What you have described, for the most part, is a 'traditional' MMO-RPG. A traditional MMO-RPG progressess through increase in character abilities and stats, and the acquirement of better equipment, just as its pen and paper predecessors. WoW is certainly not the first to do any of the things you've listed.
There is always a certain amount of skill involved with any game; manual dexterity and reaction time still play a part of combat interaction, but a 'traditional' MMO-RPG is by no means twitch based, nor should it be. It's actually meant to represent a turn based system with a round timer of 0, meaning that you can both take action at the same time because it's the cool downs and animations that determine how many 'rounds' a particular ability takes to use.
So comparing any traditional MMO-RPG game to WoW as your standard is like asking if Sara Lee layered white cake with coconut frosting is as good as Pepperidge Farm layered white cake with coconut frosting. It's a question of quality, not innovation.
How could some of you dare to say loot addiction isnt the only option of what keeps a MMO longevity!
What would it be the other options then? Players actually having fun over the content? hahaha
You guys are totally out of your minds
Content is great, but loot grinds make it feel like you are still doing something to progress your character after your can't gain any more levels. Content that doesn't result in some form of reward that makes my character better for having done it just seems pointless and tacked on. Stagnation kills enjoyment, there has to always be a way of getting better.
This is not NDA btw guys...Gamespot reveal by Bioware themselves
Quit showing that stuff......WTF is your malfunction.
Poor ole Moaky got the jonses going on cause he wants to play TOR. He would be OK with talk, but NOOOOOOOO someone has to show pics laying the game out. YOu say they were released by BW....SO WHAT!!!!!!
Why ya gotta mess with me? Help a brotha out.....sheesh.
OK seriously....I could handle this game being NPC character interaction 24/7 more than I could another PRECioUs Uncle Owen Wars. Bonus if the server doesnt drop ya cause the same 5 dancers/salesmen have their mack-daddy recursive macro lagging everyone out.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Hmm, imo the real question is whether it's going to be a GOOD gear grinder...
I mean, D2 is the mother of all gear grinders and it's still an awesome game.
In my personal humble opinion, one of the main reasons why there hasn't been a truly succesful sci-fi mmo (except EVE ofc) is that the whole concept of uber gear is kinda less appropriate for sf than for fantasy (as well as levels and crap). Imo a truly mainstream succesful sci-fi mmo will have to walk away from this paradigm of levels and uber gear and such because that's basically fantasy, sword and sorcery stuff.
I mean, I really didn't know that the point of Star Wars movies is that Luke has to go through all the quests and tribulations to get some uber lightsaber that will enable him to down the Emperor... or that Han solo managed to get that uber armor (sic! armor in SW!!!) so he can survive being carbonized... That's more of a Conan thing when he gets the magic sword and slays the evil sorcerer. Imo the choice of this fantasy D&D progression as the underlying system for a Star Wars game is going to be its downfall.
Sorry but I didn't think that conflicts between Jedi and Sith were decided by who has a "better" lightsaber lol.
If they really wanted to retain this linear tiered progression thing for SW:TOR they should have at least gone for skill and title collecting rather than +10 lightsaber crap. That would have been waay cooler - "I beat you, evil Sith, because the force is stronger with me!" (read "I got better skillset" rather than gear) Imo it would have been much more logical that at the end of some SW instance you get taught a skill or a trait that gives you some bonus rather than "embroidered jedi cowl +5" lol. This way at least you'd get some illusion that it is your character growing in power rather than collecting shinies to hide behind (which is, incidentally completely at odds with the very concept of force - it's what's within you...)
In short, I didn't know that Star Wars is all about collecting lightsabers and blasters.
Theres bound to be some element of gear grind but thats part of the mmo genre . Half the fun is putting in the time to get better gear . You either accept that or go back to single player games . Think about it if we all had decent gear from day one then what insentive would there be to keep playing ? The only way you could get away from that is to have a massive development team numbering in there hundreds if not thousands that produced weekly or even daily content updates and expanded the game as fast as people leveled . In the mmos of the future that may one day happen but at present the technology isn't there nor is the financial insentive . In the meantime what we will get is variations on the same theme but each game will offer its own innovations and they wont be clones any more than Half-Life is a clone of Doom they will be the evolution of a genre . That wont stop a few idiots calling them clones much in the way every first person shooter was called a Doom Clone or Quake Clone for several years . All we have to do is keep pointing this out to them untill they mature and grow up a bit as they undoubtedly will given time and eventually all this nonsence about WoW-Clones will be relegated to history . Where it belongs .
