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SWTOR, MMO standard bearer for the next few years? What various devs think
MMO.Maverick
Member CommonPosts: 7,619
I admit, I often think little of the persistent bashing and criticizing from SWTOR opponents. Often because their arguments make no sense or are illogical and just camouflage, but also because my general stance is, if you're not interested in a game to play it, then why even spend time frequently bashing or ranting about it, sometimes more than about the games people like themselves?
However, reading an article I encountered recently, I think they actually may have a point.
The article I'm talking about is this one, A PC Gamer article where devs from various MMO companies shed their light on SWTOR and how they regard it.
The intro of the article:
It’s an understatement to say that The Old Republic is exciting for Star Wars and MMO fans. BioWare’s team-up with LucasArts brings the developer back to the beloved Knights of the Old Republic universe, serving as a continuation of the highest-rated Star Wars series of all time. But for the people that make games, it’s about much more than excitement. TOR is likely the largest, most important MMO release since Blizzard’s World of Warcraft set the standard for the genre over six years ago.
And some quotes from it:
Perfect World Entertainment’s Director of Marketing Jonathan Belliss doesn’t think sharing is an option: “You aren’t going to see a lot of gamers playing more than one subscription MMO.” Whether BioWare and Blizzard like it or not, TOR’s combat, quest design and subscription fee setup bear enough similarity to WoW’s that the two games will be pitted head-to-head against each other, at least in the minds of gamers.
We talked to developers working on different MMOs from all across the industry. It didn’t matter if they were creating titles for kids, making free-to-play games, or polishing AAA subscription-based releases for an impending launch: everyone’s eyes are on TOR. Nathan Richardsson, executive producer for CCP Games’s EVE Online, thinks that “whatever happens to TOR, it will have massive repercussions throughout the entire industry. [Those repercussions] will range from the cancellation of games and the closing down of studios to people rethinking how to approach the MMO genre.”
If TOR is everything that fans hope it’ll be, we may finally find out how many people are willing to pay for a subscription-based game. Between WoW’s mastery of the fantasy genre and TOR’s story-driven sci-fi romp in the most popular geek franchise on the planet, that’s a solid one-two punch to bring out everyone that’s ever considered paying a subscription fee. “There’s definitely a need for genre choices beyond fantasy,” explains Nexon America’s Director of Game Operations Minho Kim.
With games like MapleStory and Vindictus, Nexon isn’t necessarily known for creating story-driven engagements, but Kim is anxious to see players’ responses to BioWare’s focus on narrative and its use of voiceovers. If successful, TOR could start a shift to story-driven MMOs—a move that Runes of Magic’s Andreas Weidenhaupt, CEO of Frogster Online Gaming, and Carbine Studios’s Lead Designer Tim Cain anticipate.
But what if we find out afterwards that MMO gamers simply aren’t looking for that kind of narrative? If TOR is as well-made as BioWare’s other releases—most of which have been praised by fans and critics alike—and still fails, it’d speak volumes... If TOR fails, developers will likely look to revolutionize on different fronts, such as integrating different styles of combat, deeper persistence, more complex economic and social systems, more challenging encounters or one of the many other ways to mix up gameplay without requiring TOR’s massive budget.
No matter what happens, The Old Republic will be an important launch for MMO gamers. Its success or failure will tell developers more about what gamers want and how they want to pay for it more accurately than any research could. Of course, we’ll learn if BioWare and EA’s gamble of giving MMO players something different paid off, but we’ll also learn a lot about the long-term viability of subscription-based games, story-driven MMOs, and whether or not WoW players can be swayed away from their game of choice (or if doing so is even necessary to succeed)... TOR will not only shape the fate of the universe you’re gaming in now, but all of the future ones as well. Everyone’s watching to see what you [the gamers] think.
So, from what I understand from the article, then it looks like SWTOR is where the frontlines and the battlegrounds are at. It doesn't matter that there are other themepark styled MMO's that will release or interesting upcoming AAA titles, the eyes of many people in the (MMO) gaming industry are on SWTOR.
And then I can also understand why many people are so focused on targeting SWTOR for criticisms or persistent rants. Because apparently SWTOR is where the stakes are: if it's very successful, then it'll be a sign towards the industry for many years to come that the WoW instigated themepark design is indeed the best direction to develop your MMO in, which can be a nightmare scenario to those MMO gamers that abhor that type of MMO's. But if it fails, if even a BW with an IP as Star Wars and the backing of Lucasarts and EA can't achieve a degree of success that comes closer to WoW's gigantic succes than MMO's up till now have, then this will have a resounding impact in the MMO industry as well and could possibly be the beginning of the end for themepark MMO design as the dominant choice for devs and MMO companies to develop their MMO in, if big budget investments in MMO's will be done anyway after such a significant failure.
