Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
TOR vs Rift..What TOR proves to devs?
Puremallace
Member Posts: 1,856
So watching all the TOR hype and launch stuff I think the game is sending EXTREMELY clear signals to other devs.
Rift took the following approach:
. Original IP
. Polished from launch..ui, import ui, macros, minimal bugs, character creation
. small world with zone events...no instanced zone
. 10 instances spread throughout about 12ish zones and 1 raid on launch
. no voice overs to the quest, but get x gather y
. npc's move and have path and everyone has some type of chat box
.small capitol cities
TOR launch:
. IP we all know
. missing basic features ui, weak character customization, no macros
. Extremely over sized world...gives you that WoW feeling..running from one side of a zone to another takes forever
. 15 flashpoints and 1-2 raids on launch
. voice overs to the get x gather y
. NPC stand there. most do not talk and are painted into the background
. massive cities
My thoughts on this by comparing these two games on the base and the type of praise being thrown at Bioware. Take my advise any dev making a game right now. MAKE EVERYTHING HUGE. No matter what it is just make it big. Do not go small. If you are going to make a normal sized tree make it 10 times bigger.
If you thought Rift zones were a decent size just multiply them by a factor of 5. Just spread everything out. Make it huge and watch the money role in. TOR is proving to any dev in their right mind that your playerbase will over look any thing you missed as long as it is big.
Agree with me or disagree, but on the fundamentals Rift had almost as much end game as TOR, but watch a Rift stream and compare it to a TOR stream and notice the size difference.
In closing, MAKE IT BIG
Comments
You put it in your post yet came to the conclusion that "big" was better for some odd reason. If Tor did not have that "brand Name IP" it would be viewed in the same light as Rift, but as long as it has that NAME then its golden.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Honestly I am starting to doubt this. I listed IP up there, but honestly I think BIG is better when it comes to grabbing peoples attention. You got to understand the MINORRRR stuff I have seen people unsub from Rift for compared to the stuff people are just writing off in TOR.
You know devs have got to be watching this scratching their heads. It comes down to world size I bet.
two devs in a bathroom:
"my world's bigger than your world."
"d'oh!"
If you have the numbers for the SWTOR world size, add them to Mav's thread here.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You forgot:
Rift
-no soul
SWTOR
-some soul
And if you dont think Rifts TINY world with everything crammed into a sardine can was a big factor in its poor retention you havent been paying much attention.
I havent played rift but SWTOR totally lacks soul. the worlds feel dead & lifeless with NPC's that may as well be statues.
Where are the general population ?
I am about to add quick hotfixes under Rift and ignoring glaring exploits under TOR. They had disconnect grace periods for queue's in two days after launch just saying
Also when they left most said "SWTOR will be better because it is bigger"
Where SWTOR has soul is that its occupants have personalities. Even minor characters. Rift had 99% of its characters seem stiff and wooden. Also a zone like Taris has better art design than anything in Rift.
I agree that the cities seem dead. Same as they did in Vanguard. I would never call SWTOR a perfect game, or even a great game. Its the best weve gotten in a while though, which speaks more to the competition than anything.
Rift also had security issues that affected thousands of people that customers, not Trion, solved.
I am telling you right now it is all about scaling. If you scaled the Rift zones up to what we are seeing TOR it would have been praised for having so much content.
Not sure if you are noticing, but there is a TON of empty space in TOR. People just want this it seems.
Believe me, I really wanted to like Rift, just like I really wanted to like Aion, but the games just weren't any fun. That's what SWTOR really delivers, BIG fun.
One of the biggest problems i had with rift was it's tiny world. I like to walk around and not run into mobs or quest hubs every 5 feet. Lotro's recent expansion suffers from the same problems. I much prefer big expansive worlds such as Breeland and North Downs in SOA Lotro. SWTOR does this a little and is a big improvement on Rifts world
We need a map legend.
Rift
I------------I
SWTOR
I--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I
WoW
I----------------------------------------------------------------------I
Aion
I----------------------------------I
That is what the scaling seems like when I take what I know from mmo's. When I right down the content in one compared to the other they come out close. I guess you can consider the ships housing which Rift is missing.
In Rift they just scaled everything down. I sort of wonder if that is what people meant by saying they were not aw struck. They could have easily scaled some of the towns upt o what you see into TOR. Rift does have a lot of towns that serve the same purpose as towns in TOR.
Cut out the baiting and have a civil discussion.
You forgot:
Rift
-feels about 90% WoW
SWTOR
-Star Wars KOTOR (50%) + WoW (50%)
I've played both games for a fair amount of time. I'm not going to get in a big argument here; this is just the vibe I get when playing the games. I've played enough World of Warcraft that Rift is just too similar. Yea, the multi-specifializations are cool and so are the rifts, but to me they felt like features that could be added to WoW in an expansion (as in, it felt like I was playing a new WoW expansion). The fact that Rift (or even SWTOR) cant match the ambience, music, and character of WoW... I felt: why play this game when I can just play Warcraft?