Theres bound to be some element of gear grind but thats part of the mmo genre . Half the fun is putting in the time to get better gear ....
Well what's wrong with collecting uber skills and titles giving you bonuses? Functionally it's exactly the same as collecting gear but it would make much more sense in SW universe.
Just imagine: At the end of a big nasty instance you reach an old imprisoned Jedi who teaches you the way of deflection (or something). Much cooler than getting a pauldron +3. Or when you kill that awesome monster boss the party members realize that its mysterious radiation has increased everybody's resistance to flame by 2%. That would be cool. Collecting ever shinier lightsabers and breastplates is not.
Hmm, imo the real question is whether it's going to be a GOOD gear grinder...
I mean, D2 is the mother of all gear grinders and it's still an awesome game.
In my personal humble opinion, one of the main reasons why there hasn't been a truly succesful sci-fi mmo (except EVE ofc) is that the whole concept of uber gear is kinda less appropriate for sf than for fantasy (as well as levels and crap). Imo a truly mainstream succesful sci-fi mmo will have to walk away from this paradigm of levels and uber gear and such because that's basically fantasy, sword and sorcery stuff.
I mean, I really didn't know that the point of Star Wars movies is that Luke has to go through all the quests and tribulations to get some uber lightsaber that will enable him to down the Emperor... or that Han solo managed to get that uber armor (sic! armor in SW!!!) so he can survive being carbonized... That's more of a Conan thing when he gets the magic sword and slays the evil sorcerer. Imo the choice of this fantasy D&D progression as the underlying system for a Star Wars game is going to be its downfall.
Sorry but I didn't think that conflicts between Jedi and Sith were decided by who has a "better" lightsaber lol.
If they really wanted to retain this linear tiered progression thing for SW:TOR they should have at least gone for skill and title collecting rather than +10 lightsaber crap. That would have been waay cooler - "I beat you, evil Sith, because the force is stronger with me!" (read "I got better skillset" rather than gear) Imo it would have been much more logical that at the end of some SW instance you get taught a skill or a trait that gives you some bonus rather than "embroidered jedi cowl +5" lol. This way at least you'd get some illusion that it is your character growing in power rather than collecting shinies to hide behind (which is, incidentally completely at odds with the very concept of force - it's what's within you...)
In short, I didn't know that Star Wars is all about collecting lightsabers and blasters.
Meh...
earn yourself a "spot on" award. because you are. spot on.
GW2 may have many virtues but it's not looking like companions as memorable as Alistair, Morrigan or Oghren will be among them.
Trust me, if gw1 is any indication gw2 companion will be quite memorable. unless your talking bout the date sim feature which i doubt gw2 will have.
Really?
GW1's companions weren't bad by any means, at least when taking into account that we're talking video games and not say books. But they're a far stretch from Bioware's characters.
I'm sorry but characters like HK-47, Garros and Alistair to name but a few are famous in a way no GW1 character will ever be. Those characters are so far ahead compared to most of the rest of the gaming industry that it isn't even funny.
GW2 will do many things extremely well. But if you're looking for Dragon Age quality companions there's but one choice.
Yeah, at the moment it seems that there won't be companions in GW2 AT ALL (except for some in the Personal Story part of the game). However there have been some mysterious rumours and dev hints that minipets are going to be much more active part of the game than what we're used to seeing so far. Hmm... Now what could that mean? Pokemon minipet battles? Minipets giving you bonuses? Hmm...
But I'm derailing this thread so I'll shuttup now.
there is a LOT of types of armor in SW setting, just for starters, Bane was working in mines, gathering ore for best antiblaster armor republic was creating, at some point later he was wearing orbalisk armor that was able to stop lightsabers and blasters...
Sorry but I didn't think that conflicts between Jedi and Sith were decided by who has a "better" lightsaber lol.
at few points in SW lore we can find moments when Jedi master or Sith Lord gives a sword or even cristal alone to someone as "better" than the one they had earlier
This way at least you'd get some illusion that it is your character growing in power rather than collecting shinies to hide behind (which is, incidentally completely at odds with the very concept of force - it's what's within you...)
most of Sith artefacts are rings, necklaces and so forth imbued with force by creators, sometimes so powerful that they where able to give "force powers" to people not even able to use the force without them, gathering those items was giving people power and its totally in lines of Star Wars story, just not in lines of what You imagined it is.
In short, I didn't know that Star Wars is all about collecting lightsabers and blasters.
its not, but they really can help
Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind Don't Matter and Those Who Matter Don't Mind. Dr.Seuss
probably, Every MMO is going to have you grinding something to keep you engaged long term. Themeparks usually go for gear.
