWToR is polished and delivers what they say they will, and from what I've seen from PAX it looks like they can, then it's going to make quite a bit of money and cement the idea that more money and creating a polished "themepark" game is a recipe for success.
Because the suits in these larger companies aren't going to be saying "you know, if we sink a lot of money into a polished game but shoot for an alternative game concept then we can be successful too.
They will look at every aspect of SWToR and try to recreate it.
Heck, look at Twilight. Look at its success. Now look at all the books that are coming out that are trying to be the exact same thing as Twilight. And some of those books have generated movies.
If no one plays these sandbox games then more won't be made. It sucks but companies can be a bit mercenary.
The only problem with sandbox games is that they aren't developed with AAA budgets. If anything, sandbox games are far more fun to just start out in because they are ripe with untapped opportunity.
If, for instance, Blizzard developed a sandbox game and dumped hundred million into it, then that game would be extremely successful regardless of the fact that its a sandbox. It's all about the money Lebowski.
The only reason themepark titles are prevalent is because Blizzard created a highly polished, quality, theme-park MMO... and because everyone is trying to copy it.
It's all about the quality of the product, not whether its a themepark or a sandbox. And quality usually requires a lot of money.
Eve is successful... not because its some sort of crazy anomaly amongst sandbox MMOs, but because its a polished, deep, well thought out, well designed game.
Games like Darkfall, Mortal Online, etc are not doing exceptionally well because they are low budget products with lots of design flaws. That's all there is to it.
If a company like SoE had two cents in their head, they'd put major money into a sandbox MMO (like a revitalized SWG) instead of dumb ass concepts like superhero console MMOs. Anyone who has any concept of gaming or gamers at all knew that was going to flop like a fish out of water.
Sniped for brevity, don't want to quote the entire thing.
no no no not trash it. amd no not bnetter features, more depth and more player control over the game universe and mechanics like swg and eve offer you..
Well there are world changing events ala the Taris event, or so they hinted so perhaps theres some control over areas. Granted your not going to be taking over planets, but the short while i played SWG i really didn't see this either. Other then Eve i don't know how much this mechanic is actually used to it's fullest extent. However thats not to say on PvP servers a gang of sith can basically attempt to overrun and area. While the mechanics themselves may not lead you to it. Theres nothing to say you can't do this on a pvp server. It's not to the extent that SWG or Eve allowed but i see that as a good thing. I hated (me personally) poping into a zone and being dead because i warped into the wrong part of an area trying to do something and having to start from scratch again. But thats me personally.
for example take a look at swtors answer to space flight.. i dont think they could have made it any worse, you literally have no control over your ship. you dont fly it you cant mod it and well its pretty much useless. that shouldnt be how it is in an starwars game, your ship should eb your primary tool its what enables you to travel around the galaxy.
Actually...this part isn't completely correct, yeah it's a mini-game, but from what i've learned is that you get loot money and experience from doing it. Along with...upgrades to your ship. What these upgrades are i don't know. The ship on the other hand isn't useless, it's where you store your things, fly to other planets, where your companions rest and where you can do crafting. As for it being your primary tool. It is, until you get it at around level 10 you can't get off the starter planet. So you need...NEED that ship to get around.
then you have companions which completely remove the very fabric of an mmo!!! thats the playing with other people aspect. if you have npc charecters you can take with you like kotor then the game isnt an mmo.. mmo stands for masive multiplayer online it may be massive but im struggling to see where they fit the multi play into the game.. it may have some multi play but its certainly not going to be massive multiplay, atleast not like the likes of eve and swg.. do you see my point!!....
Again...i outlined above these companions do not replace players. They replace missing players. Say your missing a healer, you can bring a healer comapion along with you to attempt to have a psuedo group for when your missing that healer. But they are never (unless they are a lot higher level then the healer) going to be as good or as coordinated as a healer. I don't see how they remove the players at all. Basically they just make the character more customizable with a few extra things.
As for EvE, my experience with it (what limited it was before i got bored) was that you had corps (kinda like guilds) some took over areas, others crafted, others ran missions. Basically. PvP/crafter/quester. Granted the PvPers (aka pirate) made some what of a hoby of kidnapping players and selling them off for money, but most of the action happened in 0.0 space, and most of that was either people destroy people who got too close or scared people trying to make it to either the corp or threw the space in one piece.
