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Missing Some "Industry Standard" MMO Features
subbob
Member Posts: 36
Some Constructive Criticism & Suggestions
Note: Written in the tone of " Love this game, but still room for improvement"
My professional background is U.S. Navy (retired, 21 years, submarine force) - hence the moniker subbob - stands for Submarine Bob. When we did zone inspections, monitored evolutions or conducted drills, our emphasis was on identifying areas for improvement; we did not waste time, space or breath listing all the accolades of what was done right. Such is the case here - what i like about this game is too long to list, but here are some things that need to be fixed. And, quite frankliy I'm at a loss as to why many of them were not present at launch.
3rd Generation? 4th Generation? of MMOs
Honestly not sure how one would categorize how many generations of MMOs we've had now, but it's been 14 years since Ultima Online debuted in 1997. With all of the improvements and lessons learned, it seems many of what I'd consider Industry Standard features are missing from SW:TOR.
Some Basic Missing Functionality
-- No way to add notes or comments to people entries on friends list. This was not there at launch for many previous games either, but it was added over time.
-- Guild functions absent or broken. No ability to send guild mail, member notes are buggy, no guild bank, etc.
-- No way to specify a person's name (selected/targeted person) in a chat command. This is not about macros, this is about ability to facilitate RP and immersion. It is much easier to type "/emote looks at %1 (or %T or %target) and smiles" than it is to try and type some of the long, unpronouncable names in Star Wars.
-- Inventory auto-stacking or lack thereof. This is just poor programming. If you pick up, or harvest, items in the field, those items auto stack up to the 99 limit. BUT, if you buy from GTN, get from email attachments or trade with someone, they do not stack. Likewise, when putting items in your cargo hold, they do not stack. I am a computer programmer - what happens in the field and what happens in these other transactions SHOULD work the same, it should use the same code.
Why Reinvent the Wheel?
Most of the items above were not present in other games at launch time, but they were subsequently added - and became to be expected features of modern day MMOs.
In the end, I'm very consused as to why Bioware did not learn from those other launches and be better from the start. There is something to be said about not repreating the mistakes of others.
Comments
Those are some really serious missing features...
True but minor inconveniences at least for me. It will get fixed eventually
Good post, I play the game mainly from a PvP perspective, so I would also like to add...
1. You can't choose what warzone you want to queue for. Sometimes this results in your doing a warzone you dislike over and over and over...
2. You can't look at the scoreboard during a warzone match. Some people say that it's better this way because it encourages people to play for the objectives rather than most damage/healing. But in reality, you see the scoreboard at the end of the match anyway, people will still play for damage/healing/kills...you can't stop that. May as well give us the option to view the scoreboard while we are waiting for the barrier to come down after dying so we can see how we are doing.
3. Worst of all, the Warzones have NO LEVEL TIERING. So you get stuck going up against level 50's as a bolstered level 10. You may think that's not that bad because your skills still hit hard, but you don't have access to the higher level skills that the level 50 has. It winds up being very unfair.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I agree that these things should be in there, but they are certainly not industry standards (with the exception of the %t, which i wasnt even aware of).
It seems odd to launch with such a basic guild structure, but its also high on their priority list and they arent the only game to launch with a bare bones system.
Item stacking is something that other games seem to struggle with too for whatever reason. rift launched without the standard shift/click method to split stacks for instance.
Again, I 100% agree these things *should* be in game but to call them industry standards (especially the first one) is a bit of a stretch.
I will bet money this is changed after a month or two. I think it should be 10-30 and 31-50 right now. There are so few 40+ people now. A skilled 10 can beat an average 50, but even skill its no contest.
You mean like these?
I would hope so. I actually would have preferred if they did it like Rift where you had "Battlegroups" of like 3 servers that the BG queue would draw from.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
This literally made me LOL
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Thanks for your feedback.
Well, that raises a secondard question - what are, or should be, the industry standards for MMOs?
My reasoning for including some of the above is that they have, in many cases, been added to other games - at the urging of the player base - anywhere from months to years after initial launch.
It's like having automatic transmission, air conditioning, AM/FM radio, power steering and power locks on our cars.
20-30 years ago some of those things were considered luxurious upgrade options. Now many, if not most, of them are standard, sure you can save some $$ buy downgrading them, but the standard now is to have them.
That's what I meant by the term industry standard - that as a whole, the MMO genre, we (players & developers) should have learned from the evolution of other games and adopted the useful features.
And the list above is not an us vs. them, game breaking scale changes. The ability to manage who you know and how you met them (friends' comments) does not give anyone an advantage in combat.
There are numerous arguments that will never be solved (casual vs. hard core, PVP vs PVE, RP vs non-RP and so on). Arguring those topics is as fruitless as arguring any major, politically divisive topic - everyone has their own opinions and they'll not be swayed.
Given their response to the LFD issue, it seems they really want a sense of community for their servers (hint: giving a server forum would greatly help this). they will eventually have to give in to some things for sake of gameplay.
