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Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Old Republic Will Change the Industry
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
Stepping up to the plate with this week's Devil's Advocate, Drew Wood takes a look at BioWare's supposed forthcoming Opus, Star Wars: The Old Republic and some of the general complaints from the MMO Community about the game's structure. Will SW:TOR revolutionize the way that MMOs are produced? The Devil's Advocate seems to think there's a good chance.
While it's true that BioWare is stepping (ever so slightly) outside of the normative behavior in creating an MMO, it's also true that The Old Republic will still call back to many of the elements that make an MMO an MMO in the first place. Perhaps most notably, the world of the Old Republic will be massive, with many players interacting on any given server from different parts of their own region so that I, a player from Canada, can pop onto a server and play with my guild who are spread out, for the sake of argument, along the Western Seaboard of the United States. Massive. Multiplayer. Online. Should you take this argument at face value, I would already be done. Star Wars: The Old Republic
Read more of Drew Wood's The Devil's Advocate.
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Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
Yep, agreed. It's gonna rock my world. At least for a fair while.
Ex. myth of soma, legend of mir, mu online and eudemons online player.
Current game : Runescape (until pc build is complete)
I am sad to leave Rift for it, because I know SWTOR will hook me up for the next few years and I really love Rift and Trion...! Ah! MMOs... If Rift could have came around 2-3 years ago!
<a href="http://www.enjin.com/"; alt="swtor guild hosting"><img src="http://sigs.enjin.com/sig-swtor/23d3ae4fb19b441f.png"></a>;
Keeping my hype for this game in check. That has been my problem with "let down" of new games over the last year or so.
That said I am excited for this game and look forward to getting heavy wife aggro once it has launched.
Poorly written article.
A de-emphasis on crafting, lack of customizable player housing, and rich storytelling are hardly revolutionary. Also, try proofreading your opening paragraph.
I've noticed that, recently, most of the articles here have been very badly written, with spelling mistakes, lack of proof-reading and even glaring internet vices ("there" instead of "their" when referring to possession, excessive use or lack of necessary apostrophes, etc).
MMORPG.com really needs to up the quality of its editors. And of its writers.
true. i've also been waiting for something to rock my mmo world, so to say. trief rift and aion not so fun, i am sorry bout hat but no mmo out there can give me that childlike feeling of building something worth the effort and just having fun with my free time.
The crafting in the game seems interesting imo. Have to wait and see how it pans out though.
Player housing is basically your ship. Have to wait and see how much customization is available.
Story telling on the level of Swtor is as far as I know unseen so far in an mmo.
"Fact: While well respected amongst the industry, niche players such as yourself make up a small population and, therefore (and here's the sad truth of it) a small percentage of the income rolling in."
Really? I'm going to go ahead and agree with StormwindX above; the quality and tone of MMORPG.com articles has been steadily devolving into condescending, trite nonsense. Do you have some sort of reference for this totally ridiculous statement you made in your article, or did you just pull it out of your arse because you felt like it?
In reality, what real damage is done if modern MMO's allow things like customizable housing? Just like most modern MMO's allow you to ignore PvP if you don't wish to participate, nobody is FORCING you to buy a house and decorate it.
Some of us like the additional layer of immersion having a "home" of our own affords us.
But things for basically giving us all the finger and calling us the minority. If the majority are the kind of people keeping World of Warcraft alive, I'll proudly stick a label on myself as "Niche gamer."
This site has really gone to garbage.
Devils Advocate?? More like "General Praise and the Legion of unabashed propaganda"...
"Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day!"
There is probably two things this game will change and has already shown to be evident in at least one or more cases.
First is the emphasis on polished games, though some credit has to be given to Trion for being first, first and setting standards are not always the same thing. You can do something great but if few people notice it, then you didn't set a standard, however if the big guy everyone knows (Please dont' take this literally guys, i think you know what i mean by everyone) does it as well then it sets a standard.