I liked EvE for a time, but i didn't see any more community interaction then i did in any other MMO.
Actually most of the time i was completely on my own and with the idea of losing all my stuff as it was very easy to if you trusted the wrong person i trusted the community less then in other games. But again thats me personally.
the game is lacking in depth of mechanics and player interaction.. and one more thing take a brief look into the charecter customisation and clothing options and you will see yet more restrictive content.. from what i saw with the jedi how you look is based of your level and progression in the game, this basically means every jedi will look very much the same at max level... thats something else i dont like about todays new mmo's
That...was a sample. Granted gear will be based on levels. What themepark game isn't. You can of course wear cross class armor. You just won't have the stats you need. However they also stated they have more armor that is class specific then every other game has loot in general. So that leads me to think you'll have several choices for each level.
Plus as each class can be several different advance classes they will go for different stats thus a different set of looks.
its almost as if they lack the imagination required to develop a fantasy world with unpresidented freedom of play.. i dont want to be guided from one area to the next by a tring of quests thaty will eventually lead me to the grand finale and end game battle with some uber boss.. i dont want this because i know that once ive reached this pivital point in the game their will be nothing else for me to do with this charecter other than pvp!!! pvp as you and i both know is only fun for a while before it becomes boreing and tedious and samey..
This is sadly true for most MMOs, sandbox included, eventually your character will reach a point where the only thing left to do is PvP. or craft.
SWG had this, either you crafted, quested or PvP (went overt)
EvE, at least any part that people tell you is worth it, is PvP. I've heard numerous times, the best place to be in EvE is 0.0, which maens unless your a gather, or crafter, your going to be doing some form of PvP nearly all the time. So build your stats that way.
In SWG or EvE in the end it's not about living in a world, granted you can build your character any way you want, but if you break it down to it's core it's still..crafting...gather...PvP...or PvE.
Granted you can do these in anyway you want, but that doesn't mean you can't do it in SW;ToR eithr, If you want, you can do PvP all day and all night (as you get xp from this) you can do flashpoints, personal story or what have you, or just say forget it, and go off wandering, and grab some loot from a distant cave that the "on the rails questing person" most likely won't be lead to.
mmos need what i call the hook factor, something to keep players hooked once they ahve maxed out a char and reach max level.. in swg they do this with a deep complex economy and crafting system.. swg has kept me busy and playing for the best part of 6 years now and im still not bored with it..
Great, glad you enjoyed it, my problem with MMOs was kind of the reversed, it was keeping me hooked long enough to get to the end-game. It was the starting part and the progress that bored me. Hopefully the story element and interaction with other players during it, that will keep me interested. Each to their own tastes.
but when i talk about games like wow and sto.. and lotro all i can think about is how their is nothing to do once i reach max level and finish all the qeusts and aquire all the best items for my class...
Totally understandable, this was my problem with sandbox to me, I just could never get started.
there is no way on this earth im going to run through all the same story and quests again for another charecter, thats just boreing to me. and while im doing that i already know whats at the end because ive already done it once.
While i can understand, they did create 8 class stories for each of the classes, add to the ability to change the story based on your actions (to what extent we don't know yet) add to that, the nearly all of the regular quests for one side (empire) will not be seen by the other (republic) it does add replayability
im trying to explain myself as best as possible without sounding like im trolling and flameing the new swtor game. there is no room for story in an mmo people simply dont spend their time following stories in an mmo. some will but the majority just steam through it to the end game stuff which is whaty matter most as the games today revolve around one thing and one thing only ... and thats pvp. and if i may!! pvp is only entertaining for a few months before it becomes boreing as hell..
To be fair, most of those stories were..how do i say this...non interactive. You walk up to an npc, your given a task, you do that task you get a reward, There is no way to get more out of it. You can't interact with the npc. Gamers by nature thrive on interactivity, If they just have to sit there, or read a long line of text just to get to the interactive part, they will most likely skip it. SW:ToR does promise to allow the player to interact in the story via the dialog wheel, with potentional to allow your stats in say things like persuasion to have an effect if you can get more info, change the quest or get more out of it.
As for end-game, I've not played swg/eve enough to say for sure but from what i got from EvE and swg, isn't it down to PvP, crafting, and killing stuff for money?
