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Star Wars: The Old Republic: E3 2011: What We Now Know
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Now that E3 has closed its doors for another year, MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton has gleaned all that has now been revealed about Star Wars: The Old Republic and he's got something akin to a 'wrap report' to share with you. Read on and then weigh in with your thoughts.
I’d like to end on one final note, and that is the fan reaction to the show coverage. I’ve been really surprised by the fairly large number of gamers who thought E3 was a total letdown for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Say what you want about the game, but I think we’ve learned a great deal at this year’s E3 and while there is still more to learn I honestly think you’d be hard pressed to say BioWare hasn’t been forthcoming with the amount of information and media coming out of the show.
Read more E3 2011: What We Now Know.
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Comments
The game is starting to look fantastic, and can't wait to get into a good Star Wars MMO. SWG just went downhill after the Combat Upgrade.
I wouldn't get too excited about how powerful Blizz seemed to be.
DE said that he had "cheated" and wasn't supposed to be able to get Blizz yet so there's not telling what level Blizz effectively was.
He could verry well have been a level 35 companion running around with a level 29 player.
Even if they did try to scale him down to the player level, there's no telling just how that would have effected a companion meant to even start at a higher level.
Georg Zoeller made some posts about the medical probe and death penatlies(if they take up too much room i can delete them and just leave links):
GeorgZoeller General Discussion -> Self Rez with Short CD
We will likely put a limit on this ability when you are killed in PvP / by another player, even disallow it completely.
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GeorgZoeller General Discussion -> Thoughts on the Death Probe?
Let's give you some details, since it's E3 and we're being generous
The reason we added this system is that the worlds in The Old Republic are huge and a travel death penalty turned out to be much more punishing than initially planned. Our testers were quite vocal about that.
Our testers also commented that they liked the more challenging content compared to other MMOs (no, Daniel's demo wasn't showing that, since running harder content and talking and answering interview questions is a bit much to ask of a writer
Since we wanted to retain the latter, but also fix the death issue, we decided to go with this solution.This system was just added. Currently, in testing, it works like this:
The first time you die, you have the option to summon the probe almost immediately or return to a med center. If a friend tries to restore you instead, the probe option is replaced by the 'accept help' button.
The second time you die (within 30 minutes), the timer to call the probe is 20 seconds.
From there on, the time increases so you'll probably want to go to a medical center instead (which will restore the initial timer).
As said, we just added this system and there's quite a bit of tuning left. We may decide to attach a service fee to the droids. We may make it so you have to purchase insurance in order to call the droids. We may take them out completely. Details like how it works in World PvP are still being tuned as well.
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GeorgZoeller General Discussion -> Thoughts on the Death Probe?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ManuDragonne
Amazing how all the insta-rez proponents fail to recognize how the top writer for the game is talking on the film about using 2 people to take on a 4 person instance. Running around dieing (over and over) and kiting MOB's to basically cheat his way through it.
.
Hehe, Daniel will be disappointed when those holes he's exploiting are gradually shut down. As mentioned, we just added this system in testing, so there some rough edges.
That said, we're also not terribly concerned with people being creative about some of the heroic content. We're pretty pragmatic about it - if people have fun doing a one off heroic quest in a very creative way (like, let's say luring a bunch of enemies to a cliff and then pushing them over with a force push) and they're having fun, that's something we're potentially fine with. In fact, we find that a lot of the 'creative' ways people find around more challenging content seems to take more time than doing it the planned way anyway.
As long as there's a reasonable effort vs. reward ratio here, who am I to say that you and your friend can't have fun figuring out a way to get past that 4 man heroic?
This obviously doesn't apply to Operations or Flashpoints (Did I mention that you can't order a probe in instanced content like a Flashpoint or Warzone?), but for world heroics, we're definitely taking a relaxed view on these things.
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GeorgZoeller General Discussion -> Thoughts on the Death Probe?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BDreason
And the response from Georg is ridiculous as well. You took away corpse runs because beat testers didn't like it? Of course the beta testers didn't like corpse running... nobody does. That's why it's called a PENALTY for death.
Honestly, they may as well rename this game Carebears in Space if they plan on caving to every players request.