So, for better or worse, whether it's a great success or dooming failure, the stakes regarding SWTOR apparently are high.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
Oh my God. This article is crazy man. It's just TOO freakin epic!!! I can't wait to see how things turn out.
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
It certainly makes sense. I've been playing MMO's since 2000 starting with Asheron's Call and I've never seen a game as polarizing as SWTOR has been even though it's not even out of alpha testing yet. Alot of gaming companies are holding their breathes to see if this game sinks or swims and I bet quite a few of them are hoping it sinks.
Eh, kinda disagree:)
I do not think either a big success or a failure will matter very much in the end. There are lot's of people out there now that will pay a sub. And more join every day.
At the end of the day, gamers are fickle, and easy to tick off:). There is no way one game will ever be everything to all. So any game dev is starting from that point. Just hoping to get enough, and hold them, to be a success.
SWTOR is starting ahead of the game, in both name recognition, and IP recognition. So it really is up to them to hold the peoiple that come try the game. They will for sure sell a ton of the boxes. Keeping the majority of those folks will , as always, be the hard part.
But, like i said, i do not think, in the end, that it will matter a great deal to the industry one way or the other.. The target is on them true, but that is pretty much true of every triple AAA game that trys to be a success in this industry.
Hmmm, not all too suprising really. SWTOR has been hyped for a really long time and certain aspects that it's introducing many developers are gonna watch for to see if they can capitalize it. I just hope that if they are a big success that it doesn't start another MMO cycle, instead of "WoW-Clone" there will be "SWTOR-Clone" thus another cycle of rehashing the same ol' shit.
My biggest fear though is that companies will start producing more RPG games in a MMO storytelling and less in the single player game. Already there is a get rich quick mentality with MMOs from WoW, but there might be another "get rich quick" rush in from SWTOR. The RPG gaming industry might end up taking a severe blow in the end in the fact that there will be more n more MMOs of lesser qualtiy games than if they would stick with single player platform. For instance take Skyrim or Oblivion, if designed for as an MMO the quality of the game would go way down.
I am am watching Star Wars and a couple other games, like other people here, to see which games are worth playing. Good or Bad I think any large title ends up influencing the market. Heck even some small ones have a large impact. Whether a new game crashes and burn or are successful, unless a gaming company has it's head in the sand, other companies will learn from their success and failures.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
It will be the standard bearer for single player games wrapped in an MMO shell for the casual audience. I wouldnt go much beyond that. Other games will bear the standard for other audiences. Its a large audience so it should make decent money and draw a decent player base so long as they dont screw the game up too much with design flaws or bad code.
Hopefully this stops the wow-clone fiasco we have today. But I doubt it, and it will probably create a swtor-clone set of games. At the end of the day anything that is different is better than the same ol' same ol' that we have now. We need a change of pace from the Human/Elf/Dwarf Fantasy games!
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Retired: EQ, DAoC, WW2Online
RIP: AC2
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Quit: SWG PRE-CU(Radiant/Starsider), WoW
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so basically what there saying is that if it fails there will be no more big budget AAA mmorpgs? i guess i have to play swtor for the future of mmorpg's! :P
Towards the end of what was quoted seemed to get a bit odd to me.
Let's for sake of arguement say that TOR has huge box sales and then falls flat on its face. Server mergers blah blah
In what was quoted they seem to imply this has more to do with whether there is a long term furture in "pay to play" MMO's. As opposed to the fact that maybe people just aren't willing to pay for a paticular game or design choice.
It just seems mostly focused on "subscription based" viability. Which kind of makes me nervous... since the article involves various people around the industry.
Almost all of the MMO's I played from UO up until I came to this site in 2005 *cough* I paid a subscription in for multiple years. Nobody ever asked me why that changed or even why I left the other games... It certainly doesn't have anything to do with the fact they have a pay to play model.
The question the article seems to miss is.. Does an item mall make a game you're not willing to pay for more attractive?
*edit* to add..
I don't really have an opinion about whether TOR will do well or not. If it does well then suddenly you will see a bunch of "story driven" MMO's. If it doesn't do well this article just doesn't bode well. As they are looking at innovation through "free to play" as opposed to.. was it different enough?
In a very competitive market (think auto industry) you have to give customers something very different after a while.. or you end up *points at detroit*...
i dont think TOR will have a fun end game to keep subs after the first few months. and TOR is a WoW clone in many respects...so i wouldnt say the age of WoW clones is over.
the MMO market is so fickle and sensitive that i believe not a single "forecast" can or should be taken seriously.
Methinks they be a wee bit heavy on the melodrama. Honestly parts of this article read like Minerva Mayflower's "Markets will crash, crash. Financial empires will crumble, crumble." spiel from Hudson Hawk.
