SW:TOR system drags you by the nose from second 1 to the level 50. Then the game falls flat to it's face, because you reach the end of the story. Just like you'd do in a single player game, which SW:TOR unfortunately is. While the storytelling is interesting (the first time around), it doesn't fit the kind of game they were forced (by EA) to make.
Quests are meant to give you background info about the area you are, the story behind it and the struggles the people in that area have and need resolving. Beyond that you need to have the freedom to do your thing, if you so choose. This is simply not possible in SW:TOR.
So while the storytelling aspect of Tera's quests is indeed weak, the quests accomplish what they are supposed to in an mmorpg environment. SW:TOR quests do the exact opposite, the storytelling is so strong, you have zero freedom to develop your character, in a game that is all about character development.
Doesn't it annoys you that half the empire players were darths and members of the dark council? A quarter of the server population were Darth Vader status.
I recently saw the movie "Shawshank redemption" and just finished reading the book "to kill a mockingbird" and I am here to tell you I am so happy that the movie and the book dragged me from beggining to end
I bet Frank Darabont and Harper Lee had more fun with those than you did, wouldn't it be nice to create a story rather than to follow one? Oh i do know that TERA wont do that, but when I want to play a game the story is the last f'n thing i care to pay attention to, just my 2c. Good luck with your SWTOR adventures, I'm going to hack and bash my way through TERAs awesome combat.
What Have You Done To Me SWTOR You Have Ruined Me For Other Games!!!!
I find it ironic because I feel like this about TERA vs other games combat...
After having staunchly defended SWTOR for over a year I unsubbed last week.
I just was tired of having nothing to do and no more story to play and the new stuff is just narrowing down the amount of things you can do, 1 raid to do instead of 2, and everyone will want to do the new WZ rather than old ones, and one new WZ will hardly break up the monotony.
The entire lack of any world PVP at all really killed SWTOR for me, how refreshing TERA is in that respect.
Well, going the SW:TOR way is not hte solution really. SW:TOR is a single player game with a coop slapped on it at the last second, and it shows. Yes, mmorpgs need a strong lore aspect and in this regard star wars has an advantage because you don't need the game to introduce you to it. But assuming that we didn't know anything about star wars before playing the mmorpg, how much part of the world you felt once the linear questing to 50 ended? You started a loner and ended a loner.
As for the roleplaying aspect of the game itself, that was really bad when placed in an mmorpg environment. Sure, for a single player game it would work great. If they had made an archam asylum style of game with coop (which SW:TOR should have been imho before EA got greedy), then the roleplay paths could work. But lets have a look at what you have now:
The only class whose story could be remotely plausible is the agent. I suppose a universe of millions could afford 5.000 top ultra agents.
On the other hand, 5.000 bounty hunters winning the annual hunt put us back ... 5.000 years. Right.
And of course Darths. 10.000 darths in a council that can hold 12 people at all times. If this is not a dead end outcome for an mmorpg story, I don't know what is.
The above assumes 20.000 per side per server. Multiply to reach the whole SW:TOR population and the absurdity of the story that places the player in the highest position possible in an mmorpg becomes that much more absurd. Not to mention that the story hit a dead end. You're now Darth, master of the Empire's universe, only step higher is emperor. Would you seriously consider it good roleplaying if a quarter of the players were made Emperors in an expansion?
This big introduction was meant treally to argue that there is one thing crafting an intricate lore for your mmorpg and set your players to live and interact with it, and another to funnel them in a series of events that they have no control over them or the outcome. The funny bit was that WoW as usual tried to copy SW:TOR on that aspect, it's called the Cataclysm expansion and was the worst expansion yet made and a huge mistake as they themselves admitted.
Do you want to see really good world building? Then you should check GW2 and how the dynamic events affect the world around you. You're part of the world, you affect the world in a small manner, but you are by no means all powerful and the world does not revolve around you. In fact, if you don't participate the world and events around you go by without your involvement. This is how an mmorpg roleplaying world should work. Quest hubbing and telling a story in this fashion was (or is if you like) a stepping stone behind dynamic events, but it was needed to reach there and it was working and still is (see how LOTRO handles quests and quest hubs for example).