No. I'm a bit amazed (just kidding, this is the internet) that you think we would operate like that. But yes - if 95% of testers tell you that you have a problem, you listen. You don't shut your ears and sing to yourself 'they're carebears, they hate any penalty'.
We added this option because the impact of the 'walk back from medcenter' penalty, in our game, is huge - worse than in comparable MMOs. Here's why:
The distances in a world that is built to scale, on planets like Tatooine, are vast.
A lot of the content is not instanced and is open world and you don't enjoy fighting your way back deep into the objective areas when you die. We're not talking about 1-3 minutes of walking. In some cases, we're talking about 10-15 minutes of repeating content. That's not fun.
As Daniel explained, we're not shy of making challenging content that is interesting to overcome.
But content does not get more challenging by giving it a harsh, repetitive death penalty - penalties just happen after the fact and do not, in any way or form, make the content more challenging, fun or even difficult.
The only challenge a really harsh death penalty adds is to player's patience or tolerance to repeating the same content over and over. Most people don't find that fun, and we don't either.
By adding this system, we are able to create content that kills the player once or twice until they figure out how to overcome it. We can create challenges and players are given a chance to overcome them. They can afford to fail, regroup and try again instead of spending 15 minutes sitting around while some player tries to make his way back to the group.
If you are looking for hardcore and punishing death penalties that weed out the weak players (e.g. the ones that don't have infinite patience and time), The Old Republic will not be your game. That does not mean we're attempting to make an extremely easy game with no challenge.
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GeorgZoeller General Discussion -> Diffrences in Hardcore / casual gameplay.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alcevious
Why increase the insta-rez timer at all if the argument is that the players have already been punished by dying and you don't want them over-inconvenienced?
Again, why force people to sit through a mundane self-rez timer simply because they died in a boss battle? Sure, time should be allowed for the combat to end and the mob to reset, but why exponentially increase the cooldown time?
Gradually (not exponentially btw) increasing stakes balances blind rushing vs. experimentation.
In addition, it eases towards the 'ok, what you are doing isn't working, now it's time to go to town, repair your stuff and come back when you are better equipped to handle this situation' point.
We feel we have enough content in our game that we don't need to artificially lengthen the game by forcing you to spend 15 minutes to travel and fight your way back to the location that you were before through the same content you just did.
As for 'over inconvenienced' - again, in our game return to Medcenter is a major inconvenience... We're not talking about a 2 minute corpse walk. We're talking about travelling for several minutes (due to our world size) along with potentially re-fighting significant amounts of content. It's not a minor inconvenience, it's a major time loss and much more punishing than other games.
Our testers were very clear about how much they disliked this system and they're really not different from the rest of the guys on these forums (after all, they are selected from this community) - except that they have played the game and understand the amount of 'inconvenience' the pure medcenter option was causing.
Well, the biggest issue i would gather from E3 for some folks is the combat system. I personally think it is just fine and from reading write ups on those that actually have played , there seems to be more positive than negative.
I think these examples just proves my point.
Final Fantasy -
TOR -
GW2 -
As we can see, TOR"s combat is just fine. It's not the same old same old and sit's right in the middle of one game that is, and another game that is touting a new combat system. For the masses, not picking on any game, just pulled up some random combat video's.
The more I see and hear about actual gameplay, the less I like. Ill still play it because its SW, but I will be thinking about how much better it could have been the entire time.
What we know: It will be on Origin only. Buy it and enjoy your personal information sold to companies(even says so in the terms). So dumb.
Incorrect, there are box copies going to be sold. Just the digital download version is going to be on origin.
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.
If they would have made the combat like dragon age 2, this game would have been revolutionary for an mmo. Now it's just standard fare WoW meets star wars.
"I’d like to end on one final note, and that is the fan reaction to the show coverage. I’ve been really surprised by the fairly large number of gamers who thought E3 was a total letdown for Star Wars: The Old Republic."
Wow, awesome journalism! Let's not say why they were disappointed or how many you asked, let's just say it was a total letdown, who cares really? This site has been negative about SWTOR since it was announced, your personal views are not important only the facts are. If you claim that it was such a letdown for so many E3 visitors state facts, your opinion news disgust me.
