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Why did EA say there were 200 hours of 'story-based gaming for each class'?
noncley
Member UncommonPosts: 718
I didn't experience anyhing like that with my IA or my SI. Where did the hours go?
But here's what they said:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-06-29-ea-200-hours-of-play-per-swtor-class
Each of the six Star Wars: The Old Republic classes pack 200 hours of gameplay, EA has revealed - excluding crafting, raiding and "the multiplayer".
EA Games boss Frank Gibeau described the in-development MMO as "gigantic", although he wishes the game hadn't cost quite so much money to make.
"I don't pay much attention to that talk [of a $300 million budget] - I get a lot of questions from analysts and press about it," Gibeau told GamesIndustry.biz.
"What I try and concentrate on is, is it a good game and is it ready to go?
"You look at a game that has 200 hours of gameplay for each of the six classes, and that doesn't include the crafting, the raids, the multiplayer. It's vast. It's a gigantic game. And that costs money. But when you get one of these launched they persist for a long period of time."
[snip]
BioWare co-bosses Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka told Eurogamer the quality not only of SWTOR but also the associated service had to be right before EA will press go.
Personally, I think that last sentence rings rather hollow.
Comments
Trying to estimate gameplay time in mmos is such a fail that im quite surprised anyone believed in them
But yeah, I surely have not played for 200 hours to reach max level/end of plot
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
Because you know the game have 8 classes
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
They knew. What they did was add in all the generic quests. All the side-quests for the companions. Then laid how long it'd take to do each one in the least efficient method possible -- one at a time, flying back-and-forth and back-and-forth. Which, of course, virtually nobody does...
This isn't, BTW, an EA issue. This announced time-padding has happened in every BioWare game since Jade Empire. BioWare said 40+ hours for that game. The forums were full of really ticked off people because it really took between 18 and 22 hours to do the whole game (original X-Box release). I didn't mind so much, save that of the 20 hours it took me to complete the game, probably one-third to one-half was pointless running around in areas...
There response was 'we never said that.' When people linked what they said, they locked the threads. When people repeatedly linked what they said, they banned them from the forums.
They also said Jade Empire was "X-Box Exclusive" and advertised it that way. Then, a few years later, needed the cash so they dumped it on the PC market. The forums were full of really ticked off PC gamers, some of whom went out and bought X-Boxes so they could play the game only to have BioWare shiv them...
You know what BioWare said? "We never said we wouldn't release it on PC..." I guess they need a dictionary, because exclusive does have defintion which includes "restricted in distribution."
So, don't blame EA. It's been like this for quite some time and Jade Empire is just one game of many where they lied about the product they couldn't deliver. I could have picked NWN and the failed 'real-time, interactive dungeon master' ability they never delivered, but, instead gave us crappy modding tools and little functionality for real-time. I could point out what they PROMISED and what they delivered were light years apart. I could point out that one-half of Kotor was padded running-around to stretch out a 20-hour game. Same with ME1 and ME2...
Anwya, BioWare is no longer that cool game company that made cool, in-depth games with significant options and engaging stories way back in the late 1990s, like Baldur's Gate, and treating its fanboy community with respect. I remember that Company. I was there when that Company was that Company. When they actually gave a damn.
Now it's another corporate crap-fest run by suits and using flash and gimmicks over substance to make its rail-crpg games. And thinking you'll get any kind of honesty from BioWare... NO.
lol. They lied. It takes most people, (i.e. pretty much everyone but the hopeless) without skipping quests or dialog, about 50-hours.
Because they took it for granted that everyone would listen to every single dialogue of every single quest.
Unfortunately most of us abused the space bar more often than not, since it is a MMO, listening to minutes of pointless dialogue of pointless quests, that was never going to be the main activity
So:
200 hours without spacebar
50 hours with spacebar (only because people made the effort to listen to the main story dialogues)
They didn't lie, they were just economical with the truth
200 hours should be considered an "outside estimate" is mostly aimed at the more casual players, anyone whose been in gaming for more than a year knows that it is rather a simple matter to blow through a game in weeks if they so choose.
Games that are "artificially long" by way of huge time-sinks earn their very own brand of hatred (see, another f**king Korean/Chinese/Japanese Grinder)
there are 8 classes, 2 factions, want to get the full unmitigated experience? Go level all 16 & get all your monies worth.
I am, but I'm probably mad.
Yall are so critical of this game but its pretty fun. I mean yea i would hate something too if i completely took for granted and ignored the big seller for the game (the story). Racing to 50 and staying negative? End game sucks when a game first comes out to act surprised by this fact....
I knew people that never used the spacebar but reached the end in much less time than 200 hours
It was all marketing talk as I always knew
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
I didn't space bar, I didn't race to 50, I crafted, I explored, I hunted datachrons and I was nowhere near the 200hrs for story quest. I only wish I had written down when I checked /played @ 50, but I do remember me and my guildies saying no way to 200hrs played.
I bashed swtor pre release.
I bought swtor pre release.
I quited swtor shortly after release.
It was a short but fun ride, but it lacks in so many departments.
I played melee and i never tought a sid warrior died before reaching his target so fast.
Made it to level 32 with story and pvp, but it was not worth that much of my money.
Marketing hype, aka lies.
My gaming blog
Why did they lie? The same reason they call SWTOR an MMO. To get more money. We all know this game would be better suited in the Diablo genre, but then EA and Bioware couldn't get a monthly fee.
Sadly i'm not surprised people believed that garbage. People seem to think that Bioware is capable of doing no harm. That they're basically jesus embodied in a game company or some shit. Its absolutely disgusting to me the brand loyalty people have for that company.