Eve's PvP consists of being in 0.0 or null space as it's called which is basically a free to enter open pvp area.
SWG's PvP was pretty similar to all theme park games PvP server, it's just you had a flag system in place.
Eve's craft is very detailed i grant you, and as you have to buy all your stuff from other people thats great. But as you might know (or don't if you haven't played theme park games) most of the stuff sold by vendors is...not good, you usually end up buying from others anyway.
SWG's crafting consisted of setting down factories to turn out mats then putting them together.
I see this sorta in (and don't yell) in ToR. factories are kinda kin to companions.
i dont have these problems with swg or eve, i find that these games are so diverse and content rich that their is always something to do thats worthwhile and well fun and enjoyable.
Great, i see that in ToR to.
i dont get that with wow or lotro or sto or other games of their genre.
Think we got the looking glass effect going on here. I see this in most sandbox games. I go, great, now what do i do? wheres the progression?
ive played many many mmo's mmorts mmorpg mmofps mmog's mmosim you name it ive played them. and only a few stand out, the rest seem to be the same thing just repeating over and over again..
i guess im asking for something diffrent to come out of the wood work not just another wow clone.. themeparks are just boreing. you already know how its all going to work and how its alll going to end before you even start playing them.
I guess it's just different strokes for different folks going on here.
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.
How many unpolished and half finished , theme park MMOs made it big ?
Answer:
None
Same as sandbox , theme park , or whatever else.
Game needs to be polished and finished to suceed.
Your theory fails
Pretty much exactly this.
You can't say that games like Earthrise (!?!!?) and Fallen Earth are games that sandbox fans should have supported. These games were an embarassment to gamers because of the state they were released in. Just because someone calls their unfinished pile of manure a sandbox game doesn't mean you should subscribe to that game for a year to help the industry. Doing that promotes the idea that an unfinished, unpolished product with barely any content is what we're looking for as players. If we were to promote this idea, then the article is right about that: you would not see any multi-million dollar budget MMOs, theme park or not, since we would have clearly sent the message that we don't need content or polish to keep paying monthly for an MMO.
I think the Articles point was that because theme park mmo's have been the most successful lately that if a big company is going to feel cofident enough to have a large enough budget to take their time and put out a more polished, they will choose the safer theme park style, while the smaller companies with low budgets and less time to develop their mmo's are making the sandbox games to fill that niche. So if you want a sandbox game, you and others need to give it the support to give them time and revenue to fix problems and make game better. I agree with you though that I don't want to spend my time or money to be an "invester" or "guine pig" while these companies take a year to finish their games.
The only problem with sandbox games is that they aren't developed with AAA budgets. If anything, sandbox games are far more fun to just start out in because they are ripe with untapped opportunity.
If, for instance, Blizzard developed a sandbox game and dumped hundred million into it, then that game would be extremely successful regardless of the fact that its a sandbox. It's all about the money Lebowski.
The only reason themepark titles are prevalent is because Blizzard created a highly polished, quality, theme-park MMO... and because everyone is trying to copy it.
It's all about the quality of the product, not whether its a themepark or a sandbox. And quality usually requires a lot of money.
Eve is successful... not because its some sort of crazy anomaly amongst sandbox MMOs, but because its a polished, deep, well thought out, well designed game.
Games like Darkfall, Mortal Online, etc are not doing exceptionally well because they are low budget products with lots of design flaws. That's all there is to it.
Read this, and read it again Jon Wood. Read it it so much that it shows up in your dreams at night. This is the reason why there aren't any QUALITY sandbox games about or in production these days. If a company sank $100 million into a sandbox effort and polished it to the "d" as Trion did with Rift, you'd have a game that would do just as well or better than 95% of the "efforts" being made today.
But, neither you nor anyone on this site can name a sandbox MMO that has seen HALF of that investment amount put into it and worked on by a veteran team after 2004. Sure, we've seen half-baked attempts by a few companies whose only reason for making a sanbox attempt was that none of the big, budget capable AAA companies is doing it.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Comments
You probably would have benefited from actually reading the article where I specifically outline EXACTLY what you just said.