The bottom line is that while Tera is not ahead of its time in terms of questing (nothing is really, GW2 is not out yet), it's not behind either. You are getting yourself a full mmorpg experience found in any other true mmorpgs (SW:TOR is a coop game as I said) up to and including rift type of events. What remains to be seen is if we'll get the four server battlegrounds and possible dynamic events in the future (which I kind of doubt it for the current zones).
Originally posted by eddieg50
...
I recently saw the movie "Shawshank redemption" and just finished reading the book "to kill a mockingbird" and I am here to tell you I am so happy that the movie and the book dragged me from beggining to end
I'm glad for you, I would expect the same to happen when playing any single player game really. mmorpgs are just not meant to be played that way. Single player games are like watching a runner doing 100 meters. mmorpgs are like watching football, two entirely different beasts.
After playing the closed beta I must say "will someone take me home to SWTOR", Tera is like all the other asian grinders ,especially Perfect World. Now if you like Perfect World that is fine but I guess I have been spoiled by SWTOR, What Have You Done To Me SWTOR You Have Ruined Me For Other Games!!!!. I never used to mind reading the WALL of Text, now I have hit the Wall!!!. My eyes were ready to explode out of my head after reading what Tera thinks is a good story, lets see "kill the jerkabees" "get five hides of of MOO moons" etc, etc. I had read about this exciting combat but did not see or experience it---combo's you call that combo's you want combo's go play AOC you will get decent combo's or even eq2.
We have seen this all before , pretty graphics and the usual wall of text with bad quests mixed in with blah crafting and the usual PvP. "Those damn Yankees are destroying our mmo's, wait I see a shining light with a brilliant story line, take me back to SWTOR, please take me back to SWTOR" "Tera, Tera, what will become of Tera" "Frankly my dear I dont give a damn!"
If you dont give a damn about tera why dont you go to GW2 and complain about graphics and slow combat...
Do you think GW2 will be different??, you are wrong my dear, if you like MMO you really have to learn deal with kill xx mobs go somewhere else deliver crap to npc and kill boss there and here lalalalalal....
But more important, go troll somewhere else in this world, deal????
Well, going the SW:TOR way is not hte solution really. SW:TOR is a single player game with a coop slapped on it at the last second, and it shows. Yes, mmorpgs need a strong lore aspect and in this regard star wars has an advantage because you don't need the game to introduce you to it. But assuming that we didn't know anything about star wars before playing the mmorpg, how much part of the world you felt once the linear questing to 50 ended? You started a loner and ended a loner.
Let's be realistic here. SWTOR isn't the MMORPG that I most want to play, but it's still an MMORPG, saying that it's not is just some politically or ideologically made statement. But by everyone not being hindered by such motives, SWTOR is regarded and treated as an MMORPG, the whole industry does.
If you don't like the emphasis it puts on its story based questing or how they implemented the MMO features, well, you're free to do so, but that doesn't make it any less an MMORPG. But it shares all the features commonly seen in (themepark) MMORPG's, so if SWTOR isn't an MMORPG, then 9 out of 10 MMORPG's aren't MMO's. Kinda nonsense.
And please don't use the 'but it doesn't feel like an MMO to me', I've learnt that feelings are as subjective and erratic as they come, and wildly differing from one person to the next.
As for the quest outcome in SWTOR: in AoC you're the 'Chosen One' just like any other player, in WoW you defeat Arthas, just like the thousands of other players that also defeat the same Arthas guy etc.
edit: heh, I just saw this is a TERA thread, my bad. Just saw this thread flash by on the main page and felt like replying on the quoted post above.
I would agree that AoC has a rather weak beginning as an mmorpg. It improves as you move away from Tortage. As for WoW, you're part of an army to kill Arthas. An elite soldier perhaps, but still one of the many.
And btw, just because somebody wants to market something as X, doesn't it qualifies as that. Feature wise, SW:TOR is identical to GW1, yet one has EA hyping machine behind it tuting it as mmorpg while the other has honest developers admitting it is a coop game.