SWTOR on the otherhand, feels a lot less like WoW. The biggest thing is the way they capture the Star Wars universe in the geography and in the story-oriented questing. It also just feels like a Bioware game because of the quest interactions (dialogue wheel, voice-overs). It takes a lot from WoW, far too much in my opinion, but its at least different enough that I feel like I'm playing a different game.
Why did I have to bring up WoW in here? Because its a common ground that we (for the most part) have all enjoyed and are just looking for a new game. In conclusion, I foresee myself lasting longer with TOR than with Rift because its (also) a great game thats different enough than World of Warcraft and it feels like Star Wars, which I am a big fan of.
This. So, very this.
character cusumization is the exact same as rifts, rifts zones were tiny and small and did not feel right. but I guess you like the word steamline. I like the word small.
not all of SWTORS NPC are static and guess what not all of Rifts have paths. Skyrim has spolied people in that.
I will never understand this UI thing, why is the UI so bad in SWTOR it does everything I need.
Also SWTOR is ver very polished.
I am suprised you did not say that rift did not have q's on launch, oh wait it had horrible q's that were up wards toward 6-7 hours for about week, only about 1/2 to 1/4 of swtors 100+ servers have this issue.
If Tor did not have the SW name or the Bioware following it would not be selling very many copies. ToR is doing well but its because of the IP. Rift did amazingly well for a compnay and game most people had never heard of 2 months before their release. Rift had 10k total forum users 2 months before release and had the second biggest release ever behind SWTOR with 99 servers. Thats not bad, Now they have exapnded to Russia.
The future is bright for both games. But it is comparing apples and oranges. ToR had a lot going for them at release. Rift has managed to do a good job of retaining subs. The best of any MMO we have seen since WoW. We will see how Tor does in the next 6 months of retaining subs. but Tor unlike Rift should be able to replace lost subs a lot easier. Bth are good games and we should be happy they have been made and done well. In an industry dominated by companies who make very bad games like Funcom and SOE its nice to see some quality products being made.
Making the game world big is great. I approve of making huge game worlds. But to me that's only halfway there. I think devs should make the game world huge, then add hidden areas and unusual mobs that quest givers will never point you toward. Places explorers can find and enjoy for themselves instead of finding them only because an arrow points us to it.
I think that's one reason a lot of people are so unhappy with SWTOR's space combat. People imagined getting into their ship and flying all over the place, exploring, finding out of the way planets, maybe even hidden quest givers with hidden stories.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I love the idea of big worls and exploring. But when I compare some big world games like Vanguard and small world games like Rift I choose vanguard in theory but Rift in reality. Vanguard had a lot of empty open spaces. Rift used all of its content and put in a lot of hiiden areas, quests, puzzles and achievements. Weird that a small game would be better for an explorer. But I think the unerlying philopshy is better. Build a small game and do things well and only do more when you cn do it right. Compare that to the go big philosphy used by games like Vangaurd and some other failed games. You get alot of features and a very broad game but all of poor or unfinished quality. IMO Vanguard had the best core or base of any recently released MMO but the quality of the content (along with the hardware requirements ) kept people from playing and doomed the game. Having SOE along certainly did not help.
In theory I love the "big" concept whether its features or the world. But in the reality of MMOs with a limited budget and limited time for release I do not think it works well. Bioware had the oppurtunity to change this in that their budget was twice that of any previous MMO and at least 3 times that of Rift but the game is still l limited game in terms of scope and features. While they dabbled with some innovation in the quest choices during beta eventually they went the safe route. Not to say Tor is a bad game. IMO its a good game and people should be happy to see a good game being made regardless of whtehr they like it or not.
Rift has most likely been horrible at keeping subs. We know activity is WAY down, but dont know how it correlates to sub numbers. There is no possible way it has better sub retention than LOTRO, which actually grew in its first year.
Yes, its not AoC or WAR. But to say a game thats closed over half of its servers and has more ready to go has done a good job of maintaining subs is ridiculous.
This is pretty much how I feel as well. Very nicely eloquated
Your conclusion is wrong.
The reason people are hopping from Rift to TOR currently is the fact that they are MMO hoppers who will jump from the current themepark treadmill MMO to the next one when it launches, just like they did hop from WoW/WAR/Aion to Rift when it launched.
It's the circle of life for these people, and it will never change. Next big MMO title launches and the MMO hoppers will desert TOR faster than you can say "Where'd everyone go??"
imo rift was lame, a pretty version of wow...i unsubbed a week after release
swtor has me satisfied atm and think it will for a long time to come.. they just need to fix the lag in warzones