For me, it usually comes down to how accessable the end game operations are, will they be a 3-5hr committment 3-4 night a week kind of enviroment? or something easier to put together?
But in the end, its a sci fi MMO, KotOR themed at that. Ill be happily playing reardless.
There will be grinding by far. Its what makes an MMO have 'lasting appeal' since if your not working for anything, what point do you really have for it. Its likely either going to go for the edge of 'gear grinding' or (though I doubt it) going for the 'level grinding' aspect. Considering how things have shifted away from levels being the focus in many games, its likely that gear will triuph in order to have pvp being more active.
The characters power and ability can depend on gear. But there is no reason you should be forced to grind to get it. And there is no reason why you should need to be in a raid-guild and grind the same raid instances over and over to get the best gear in game. If it works like that it is a painful grind.
But crafting and some epic quests among other options could also be a way to get the best gear. Not only raiding.
So maybe, if we are lucky, getting the best gear will not be a grind. And people with different playstyles will be able to get it.
Content is great, but loot grinds make it feel like you are still doing something to progress your character after your can't gain any more levels. Content that doesn't result in some form of reward that makes my character better for having done it just seems pointless and tacked on. Stagnation kills enjoyment, there has to always be a way of getting better.
I agree to the necessity of progress. But why does it always have to be gear-based?
Surely not because it is the best way to handle the yearn for progress, but rather the simplest. In the endgame, when there are no new skills, no new weapon abilities and whatnot, then nothing changes any more, only the numbers go up. Where is the enjoyment in that? How can intelligent ppl actually fall into that cheap trick? I don't get it.
I just wondered, what would happen, if I change the game from having the item cap happen earlier than the level cap and the advantage of raids is just to get the last levels faster than with "normal" missions?
Would that mean, there is no "endgame" and ppl would not play it b/c of that?
Or would the endgame just turn from a gear grind to a level grind?
I mean in the end it doesn't matter at all, if your character progresses via levels or items, as long as both provide the same way of progress, which is increasing numbers (attributes, bonuses).
Only that it bothers me how wearing an item could make you smarter, even more smarter than you gained "smartness" from your experience as a sentient being. And a Jedi Knight that is utterly helpless if he doesn't wear his purple epixxx armor of force-uberness, does not appear to me to catch the spirit of the SW universe.
The OP is insulting to game concepts he doesnt like.
Obviously, an itembased game is not automatically a grind.
Or in other words: No, SW:TOR is NOT a skillgrinder.
But a grind is a game where you do repetitively dull things just to get something. This isnt even true for WoW. Raids are complex boss encounters that require the cooperation of many players to bring them down. Thus, they arent grinds.
"If you want to be that guy doing operations dressed up in a Desert People robe, with enough hard work, you can"
"A very high percentage of gear will be modable"
"We are still itterating and working on the gear and modding system at this moment; the curent beta system isn't final".
Don't hold me accountable for the EXACT quotes, as these are from memory but this is basically what they said in regards to customization. This is what makes me very hopeful; the item itself being far less important than the mods you "Imbue" it with is actually a GREAT idea.
Anyway, gear driven is fine with me, as long as there is plenty of choice and not a lineair WOW-like progression for each class from set A through set B and finally to set C.
I fail to see the difference. SW:TOR is an itembased MMO. It doesnt really matter if you can change the looks of your gear more freely than in other games (many of which now have appearance slots, by the way).
Some times it's funny watching the people on this forum debate topics that they themselves have yet to experience.
There is BGs in SWTOR, but it equalizes gear when you walk in. So my lvl 18 was able to keep up with the big boys based on skill. What separated us though was that they knew more skills then I did. So they may have more cool moves to pull out of their bag of tricks. But that matters little in the deadly game of HuttBall!
I don't think any game can beat ToR to the lack of end game content. Only 1 and possibly 2 end game raid confirm for launch. Well have fun rolling alt ^^. At least gw2 will be like dragon age I, II bundle together at the price of 1 with pvp dlc pack for free.
2 raids, about 6 or so hard mode flashpoints per side (empire/republic), 3 battlegrounds, several planets for open world PvP. Just thought i'd add those as well. All end-game stuff material.
All 15 flashpoints have hard mode for end-game, confirmed by Bioware this past week.
Comments
I replied yes, I am pretty sure gear > skill in this game. And I don't intend to grind gear.
If I can do the storyline of 1-2 characters and some PvP without having to grind gear though, then the game will make me happy.
Yes, since the combat system in place will most likely make it so.
I think it is because that's what the majority of the players like. It's the reason games like Diablo are so addicting. Loot, loot and more loot!