That was an intersting bunch of videos you selected there. FF was a great safe bet, you wont get any good looking combat from that game. The TOR video was actually a good pick, you made me notice that actually melee combat in SWTOR is a bit better looking than ranged combat and that this is probably why E3 was such a big let down (in the combat department), all of the clips I saw from E3 were ranged combat. As for the GW2 clip that invalidates your "point" for me. That battle looks WAY more interesting than the other two....
Jawas are not cute, they are vermin. Bounty Hunters are NEVER cute, so should only use a Jawa for target practice.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
GW2's combat looks like a bad Dragonball Z episode with all the particle effects they have going on.
In Bioware we trust!
I am not sure about the medical probe. As long as it does not appear in pvp, the medical probe will be okay I guess.
The biggest area of improvement availible is the animation quality. Bioware needs to spend some time polishing animation quality.
I think what he was saying...granted i could be wrong is.
You got slow combat like FF where its almost turn based.
Then you got swtor which is somewhat faster paced
But then you got GW2 which is a lot faster paced and more twitch oriented.
Spectrum thing. not quality or which one is better.
Slow......normal.....fast.
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.
Aha! Opinion, I can do that too! SW:ToR's combat looks like two spastic Pinocchios hitting each other with overrated flashlights!
Baby Gap.
In Bioware we trust!
That's exactly what i was trying to to imply.
Should I have said Capcom vs Marvel? They are going to have to put a seizure warning on the box.
In Bioware we trust!
Putting one in the manual will suffice.
: )
In that case I do agree with you. It is middle of the pack speed-wise. This is the place where I would place most MMO's with and don't get me wrong, many people are fine with this. But many others want something different.
If you look, there's seizure warnings for nearly every game out there :P
FF XIV combat is as traditional as it can get when looking at it. if not aged old but with pounds of make up to cover its wrinkles.
SWTOR video combat , at least for melee is busy, the reactive scripted blocking in between attacks breaks up the staleness giving it a dynamic involving feel, unfortunately range combat will not have that, at all, swtor range (unless change) is gonna be run up to enemy, shoot it in the face for x amount of time til he falls over, or shoot from a distance til one guy falls. range just needs more combat variety and having the enviornment to help with breaking LOS checks and taking cover just isnt enough.
another thing of SWTOR combat in general is still not quite loose enough. the lack of any general kind of defense techniques (stepping, rolling out of way jump back) automatically makes swtor less about movement and more about hot key pressing, gear and rotation. -force charge leaping does not count , it is a class ability and not something general
GW2 video combat looks to be dynamic in the movement department, it looks to be faster when running, taking strides stepping and other notable acrobatics (rolling esspecially) the combat itself is graphically flashy, special effects particles of all sorts, but animation and melee wise it is nothing short but acceptable. like any other mmos or games, a mage is a mage, throw magic spell ad nasuem, fighter plays whack a mole against the enemy etc. GW2 shines the most in range combat, run and gunning rolling and diving away from the enemy looks natural.
between SWTOR and GW2, SWTOR has melee combat down, GW2 has movement and range combat down.
He never said -HE- was dissapointed, only that he was surprised at the amount of gamers who felt let-down by E3's coverage.
Reading Comprehension 101.
"The problem with quotes from the Internet is that it's almost impossible to validate their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
i agree 100%. You actually broke down the video's i linked and was spot on in my opinion. I'm still not gonna give up on TOR's ranged combat, If i know Bioware, they will listen to all the negative and make tweaks. I will bet that they will show off more ranged combat at comic con and it will probably have been changed some since E3.
This isn't the 6 o'clock news where opinion is a negative. This is an informal venue and your rabid assault on the author doesn't make him look bad, it makes you look bad.
I've also seen a pretty negative feedback coming from the forums and was a bit surprised as well. Most posters seemed to be complaining that nothing new was shown and the trailers were just rehashed versions of previously released trailers. This is the internet though. The whiniest, most opinionated voices are always the loudest.
For me the only disappointment was no release date. I mean, they have to know by now, right?
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