SWTOR will cause mass devistaion among its peers? Get real, with the exception of a few mediocre successes (and one big one) the entire genre has been a trainwreck from day one, TOR is in no way going to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Nor will it be the Morning Star of the Reformation. If it succeeds it will spawn its own platoon of clones. If it flops (like the last several overhyped cow pats) people will just say "I told you so" and go about their business. In other words fail compaines will keep right on failing (I'm looking right at you SOE, Cryptic, and Funcom).
So to sum up, I'm sure SWTOR will make a big noise one way or another, but before we all start running for the fallout shelters, I recommend we wait and see if this noise is the "shot heard around the world", or like so many other recent games, just another corpulent fart in a tin bath.
. . . . Or my spurious pet prediction that it will join the list of the never was.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
I don't know. I want to play Swtor. But I also love good sandbox hybrid mmos. So if TOR does well and completely proves that themepark is the right path, then that sucks but is awesome because TOR will be awesome.
If TOR fails and the direction of mmo's shifts from themepark, then that is awesome, but sucks because I don't want to think of swtor as a failure. I would love swtor to be a 1+ million sub mmo after a few months in.
This article while informative assumes quite a bit. Trying to jump to the next step when that may not always be certain.
Such as assuming that if SW:ToR fails then they (the other developers) will go to free to play games. In this case it could, but again it is not certain, they could change to a pay by content, ad based system or any number of other ways to pay for the game in exchange of the free to play/cash shop idea or simply say well that didn't work and try their hand at sub based games.
Second and probably the worst of the two assumption is that of SW;ToR's success/failure. Sure if it succeeds then you'll see more games like it....choices in story, stroy as the forefront and things similar to it. You'll probably also see a fair bit more sci-fi games of this realm come out. However if it fails it doesn't suddenly mean developer's will make a 180 degree turn and make sandboxes merely because a big named theme park failed. At worse the big named dev could simply look at it and think, hmm well Bioware one of the biggest names had the biggest IP (star wars) and the most aggressive advertising company (EA) and still couldn't succeed. I guess there can only be one king in this realm and the rest are left for scraps. This genre is too hard to make a good profit in...that will cuase them to just leave.
Personally i think (and this isn't me being a fan...well not completely) if Bioware suceeds we may see more big companies getting into the mix and try their hand. While if Bioware fails then it will most likely scare the rest of the devs and investors away from the genre all together, and that is something i'm not srue this genre can really take..seeing as it's just starting to get a foothold and a shakey one at that if the last year or two are any example..
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.
^^ Pretty much this. Step in the way-back machine and you'd sense similar attitudes towards other mmorpgs that come chalk full of hype.
Window-dressing to camoflage something that doesn't sound like it will be more than a rudimentary themepark but with story choices didn't strike me as the flag-bearer for anything other than another overly glorified Single-Player RPG that millions will once again purchase, then leave for the next Single-Player. . .err. . .supposed mmorpg, 3-6 months post-launch.
I enjoyed the journey in the other games I've played, though short-lived, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the journey in SWTOR.
Hmmm. It's starting to look like people didn't actually read the article in detail or understood what was being said, or maybe only read the thread title
Anyway, me personally I found it interesting to see how people from other companies within the MMO industry saw things, but I certainly don't think they represent the full measure and voice of the whole MMO branch. Several viewpoints that were presented by them had a point, I can understand that how SWTOR and BW will fare within the MMO market will be paid close attention by other MMO companies as well as gaming companies. Up till now there have been several things unclear regarding WoW's success and the actual MMO gaming population and behaviour.
To a number of those questions SWTOR's fate will provide an answer, more so than a Rift, Aion, AoC, LotrO or WAR did.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I've been in the genre since September of 2002, in which I started with DAoC. I didn't even know DAoC belonged to a genre called MMORPG's, much less heard the acronym MMORPG. But around 2005, when I first heard about SWG and their compilation pack, I finally joined this website and began educating myself about MMORPG's. Since then, I've played the majority of P2P MMORPG's released since then and prior to WoW. Knowing that, here is my opinion on the article.
When WoW released, it offered something unique by making leveling a solo affair and done through quests. It also offered a well rounded and polished experience. I think aside from the obvious, such as Blizzard fans and so on, this is what WoW brought to the genre, much like DAoC brought the RvR experience, UO the sandbox FFA experience, and EQ the 3rd person view and PvE focused experience.
WoW was a huge success, so almost every company since has copied their design, failing or doing very weakly in the process. Because SWTOR is offering such as different experience, while taking lessons learned and applying them to the game, along with it being 6 yrs since WoW released, and having a big IP and developing company behind it, I have no doubts that it'll be successful on WoW's scale on the USA side of things. I think SWTOR will be successful for the same reasons WoW was successful.