Just sayin'
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
im going to post you a link, this is direct from ccp and its an idea of what they are trying to do with eve-online.... now this in my book is what mmo development is all about..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mlVuLs_Nw
I've played mmo as long as the typical mmo player, started in UO back in 97 and played loads of games before that.
In pretty much all mmos, I read the quest text one time on my main chaqracter and then anytime I'm playin an alt I just burn through the options to get to the end. I imagine alot of mmo players are like me. I'm not going to get anything new from reading the quest text on my 7th max level character.
I enjoy the difference between classes and the vastness or worlds. I don't care much for what some npc has to say on some planet that costs them 30$ an hour. Wether he sounds like James Earl Jones or just has text.
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
Great article. you hit the nail on the head. And even though you explained the difference sandbox and themepark, some idiots on here still don't get it. Oh well. If DC Universe online is any indication of how well SWTOR will do, DCUO sold well, is still selling well and people are still playing it. Star Trek Online is another one. I love both games and play them equally. Honestly - Sandbox games take alot of time and effort on the gamers part. I remember playing Eve Online and Star Wars Galaxies on Day one. And it was absolutely horrible (by today's standard at least). I remember playing for whole weeks at a time. And I'm just not in that place where I can devote that much time to a game anymore. And I think alot of people fall into that category. We're the ones playing STO, & DCUO. And hopefully soon - SWTOR. I played Star Wars Galaxies up until the developers rewrote the game and made it less sandboxy (is that a word?) I felt as though they had slighted me because of all the time and effort I put into that game. They actually lost a lot of players because of it. True Sandbox games are risky. STO, DCUO, & SWTOR arent risky from a gaming standpoint. They (the developers) know that fans of the license are shoe-ins. And Hardcore gamers are going to (at the least) give it a try because its in their nature. And as long as people keep playing, they'll keep adding content. I like that I can come home from work, turn on a game (DCUO, or STO), play it for a few hours and call it quits. And when I stop playing my head doesn't hurt like it would after SWG or EO. I'm not saying those games weren't awesome because they were. I'm just saying that IMO there's room for both types and that each evolves in it's on way. I agree with the article - you can't say (well you can, but it won't do you any good) "I want a deep sandbox MMO experience" and at the same time expect said sandbox MMO to be complete with content on DAY 1. Theres nothing wrong with fast food gaming (even in MMOs). Its all in how it's presented. In the case of SWTOR, I'm a HUGE SW fan first, and a gamer second. I don't really care about it not being sandboxy (there's that word again) enough. What I care about is being able to jump into on day one and "get my star wars on" (that's slang for those not in the know) for a couple of hours. Truth be told I'll probably play way longer than that the first night because as I mentioned early, I'm big SW fanboy. I hope it succeeds. I don't wish any game to fail. I guess the answer to the question is what do you consider success or failure? Is it about the initial numbers or is it about consistant subscriber base?
Yup. You've got me. Every single positive thing that is ever said on this site is actually done for cash. In reality we're all hate mongers who don't even really like games. In fact, we sit around our Tuscan Villa (bought by all of our awesome ill gotten gains) and do nothing but talk about how crappy games are.
I remember when I heard about that Gamestop incident and thought to myself: Man, I'd like to swim in a vault of money like Scrooge McDuck, so to hell with my eithical and standards. to hell with my long term career, I'm going to write only paid articles for awesomeness from now on.
I just love living in a world where a person can't say a positive thing about anything without being accused of doing it for money. I love that people honestly think that myself and my profession are that shallow. It's awesome. Don't make me feel horrible at all.
Good thing I sold my principles long ago. Off to my money bin.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
That's what I do, too! O.O
Yet it was the same publisher that pushed DA2 out early.
If it last as long as Everquest did for SOE they should get more then enough money then they developed it for.
A man who fears nothing is a man who loves nothing; and if you love nothing, what joy is there in your life?
Total nonsense. Another industry apologist blaming the consumer for not lining the pockets of incompetant devs and rewarding them for subpar products. Considering how many "themepark" games crashed and burned because they were released too early, you trying to make a case that only themepark games are capable of releasing "finished" is moronic. It doesnt matter if a game is sandbox or themepark when released a bug ridden technical unfinished mess. Sandbox games that so many old timers pine for are niche games to begin with, always have been, and always will be.