Thanks for your comments. Actually I did think it was necessary to include some perspective on my comments. I'm typically accused of being overly harsh because I focus on identifying areas for improvement and making systems better. I also wanted this to remain a constructive thread, so I tried as best possible to frame it in a positive and constructive manner.
But cars have taken a serious downturn in quality overall. Sure, they have more bells and whistles, but older cars were often just better cars.
I have no isssues with Bioware getting the stuff that matters right before worrying about the bells and whistles. As long as they do address these things early on in the games life cycle its ok IMO. now if its July and we still have no guild bank thats when it crosses into unacceptable territory.
Erm, it is not.
While production costs of car equipment becomes cheaper over time, MMO features become progressively more expensive.
At this time I seriously doubt your programming background or more code you write, less time you need? You got some special method of coding there lol
And people wonder why wow was bad for the genre.
What standards organisation has been chosen to establish these industry wide gameplay standards people keep going on about? How much does it cost the developers to support this organisation. What is its name? What is its acronym, there always has to be an acronym. What arcane set of letters and numbers are used to categorise these standards? Where is it located?
I think I can accurately guess the answer to that last question.
Why would it be? Tiering doesn't do anything except segregate the population. Long story short, its up to you if you want to queue for a warzone or not..
I have 1 level 47 scoundrel, a level 18 commando, and a level 15 sentinel. My 18 commando has been leveling through PvP since level 10. The ONLY major gripe I have is you don't get sprint until level 14 which is a must have, other then that, at level 18 I'm taking down level 50s and loving it. Sometimes I am outmatched, but this isn't a 1 v 1 arena, this is a team game.. strategy trumps levels every time.
Laughing-man - While your reply was a bit tongue-in-cheek, and taunting, I'll still respond to your comments.
-- Pad & Paper and Friends Notes: I often play on 2 or 3 different systems (my desktop, my notebook computer, sometimes on someone else's computer). I access the game from different physical localities; it's nice when "everything I need to know about the game" is within the client interface. It's not a must-have, it's a nice to have.
-- Regarding Ultima Online. You misread or misunderstood my reference; I merely used that as a time frame for when this genre started. I specifically did not get into which games had what features; but many of those games did add these features over time. Perhaps you missed the main point of my thesis - If these feetures were added over time to other games, due to the desires of the player base, why not recognize that need and include such features from the start? That's what evolution is about in game design mechanics; learning from the past and improving the experience.
-- I think you missed the part where I stated I was not asking for macros; a replaceable parameter for a name is a far-cry from being able to stack commands, have looping and so on. (As an aside, with the Logitech G15 keyboard I can already so stuff like one-key press to 1) buff a target; 2) press Z to stow my weapon and 3) ESC to de-select target) However, what I can't do is specify a person's name in an emote, which was the point in my original post.
-- Do you harvest any materials in the field? (scavenging, bioanalysis, etc) When you pick up "aluminum" or "green goo" - and you already have some in your inventory - it does not go into a separate stack, it combines with what you already have. But if you get a stack in trade, or get a stack from mail, or put a stack in cargo hold, that does not happen. From a programming perspective, it should (and could) behave the same way in each case.
-- Development Prioritization. No, I do understand prioritizing choices. I also suspect that the programmers working on this proeject are probably not writing a MMO for the first time. And the items I mentioned are not huge resource drains, many of them could be in the "oh, that's all you need, here let me do it now"
If you were desiring a flaming response to your rancid comments, sorry to disappoint you. I'll still continue to do my best at keeping this thread civil - even where people may disagree with each other or with me.
Fair comments - perhaps "Industray Expectations" would be a better term than "Industry Standards" - honestly I struggled a bit with how to word it when I wrote the original post.
Still struggling, I see. More like individual customer expectations. There are millions of them.
Oh? Well if that's the case, then that would mean that higher level abilities are essentially worthless in PvP. Because if all tiering does is segregate the population, then a level 15 should have an essentially equal chance against a level 50. But ummm...I'm sure this isn't the case.
Higher level abilities give you a big advantage in PvP...for example the Bounty Hunter's "GET OVER HERE" ability is a real game changer.
Also, what kind of defense is "it's up to you if you want to queue for a warzone of not?" That's basically saying "Yeah, it's completely unfair, but you can just decide not to queue!" That's ridiculous. The game should be IMPROVED. You should never tell players "yeah, it sucks, but you can just decide not to do it." If you do, then they will probably decide not to do it...with it being the whole game.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
If BioWare did what you imply, they would be implementing all 'industry standard' features but then little would be left for their own goals and game.
In practice, when you make a piece of software, you build your core features first. Once you have the basic and core functionality, you move to their further improvement, convenience and polish. Not the other way round.
Again, this isn't car industry. BioWare is limited in what they can do in given time and money and focusing on must-haves is primary, everything else comes later.
Limited with a budget in the +$100ish millions, like at least over 2 times the budget of AoC or Aion?
There's something I'm missing here.
Nothing is missing, you're looking for something that was never there in the first place.