Keeping that in mind, I think developing companies will be making a mistake if they see SWTOR's success and try to emulate it by copying most of their features. Much like most companies emulating WoW since WoW's release have failed or done pretty bad compared to what they expected, companies copying SWTOR will also fail. This is because most people only have time to dedicate to one MMORPG and the money to pay for one subscription. Why would anyone play a game like SWTOR while SWTOR is already in it's prime? Keep in mind that having a strong IP and developing company will play a large part in SWTOR's success, so what's the likelyhood of a MMO similar to SWTOR's design, but having an unknown story and setting will attract a satisfactory following?
I do think because WoW is 6 yrs old and because Blizzard isn't that innovative with their expansion releases, we'll see a significant drop of in subscription numbers. Many may or may not come to SWTOR, while the rest may leave the genre completely. I do predict that Blizzard's next MMORPG will make just as much as an impact as SWTOR will, making Blizzard and Bioware the two companies that will hold the majority of the shares in the MMO market.
What I'd suggest to other gaming companies is that they first off only release a game when it's ready and of sufficient quality to compete; develop their own niche (ie. don't create a traditional quest-based MMORPG); and adopt a pricing/subscription plan that's different than the major title in the market. For example, ArenaNet has carved a niche by offering their game for box price only, subscription free, and only pay for expansions. So it's guaranteed that a significant amount of people will play GW2, most likely a lot of the same people playing Blizzards and Biowares games.
I doubt the prospect of taking on Blizzard or Bioware head-on and trying to provide the same type of game is appealing to many investors. In any case, I agree it will be interesting to see the effects on the MMORPG world.
_____________________________
"Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
All they are doing is adding a better streamlined story. I can't see how that can be the standard for years to come.
The article shows what is meant with it and how that question should be seen.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Before WoW, there were 3 niches of games when it came to P2P games. UO filled the sandbox FFA PvP niche, EQ the group focused PvE niche, and DAoC the organized PvP (RvR) niche. Since WoW, a new niche was created that drew in a subscriber base that dwarfed that of all other niches. WoW's niche is the solo oriented, quest driven game, with battlegrounds, instanced group dungeons, and raiding fleshing out the rest of the game. Since WoW, we've mostly seen games release for that niche. Games targeted at other niches, such as EQ's and UO's niche rarely release and when they do, they're released in such a bad shape that people interested in that niche don't play it. Developers in upcoming or present companies thinking of creating a game for those niches may read into that as people not being interested in those types of games, which results in more WoW-niched games. SWTOR is an evolution of the WoW-niche type of game, because it's still class-based, and solo-quest based driven, but the fact that it'll be fully voice overed and the quests are one large story, instead of 1000's of badly written and poorely hidden gring quests, it should attract a sizeable part of the WoW crowd, especially since WoW is 6 yrs old and has become stale content-wise.
With that in mind, I bet if SWTOR is successful, WoW clones will be less common than they are now, and SWTOR clones more the norm, which will probably fail like most WoW clones did.
not sure how you equate SW:TOR's success with a decrease in the number of WoW clones.. if anything.. i would imagine it being the other way around.. if SW:TOR succeeds we're likely to see more of the same old WoW/Theme park clones on the horizon.. but if SW:TOR fails.. its possible we might just see something a bit more revolutionary.. maybe.. just maybe.. its time to dump the themepark..
In response to your opinion on what'll happen if Bioware failed:
I'm pretty confident that SWTOR will not fail, because it has a big name IP and a great developing company behind it. But if it did fail, I think your conclusion is logical and well reasoned. Like you said, if an IP and company like Star Wars made by Bioware fails, what chance does an unknown IP made on a significantly smaller budget have in success.
Because of WoW, and the massive niche it created, I'm pretty sure my genre as I knew it pre-WoW is on life support at best and more than likely dead. Only Indy companies are attempting to make sandbox games or games revolving around non-quest based/group focused leveling and their released product were rough at best at launch and missing important features. It'd take a well know company with a large budget, and maybe even a well known IP to make a sandbox game and succeed if we're ever to see MMORPG's similar to pre-WoW actually capture the niches they're targeted for. I find that unlikely and thing the future of MMORPG's, much like the past several years and present, will be solo oriented and casual player focused.
I guess I see it that way because I don't think a story driven game is the same as quest-hub based games. Sure, it's in the same family and an evolution of themepark games, but it's significantly different enough. I'd love to see some pre-WoW type games release in a finished state and become successful so that niche of games can evolve like quest-based games have evolved, but I do think the future of the MMORPG genre will depend on SWTOR's reception and long-term success.
SWTOR will have no more success than any other MMO currently out right now. And it will not supercede World of Warcraft's success.
You're all just over-hyped.
Next time, read what the OP and the article is actually about instead of just kneejerk reacting upon the thread title and the word 'SWTOR' as some form of bad habit.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."