What you have described, for the most part, is a 'traditional' MMO-RPG. A traditional MMO-RPG progressess through increase in character abilities and stats, and the acquirement of better equipment, just as its pen and paper predecessors. WoW is certainly not the first to do any of the things you've listed.
There is always a certain amount of skill involved with any game; manual dexterity and reaction time still play a part of combat interaction, but a 'traditional' MMO-RPG is by no means twitch based, nor should it be. It's actually meant to represent a turn based system with a round timer of 0, meaning that you can both take action at the same time because it's the cool downs and animations that determine how many 'rounds' a particular ability takes to use.
So comparing any traditional MMO-RPG game to WoW as your standard is like asking if Sara Lee layered white cake with coconut frosting is as good as Pepperidge Farm layered white cake with coconut frosting. It's a question of quality, not innovation.
BS!
How could some of you dare to say loot addiction isnt the only option of what keeps a MMO longevity!
What would it be the other options then? Players actually having fun over the content? hahaha
You guys are totally out of your minds
Content is great, but loot grinds make it feel like you are still doing something to progress your character after your can't gain any more levels. Content that doesn't result in some form of reward that makes my character better for having done it just seems pointless and tacked on. Stagnation kills enjoyment, there has to always be a way of getting better.
Quit showing that stuff......WTF is your malfunction.
Poor ole Moaky got the jonses going on cause he wants to play TOR. He would be OK with talk, but NOOOOOOOO someone has to show pics laying the game out. YOu say they were released by BW....SO WHAT!!!!!!
Why ya gotta mess with me? Help a brotha out.....sheesh.
OK seriously....I could handle this game being NPC character interaction 24/7 more than I could another PRECioUs Uncle Owen Wars. Bonus if the server doesnt drop ya cause the same 5 dancers/salesmen have their mack-daddy recursive macro lagging everyone out.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
of course it will be
Yes.
In Bioware we trust!
My lightsaber is (sharper? brighter? better decorated hilt?) than yours.
Hmm, imo the real question is whether it's going to be a GOOD gear grinder...
I mean, D2 is the mother of all gear grinders and it's still an awesome game.
In my personal humble opinion, one of the main reasons why there hasn't been a truly succesful sci-fi mmo (except EVE ofc) is that the whole concept of uber gear is kinda less appropriate for sf than for fantasy (as well as levels and crap). Imo a truly mainstream succesful sci-fi mmo will have to walk away from this paradigm of levels and uber gear and such because that's basically fantasy, sword and sorcery stuff.
I mean, I really didn't know that the point of Star Wars movies is that Luke has to go through all the quests and tribulations to get some uber lightsaber that will enable him to down the Emperor... or that Han solo managed to get that uber armor (sic! armor in SW!!!) so he can survive being carbonized... That's more of a Conan thing when he gets the magic sword and slays the evil sorcerer. Imo the choice of this fantasy D&D progression as the underlying system for a Star Wars game is going to be its downfall.
Sorry but I didn't think that conflicts between Jedi and Sith were decided by who has a "better" lightsaber lol.
If they really wanted to retain this linear tiered progression thing for SW:TOR they should have at least gone for skill and title collecting rather than +10 lightsaber crap. That would have been waay cooler - "I beat you, evil Sith, because the force is stronger with me!" (read "I got better skillset" rather than gear) Imo it would have been much more logical that at the end of some SW instance you get taught a skill or a trait that gives you some bonus rather than "embroidered jedi cowl +5" lol. This way at least you'd get some illusion that it is your character growing in power rather than collecting shinies to hide behind (which is, incidentally completely at odds with the very concept of force - it's what's within you...)
In short, I didn't know that Star Wars is all about collecting lightsabers and blasters.
Meh...
Theres bound to be some element of gear grind but thats part of the mmo genre . Half the fun is putting in the time to get better gear . You either accept that or go back to single player games . Think about it if we all had decent gear from day one then what insentive would there be to keep playing ? The only way you could get away from that is to have a massive development team numbering in there hundreds if not thousands that produced weekly or even daily content updates and expanded the game as fast as people leveled . In the mmos of the future that may one day happen but at present the technology isn't there nor is the financial insentive . In the meantime what we will get is variations on the same theme but each game will offer its own innovations and they wont be clones any more than Half-Life is a clone of Doom they will be the evolution of a genre . That wont stop a few idiots calling them clones much in the way every first person shooter was called a Doom Clone or Quake Clone for several years . All we have to do is keep pointing this out to them untill they mature and grow up a bit as they undoubtedly will given time and eventually all this nonsence about WoW-Clones will be relegated to history . Where it belongs .