I like how you try to exclude the success of eve, which is just the type of sandbox game you claim isnt supported by gamers today. I played eve at release and for about a year afterwards. I encountered zero bugs, that isnt to say there werent any, only that if they did exist they were few and far between. I never crashed to desktop,had to "camp" and return to get an update,redo my ui every time i logged in,encounter stuck npcs, get stucked, or any of the million and one common bugs in rushed releases.
can i come over please? i have always wanted to swim around in money like scrooge.
You do realize there are eight classes. You forgot the inquisitor, both jedi classes, and the imperial agent.
Back on topic, I do agree with Jon in his assessment and have felt the same way for some time. This game will make the market take pause to see how it fares... at least until blizzard releases Titan, then it will happen again. We will all wonder if that game will change the market again. Hopefully this will continue to happen and each will meet success in order to increase budgets and polish for future projects.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
So what you want them to do...is trash a 1.5M budget that is catering to BW/SW fans and make it a sandbox game...that BW fans don't play...I'm not following.
Plus the sandbox crowd isn't as big as the theme park game. Like the article said Eve was the exception to the rule. If sandbox games (as thats what your arguing for. not better features but a sandbox game) were oh so great, they would be ruling. Not WoW.
I can understand people like sandbox, but you really need to understand what this game is after. It's after BW fans. Look at Bioware games. What are they by nature....themepark. Dang near everyone one of them from DA to Kotor to ME to BG (which is about as close to sandbox as you can get and thats still in my opinoin closer to theme park then sandbox)
Wether it succeeds or fails is not going to depend on wether its sandbox or theme park, it's going to be down to if the fans following it want what is in there. Theres over a year worth of content before you hit the MMO aspect at all. So hopefully that will keep them around a while.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Whats the point of this article? It comes off as "you made your bed now lay in it". But of course thats not it because that would be trolling. And the staff here doesnt troll, right? So.... whats the point of this article?
I more of see it as, this is what the MMO genre wants, if they wanted different it would be going a different direction. So while some may be saying the MMO genre wants sandbox games. In reality the people in this genre want theme park games. Highly polished, lots of content, big fully explorable worlds with a indepth story...basically this is what the MMo genre as a whole is wanting..swtor. Assuming of course that it's a success.
If it is. Then the MMO gamers as a majority don't want sandbox. They want theme park. Which is what it's at currently. If they wanted sandbox so much they would have played those instead, but for one reason or another they dropped every..single...one...which means some may say they want one but they don't want to take the time to make one flourish as an example.
As a personal side note it's kind of funny really to me. That sandbox games require a whole bunch of commitment to them to get them running and yet the people wanting them, can't commit the time needed to get them up and running. /end personal side note
Thats not to say the people wanting sandbox games are wrong, but it does require bringing one to the forefront. Like EvE except you need quite a bit more then 300K to get your foot in the door at this time.
For now though themeparks rule the genre, and right now according to info swtor is the one that giving people what they been asking for when they vote with their wallets/purses.
At least in my personal opinoin.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I have definitely put 10 times more money into the sandboxes of the world than the themeparks. Unfortunately, all of the true sandboxes are all but dead and gone now to the point where EVE is considered a sandbox. Very sad indeed.
The industry has gone so far awry that I'm having to make my own MMO now just to have a single game to enjoy.
When small groups of people (or even single people) have very low hanging fruit to pursue, you know that overly large and myopic companies have been claiming the spotlight for far, far too long
Well, look, regardless of whether or not one likes the article is it really wrong? I mean, at its core.
If people don't buy something and other people do buy somethign then any industry is going to move toward what people want.
Unless some of you work in non-profits I HIGHLY doubt your companies create a product or service that doesn't make money.
And Jon is right, there are sandbox games out there, good ones that really aren't being supported. Even though I've seen some sandbox players say "it's about game play not about graphics" I don't see people lining up for Ryzom.
Ryzom is a good game (and I personally like the art design) and could easily fill a player's desire for a sandbox game. EVE is an awesome game if one has the patience to delve deeply into its folds.
Of course the point does stand that players shouldn't have to bite the bullet and sink money into games with issues just so they can support a development studio and hope they get their act together. And I would agree.
but reality is reality and unless people start sinking money into alternative games the larger developement studios aren't going to take notice. It sucks, I know. But players who aren't really into sandbox games are spending money on games such as wow or rift and most likely Star Wars.