Second is emphasis on voice overs and secondly stories, Before this, games came out and there were stories yes, but there was never such an emphasis on it. Stories for the most part were there to give you a reason to fight a mob or hunt X amount of Y items. However recently and i can't help but think it's because of Bioware that people are now focused on giving more indepth stories. Lets take a look at some of the games coming out. GW2 gives a focus on story elements and choices in those stories, TSW is doing this as well (though i don't know about the choices in stories). Both of these also boost a fully voiced over system. These types of features are not really things the industry was focused on before this game came to real light. But why do i say it's a Bioware thing before the game even releases and other games have done this in the MMo industry before? well the fact i stated before that the idustry until very recently didn't focus on this sort of thing to any degree, beyond one game (AoC) most of the styles of questing were simple grab a quest from a randomly generated guy and do his tasks. Its not until now does there seem to be a shift in getting these people (NPCs) to interact with the player and seeing as how Choices, cinematic approaches, Voice overs in this sence tend to be the norm for Bioware I tend to give credit to them. We are even seeing more emphasis on companion characters (what i mean is one joins your side and stays with you the entire time of the game)
The real test would have been if Bioware hadn't done an MMO would we be focusing on stories and choices so much?
Plus it wasn't that long ago where Trion (at least i think it was someone at trion) made the statment that hey we have story to you know, which indeed made me smile.
As for the atricle itself it does read off as more of a this is indeed an MMO believe it or not type thing rather then what the title made me think which was how ToR will change the idustry what effects will it have, which is why i listed the above. Story, polish, VO are the things i think they are going to change in the idustry...some already have taken hold IMO.
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.
Don't get upset about it. It's true.
It's not just World of Warcraft. It's almost every mmo with decent subsciption numbers.
I'm not seeing reasoning on how this'll change MMOs. It's more like "What it has that sorta makes it what we'd call an MMO." The last parts, to me, help confirm the idea that TOR's a single player RPG with a great lobby ;P
Why exactly would they have to do that?
"Disclaimer: The Devil's Advocate is a place where the MMO-Loving world can go to hear the unpopular opinion"
In order for "The Devil's Advocate" to fit its own definition... the article would have to be entirely rewritten. Or the target audience of The Old Republic (as opposed to the article) would have to say the opinion of this article was not their own.
If the latter was the case then this game would not meet the premise of the article. As its written the article doesn't meet the premise of its own introduction (no matter how you look at it).
*edit for more clarity*
The article in and of its self is basicly a defense of the game and really why it won't "fail" and its "story" concept with be in MMO's of the future. That would be a good article if it was presented that way. However, if the majority opinion of the MMO loving world did not agree with this.. then obviously the game would be fail because the majority that EA's CEO expects to buy this game wouldn't. That's my problem with the article... as it is written and with the *disclaimer* it includes.
I pay a lot of attention to game news and sites. What gamers are saying and thinking. I have never seen the gaming world as stoked as they are about this game. I am wondering if ALL other games will be like someone pulled the plug in the bottom of the tub as their population leaves to try this game. Even when Rift came out they had to constantly add new servers to accomodate the influx. And that game was mainly just word of mouth spread after it came out. Of course it didn't last. There is a perfect storm of the old standards like WoW getting a little age on them, a lack of new games that are released with polish and competence,and wide appeal, and a player base that seems to take a bite of every game,spit it out,and say, "next". It may be that we have never seen anything like what just trying to log onto this new game will be like. Other games may look like ghost towns for a while at least. This is all really interesting to watch unfold. Deal me in.
Man Of Constant Sorrow
Yup. Losing a small segment of the market that demands customizeable housing won't cost them that much money.
That is not the premise of the article or its own disclaimer. The "mmo loving world" is not defined by this website.
Lasting experience?!? I cant say.. they have alot of work to do
Ill be watching
The unedited version of this article was inadvertantly posted at the beginning of day this morning. The edited version of the article has now replaced it.
Thanks for your patience. We apologize for the error.
SWTOR will set a precedent in either two ways:
#1. It will tell future MMOs that the non-WoW linear compaign is still profitable.
#2. It will tell future MMO developers that no-matter how much money one can sink into the development of an MMO, the same old same old will not cut it. Innovation.
#2.The only thing "old" about TOR is the fact that it is using the trinity.
If you want to play that game then I should be able to say no game company should make another FPS genre because the lot of them are not reinventing anything.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
Some of us like the additional layer of immersion having a "home" of our own affords us.
That cracked me up ... Blows a nut at the author for saying a few people feel the NEED To have customizable houseing from the get go and then, procedes to confirm what the author said in the article with his own words in his Rant.