Well what's wrong with collecting uber skills and titles giving you bonuses? Functionally it's exactly the same as collecting gear but it would make much more sense in SW universe.
Just imagine: At the end of a big nasty instance you reach an old imprisoned Jedi who teaches you the way of deflection (or something). Much cooler than getting a pauldron +3. Or when you kill that awesome monster boss the party members realize that its mysterious radiation has increased everybody's resistance to flame by 2%. That would be cool. Collecting ever shinier lightsabers and breastplates is not.
earn yourself a "spot on" award. because you are. spot on.
Yeah, at the moment it seems that there won't be companions in GW2 AT ALL (except for some in the Personal Story part of the game). However there have been some mysterious rumours and dev hints that minipets are going to be much more active part of the game than what we're used to seeing so far. Hmm... Now what could that mean? Pokemon minipet battles? Minipets giving you bonuses? Hmm...
But I'm derailing this thread so I'll shuttup now.
Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind Don't Matter and Those Who Matter Don't Mind. Dr.Seuss
probably, Every MMO is going to have you grinding something to keep you engaged long term. Themeparks usually go for gear.
For me, it usually comes down to how accessable the end game operations are, will they be a 3-5hr committment 3-4 night a week kind of enviroment? or something easier to put together?
But in the end, its a sci fi MMO, KotOR themed at that. Ill be happily playing reardless.
There will be grinding by far. Its what makes an MMO have 'lasting appeal' since if your not working for anything, what point do you really have for it. Its likely either going to go for the edge of 'gear grinding' or (though I doubt it) going for the 'level grinding' aspect. Considering how things have shifted away from levels being the focus in many games, its likely that gear will triuph in order to have pvp being more active.
The characters power and ability can depend on gear. But there is no reason you should be forced to grind to get it. And there is no reason why you should need to be in a raid-guild and grind the same raid instances over and over to get the best gear in game. If it works like that it is a painful grind.
But crafting and some epic quests among other options could also be a way to get the best gear. Not only raiding.
So maybe, if we are lucky, getting the best gear will not be a grind. And people with different playstyles will be able to get it.
I agree to the necessity of progress. But why does it always have to be gear-based?
Surely not because it is the best way to handle the yearn for progress, but rather the simplest. In the endgame, when there are no new skills, no new weapon abilities and whatnot, then nothing changes any more, only the numbers go up. Where is the enjoyment in that? How can intelligent ppl actually fall into that cheap trick? I don't get it.
I just wondered, what would happen, if I change the game from having the item cap happen earlier than the level cap and the advantage of raids is just to get the last levels faster than with "normal" missions?
Would that mean, there is no "endgame" and ppl would not play it b/c of that?
Or would the endgame just turn from a gear grind to a level grind?
I mean in the end it doesn't matter at all, if your character progresses via levels or items, as long as both provide the same way of progress, which is increasing numbers (attributes, bonuses).
Only that it bothers me how wearing an item could make you smarter, even more smarter than you gained "smartness" from your experience as a sentient being. And a Jedi Knight that is utterly helpless if he doesn't wear his purple epixxx armor of force-uberness, does not appear to me to catch the spirit of the SW universe.
I hate this BS.
The OP is insulting to game concepts he doesnt like.
Obviously, an itembased game is not automatically a grind.
Or in other words: No, SW:TOR is NOT a skillgrinder.
But a grind is a game where you do repetitively dull things just to get something. This isnt even true for WoW. Raids are complex boss encounters that require the cooperation of many players to bring them down. Thus, they arent grinds.
I fail to see the difference. SW:TOR is an itembased MMO. It doesnt really matter if you can change the looks of your gear more freely than in other games (many of which now have appearance slots, by the way).
Some times it's funny watching the people on this forum debate topics that they themselves have yet to experience.
There is BGs in SWTOR, but it equalizes gear when you walk in. So my lvl 18 was able to keep up with the big boys based on skill. What separated us though was that they knew more skills then I did. So they may have more cool moves to pull out of their bag of tricks. But that matters little in the deadly game of HuttBall!
Currently Playing: D3-ROS
Previously played: WoW, Tera, SWTOR, TSW, Rift, Defiance, GW2, Aion, LotRO, Rapplez, RoM, Dofus, LC, Requiem, WoKF, PW, etc
Waiting on: Wildstar
All 15 flashpoints have hard mode for end-game, confirmed by Bioware this past week.
Most themepark mmorpg's dont hold my attention passed the free 30 day peroid and swtor will be no different.