I'm surprised the BWD hasn't jumped on this thread yet. They're probably still trying to sort out what ultra illogical, fallacy ridden resposne they're going to hammer down our throats ad nauseum until we give up trying to reason with them.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
I am a Bioware fan of the first hour, Baldurs Gate is still one of my top 5 RPG, I also own every Bioware game.
Yet I can't deny that with DA2 and Swtor I noticed the start of a descending curve.
Since Bioware has been bought by EA, it is not the same Bioware.
Sad but true
I don't think we can entirely blame EA here. Bioware has been going downhill for a while. DA1 wasn't like it was supposed to be either. And Mass Effect... its not even an RPG much anymore.
I agree, but they were still decent.
With DA2 and Swtor you can smell the marketing departement from miles away
Actually the game has 16 classes. They just say 8 so they have an excuse for not having made a story for half of them.
if yo uplay a Gunslinger (Smuggler) and you want to try a Scoundrel (Smuggler) which is an entirely diffferent gameplay experience, you actually have to re-roll and replay the same story all over again. So yeah, 16 classes. 8 Storylines. Whatever hours.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Why did EA say there were 200 hours of 'story-based gaming for each class'?
This is not mentioned in any of the stuff the OP posted as "proof", they talk about 200 h of gaming... Not the same thing as have been pointed out, now they might have said the line above some place else but not in the stuff the OP provided.
That being said they do ofc use some sort of metric to calculate how fast/slow people will be questing and that is most likley very far from the fine tuned MMO-machines that we see on this forum.
That is my take on it at least
This have been a good conversation
One thing people should keep in mind (although I know most won't and would prefer to just throw "liar" insults at BW and EA) is that the leveling curve was sped up shortly before release. In beta you pretty much had to do every quest if you didn't want to grind to 50.
I'm level 48 ATM and I'm at about 165 hours (without doing ANY PVP and only 2 space missions) but I've also skipped all the bonus content after Taris (Republic) as well as many of the side missions on some planets because I was getting overleveled very early in the game, around level 20. I've also missed 3 or 4 flashpoints. Back in beta I would have had to do those bonus missions to be at the same point I am now which would have put at me at close to or over 200 hours by now considering the Taris bonus missions were probably 4-5 hours alone.
Putting time estimates on any game is hard because people play at different paces. I'm sure I would have saved time by putting on auto loot and area loot but I prefer looting manually so I can see what I'm getting. I don't skip any dialogue and like to look around once in a while and explore and kill extra bosses I see hanging around.
I haven't gotten anywhere near 50 yet and I have 150 hours on my main. How long it takes you to get to 50 is somewhat dependent (read hugely dependent) on playstyle.
If you focus on optimal leveling arcs and space bar through the voice overs you can probably get there in half the time or less. If you listen to the quests and do all the bonus missions even after you've over leveled a world and are getting minimal xp it will take you far more.
Skyrim was beaten in under two hours durring the speed play contest, yet for most of us a hundred hours gets you barely half way through.
It is impossible to accuratly predict what the average leveling arc would be, and those who visit a site dedicated to MMO's like this one are hardly a good indication of the true average. I'm fairly casual in my playing, but there are many many here who consume content like it's a drug and getting to the end is all that matters to them.
What is frustrating to designers is that there's almost no way to make content faster than this sort of player can consume and they're a very vocal minority. For this sort a game with a more sand box aproach would probably hold them longer. If, and it is a big if, someone could build one with systems that can't be exploited.
The gamers who burn through content so quickly also seem to be the same ones who exploit every unintended mechanics advantage to amass huge advantages in a sandbox world.
I ran the numbers the other day and to get through the 4 classes I'm most intrested in will take me easily 6-9 months of playing at a comfortable rate. Yes I could probably do it in 3, but I have a job already and this is supposed to be something fun and relaxing.
Class quest stuff doesn't take very long, after the first couple planets it is only like 3 quests per planet and most of the time is travel. The story sucked, played 3 classes and none of them impressed me and I've quit a couple weeks ago.
Wish they made KOTOR 3, would have been much better.
It was complete BS. 200 hours is roughly eight days played. You can level your class to max level and still watch all the class cotent cutsecnes in far far less time. Probably 4 days played easy.
And considering that 4/5 th of the time to max level is not class quests well, its one of the biggest loads of BS I have ever seen in the MMO industry and that is saying alot.
To put this in perspective for just how big a load this is. I wanted the Healing companion with my Sith Assassin as soon as possible, because a tank spec with a healer is just plain tons better (don;t get me started about why some classes get healer early and other don't even though they are both tanks). So I skipped over to Hoth at a level difference of -4. This is a huge difference in this game. At -5 leutenants are literally unkillable, at -4 you take like double damage and do like 50%.
I finished Hoth class quests in roughly 3-4 hours while being drasitcally underleveled. Now it was quite hard to do and i had to pull out a ton of tricks and was actually quite fun to try. But suffice it to say the class quests are not 200 hours. not even close. Hoth is a planet with a 3-4 level range in the high 30's. The game get harder as you go up in level, things so damaging you more relative to your max hp. Its a major leveling area. This isn't Quesh its one of the larger zones. Its kind of a big deal.
And in case you think its a fluke with a stealth class I did the same thing with a Sith Juggernaut to get the female Jedi companion (which has a pretty darn cool second to final fight for drak side btw, I wish I could flip around like a crazy man the way that guy does).
This would be fine if we were talking about ALL quests. But its only the class quests. Side quests and bonus stuff talk up easily 100 hours of that 150 hours you just mentioned.
And the bonuses really don't take much extra time. You almost always are really close to finishing a normal bonus by simply doing the quest. The only time a bonus takes signficiant extra time is when its a 3 stage bonus which almost always has an elite to fight at the end.