I have a strong feeling that the house will be a pretty small part of the Game experiance as it seems to me 99% of it, (pulled that number out my Arse in case you wonder) , will be spent doing missions and following story line Quests.
It is True, that more and more I find the Minority of people want to be the Tail wagging the dog, not only in games, but in all aspects of life. Somewhere along my few years here on the planet, we are shifting from a Majority Rule, to special interest and minority driven existance.
This is not a good thing Ever.
It also seems that no amount of Logic or even demonstrated Facts will get a person in that mind set to step back and look at the bigger picture. I have a therory and pinky and the brain are behind it. Water! ! .... it is IN OUR WATER ...
I am going to play this game, as I have in any game I have ever played from the time DnD was first invented, with an open mind and child like wonder at what the developers of the game want to show me.
I know what it Ment by MASSIVE ... MULTIPLAYER ... ONLINE ... you see I am from the time when it was just the opposite .. TINY ... FEW ... HOME. We all used to banter around what it would be like to get thousands of people all together at the same time, and run around inside a game ... COULD that even be possible ?
It has come to pass, and now, I wish the industry would use a new terminology for its creations, because the new players no longer have a reference to draw from and no foundation to make decisions on. (it appears that a lot use WOW as a baseline)
It is true that people demand more then just MMO in their games and that in and of itself is not bad ... we need to push for more and better all the time. My hope is that game companies continue to design games for the Massive player base and along the way try to include aspects that can appeal to the narrow audience as well.
One quick story, I know I know . this is long winded I am sorry for that, My day off work so I feel I have time .
I played a game once long ago with a huge complex crafting system in place .. NOT many folks crafted as it was very tedius to do well and complete .. BUT .. This One guy in the guild I was in worked at it .. day in and day out .. he crafted and crafted and gathered and gathered .. We would beg him to come along on missions and do quests with us but he just said he wanted to craft ...
He was Great at it too .. he made all kinds of stuff for the guild and we kept him supplied as best we could with funds and what little materials we found .. He was still there crafting when I moved onto the next new and better (so I thought) game at the time.
The Point of the story is .. if game companies make all aspects of their game as robust and as FUN as the The Next part, The Game will draw in and KEEP ... The player base.
Too many compaines are rushing a game out that has only the basic aspects that make a game playable online and hoping that players will stick it out long enough for them to finish the game. Thankfully it is proving out to be a NO WIN for those companies and games like TOR seem to have that in mind.
Look to the stars to know HE is with us. HE hung them as markers, of times and of seasons.
Storytelling is something for singleplayer games imho. I atleast, are listening/reading stories while alone and not while playing with others. When playing a MMORPG I want to write my own stories, as thats the point where roleplaying starts. Following a scripted path is not roleplaying.
I'm coming a long way with RPGs, having played PnP RPGs for the better of the last 20 years (DSA/MERS/AD&D/Shadowrun/etc). The stories there are very loosely out together by the GM and the rest is up to the players and their imagination, so yeah, I guess that's why I've got a big problme with scripted content in MMORPGs alltogether.
The fun in MMORPGs starts where there's room for writing your own stories and history. EvE Online offers currently the best system to do so and SWG had alot of options to do so aswell.
I'm sorry, but I don't think that SWTOR will actually change anything. It's the same old, same old like we've seen during the last years. The only difference would be, that SWTOR adds more cinematics and voiceovers, but overall it's WoW dressed up in a StarWars-theme.
If it does change the industry, it will be for the worse. More movies and cut scenes at the expense of depth and immersion is what we'll end up with because as consumers we continue to settle.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
First off you can't really throw KOTOR 2 in with bioware due to the fact Obsidian Entertainment produced that and Bioware had a very limited oversight while it was being made. Secondly, the tid bit about hardcore players only making up a small percent well if you look at how mmo's are being geared such as WoW and the like, they are being geared toward "casual" gamers, not hardcore gamers...I wonder why that is? Oh, probably because like the article said, unfortunately the hardcore gaming community is only a small percentage of the overall demographic they are trying to sell their product too, therefore, it only makes sense for them to stick with the larger portion rather than producing a game for a smaller niche of said demographic. Makes sense to me at least. Let's hope that SW:TOR can deliver a great mmo, though I have faith in Bioware, lately the quality of mmo's in general have been quite lacking.