If SWToR is polished and delivers what they say they will, and from what I've seen from PAX it looks like they can, then it's going to make quite a bit of money and cement the idea that more money and creating a polished "themepark" game is a recipe for success.
Because the suits in these larger companies aren't going to be saying "you know, if we sink a lot of money into a polished game but shoot for an alternative game concept then we can be successful too.
They will look at every aspect of SWToR and try to recreate it.
Heck, look at Twilight. Look at its success. Now look at all the books that are coming out that are trying to be the exact same thing as Twilight. And some of those books have generated movies.
If no one plays these sandbox games then more won't be made. It sucks but companies can be a bit mercenary.
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no no no not trash it. amd no not bnetter features, more depth and more player control over the game universe and mechanics like swg and eve offer you..
for example take a look at swtors answer to space flight.. i dont think they could have made it any worse, you literally have no control over your ship. you dont fly it you cant mod it and well its pretty much useless. that shouldnt be how it is in an starwars game, your ship should eb your primary tool its what enables you to travel around the galaxy.
then you have companions which completely remove the very fabric of an mmo!!! thats the playing with other people aspect. if you have npc charecters you can take with you like kotor then the game isnt an mmo.. mmo stands for masive multiplayer online it may be massive but im struggling to see where they fit the multi play into the game.. it may have some multi play but its certainly not going to be massive multiplay, atleast not like the likes of eve and swg.. do you see my point!!....
the game is lacking in depth of mechanics and player interaction.. and one more thing take a brief look into the charecter customisation and clothing options and you will see yet more restrictive content.. from what i saw with the jedi how you look is based of your level and progression in the game, this basically means every jedi will look very much the same at max level... thats something else i dont like about todays new mmo's
its almost as if they lack the imagination required to develop a fantasy world with unpresidented freedom of play.. i dont want to be guided from one area to the next by a tring of quests thaty will eventually lead me to the grand finale and end game battle with some uber boss.. i dont want this because i know that once ive reached this pivital point in the game their will be nothing else for me to do with this charecter other than pvp!!! pvp as you and i both know is only fun for a while before it becomes boreing and tedious and samey..
mmos need what i call the hook factor, something to keep players hooked once they ahve maxed out a char and reach max level.. in swg they do this with a deep complex economy and crafting system.. swg has kept me busy and playing for the best part of 6 years now and im still not bored with it..
but when i talk about games like wow and sto.. and lotro all i can think about is how their is nothing to do once i reach max level and finish all the qeusts and aquire all the best items for my class...
there is no way on this earth im going to run through all the same story and quests again for another charecter, thats just boreing to me. and while im doing that i already know whats at the end because ive already done it once.
im trying to explain myself as best as possible without sounding like im trolling and flameing the new swtor game. there is no room for story in an mmo people simply dont spend their time following stories in an mmo. some will but the majority just steam through it to the end game stuff which is whaty matter most as the games today revolve around one thing and one thing only ... and thats pvp. and if i may!! pvp is only entertaining for a few months before it becomes boreing as hell..
i dont have these problems with swg or eve, i find that these games are so diverse and content rich that their is always something to do thats worthwhile and well fun and enjoyable.
i dont get that with wow or lotro or sto or other games of their genre.
ive played many many mmo's mmorts mmorpg mmofps mmog's mmosim you name it ive played them. and only a few stand out, the rest seem to be the same thing just repeating over and over again..
i guess im asking for something diffrent to come out of the wood work not just another wow clone.. themeparks are just boreing. you already know how its all going to work and how its alll going to end before you even start playing them.
Precisely ^ ^
You put it better than I could Sovrath.
i love playing bioware games, but bioware games are all solo games, single player titles and thats why they are so great, bioware is fantastic at story and giving the player that hero feeling.. but this only works in a game of this type.. not every one can be a hero in a mmo. if every one is a hero then there really isnt any hero's at all just lots of redefined player titles.. instewad of being called a server full of players its a server full of heroes.. there is no diffinitive diffrence. every one is the same every one is identicle the hero feeling and system only works in single player titles. mmo's are for scores of people who want to play cooperative in teams together to overcome puzzles and challanges. swtor wont really have much of this at all, so far all it has that works this way is several flashpoints, and lets not forget what a flashpoiint really is, its just a dungeon like any other. its not new not even close. and it seems to be the only apparent aspect of the game that requires other players..
but im guessing you can take companions in too. and might i add that its companions that took the fun out of guild wars too. all of a sudden players could solo every aspect of guild wars. it no longer required you to team with other players. your companions filled that gape rendering guild wars a single player experience.. but with an mmo label..
its hard to explain without makeing it looking like im belittleing people or accuseing them of having no experience with mmo's. so i wish to oppologise if i have come across this way to any one. it was not my intention
i have been playing video games since the day i could talk and hold a controller or press keys.. i started off gameing with the old atari not the 2700 the really old one with the round nobs on the controller and the slider which was used to select the games.. like ping pong and misile command. im talking the very first kind of games.. like scrolling text adventures. my first real computer was the zx spectrum which was one of the most powerful home computers in its day.. it had games like manic miner and frogger and r-type and such... ok they have nothing on todays games. but im just trying to give some insight into how long ive been playing video games. im 32 now and ive always played video games, ive played online games ever since the internet was a public thing.. dont ask me the date as i cant remember all i can remember is the crappy opperating systems lol.
but yea as ive watched games come out ive seen then become sophisticated and then ive watched them go back in time get worse so to speak. i dont know!! maybe im too old for these kind of things now. maybe ive passed my enjoyment thresh hold. maybe im no longer capable of being entertained by simple things.
but eve - online still stimulates my mind. the game is just well.... its enveloping and addictive. and makes you want to keep going back for more to see whats around the next corner. no other games do that for me
hope this gives you some insight into how i think and see things, i dont want people to think im a party pooper cause im not, i just want better games for us all and the recent stuff is as far as im concerned lacking in all areas,, startrek online was just heart breakingly poor qaulity when it was released and its not much better now, just more of the same rubbish.
That pretty much sums it up. And I TOTALLY agree.
The only problem with sandbox games is that they aren't developed with AAA budgets. If anything, sandbox games are far more fun to just start out in because they are ripe with untapped opportunity.
If, for instance, Blizzard developed a sandbox game and dumped hundred million into it, then that game would be extremely successful regardless of the fact that its a sandbox. It's all about the money Lebowski.
The only reason themepark titles are prevalent is because Blizzard created a highly polished, quality, theme-park MMO... and because everyone is trying to copy it.
It's all about the quality of the product, not whether its a themepark or a sandbox. And quality usually requires a lot of money.
Eve is successful... not because its some sort of crazy anomaly amongst sandbox MMOs, but because its a polished, deep, well thought out, well designed game.
Games like Darkfall, Mortal Online, etc are not doing exceptionally well because they are low budget products with lots of design flaws. That's all there is to it.
If a company like SoE had two cents in their head, they'd put major money into a sandbox MMO (like a revitalized SWG) instead of dumb ass concepts like superhero console MMOs. Anyone who has any concept of gaming or gamers at all knew that was going to flop like a fish out of water.
hummm 97 posts, so no one will actually read mine, so well, let's be simple:
I hope it gets enough success to live on and fails enough to keep that awnful WoW community out of it!
I guess it's just different strokes for different folks going on here.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I think the Articles point was that because theme park mmo's have been the most successful lately that if a big company is going to feel cofident enough to have a large enough budget to take their time and put out a more polished, they will choose the safer theme park style, while the smaller companies with low budgets and less time to develop their mmo's are making the sandbox games to fill that niche. So if you want a sandbox game, you and others need to give it the support to give them time and revenue to fix problems and make game better. I agree with you though that I don't want to spend my time or money to be an "invester" or "guine pig" while these companies take a year to finish their games.
Read this, and read it again Jon Wood. Read it it so much that it shows up in your dreams at night. This is the reason why there aren't any QUALITY sandbox games about or in production these days. If a company sank $100 million into a sandbox effort and polished it to the "d" as Trion did with Rift, you'd have a game that would do just as well or better than 95% of the "efforts" being made today.
But, neither you nor anyone on this site can name a sandbox MMO that has seen HALF of that investment amount put into it and worked on by a veteran team after 2004. Sure, we've seen half-baked attempts by a few companies whose only reason for making a sanbox attempt was that none of the big, budget capable AAA companies is doing it.
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