Seriously, Tera has some weak quest structure, but it's more of an mmorpg than SW:TOR will ever become. Both because they don't try to say a single player story and because the engine is more capable to deal with a massive amount of people in one place. The only thing that keeps SW:TOR afloat is the EA marketing machine and the strong ip, the game itself is rather weak, for an mmorpg (it tells a rather good single player story admittedly).
Ah and one last thing. Lore for me is very important, to the point of being a game breaking aspect. But there is one thing about building a strong world environment, where you can adventure, and another to put yourself in a horse you can't dismount in a rally you can't control. Storytelling that puts you on the lead have a place, it's called single player games. Skyrim was a great example of one, imagine how bloated and distorted that game would have been if everyone was the superman you eventually become.
And btw, just because somebody wants to market something as X, doesn't it qualifies as that. Feature wise, SW:TOR is identical to GW1, yet one has EA hyping machine behind it tuting it as mmorpg while the other has honest developers admitting it is a coop game.
Seriously, Tera has some weak quest structure, but it's more of an mmorpg than SW:TOR will ever become. Both because they don't try to say a single player story and because the engine is more capable to deal with a massive amount of people in one place. The only thing that keeps SW:TOR afloat is the EA marketing machine and the strong ip, the game itself is rather weak, for an mmorpg (it tells a rather good single player story admittedly).
Ah and one last thing. Lore for me is very important, to the point of being a game breaking aspect. But there is one thing about building a strong world environment, where you can adventure, and another to put yourself in a horse you can't dismount in a rally you can't control. Storytelling that puts you on the lead have a place, it's called single player games. Skyrim was a great example of one, imagine how bloated and distorted that game would have been if everyone was the superman you eventually become.
It's not 'somebody', the whole industry, from game companies to news companies to gaming sites regard SWTOR as an MMORPG, gamers as well, at least everyone who hasn't a bone to pick with SWTOR just because they dislike it for the choices its creators have made with the game. If you dislike the definition public perception and opinion use for MMORPG's, that's on you, and purely on you. The rest of the gaming industry, hell, the rest of the world doesn't have that problem: a shooter is a shooter, an RTS is an RTS and an MMORPG is an MMORPG.
Look, you hate MMO's that have a heavy emphasis on story based questing, I get it. Just don't make some political stance about it, as if it makes an MMORPG suddenly not an MMORPG anymore. It just makes them MMORPG's you dislike and not have that element that you're looking for in the MMORPG's you want to play.
This is why I hate it when people talk from their feelings and emotions, it just puts rationality, logic and objectivity on a second place, how they 'feel' about something suddenly having more weight than how things are or simple facts.
Well, going the SW:TOR way is not hte solution really. SW:TOR is a single player game with a coop slapped on it at the last second, and it shows. Yes, mmorpgs need a strong lore aspect and in this regard star wars has an advantage because you don't need the game to introduce you to it. But assuming that we didn't know anything about star wars before playing the mmorpg, how much part of the world you felt once the linear questing to 50 ended? You started a loner and ended a loner.
As for the roleplaying aspect of the game itself, that was really bad when placed in an mmorpg environment. Sure, for a single player game it would work great. If they had made an archam asylum style of game with coop (which SW:TOR should have been imho before EA got greedy), then the roleplay paths could work. But lets have a look at what you have now:
The only class whose story could be remotely plausible is the agent. I suppose a universe of millions could afford 5.000 top ultra agents.
On the other hand, 5.000 bounty hunters winning the annual hunt put us back ... 5.000 years. Right.
And of course Darths. 10.000 darths in a council that can hold 12 people at all times. If this is not a dead end outcome for an mmorpg story, I don't know what is.
The above assumes 20.000 per side per server. Multiply to reach the whole SW:TOR population and the absurdity of the story that places the player in the highest position possible in an mmorpg becomes that much more absurd. Not to mention that the story hit a dead end. You're now Darth, master of the Empire's universe, only step higher is emperor. Would you seriously consider it good roleplaying if a quarter of the players were made Emperors in an expansion?
This big introduction was meant treally to argue that there is one thing crafting an intricate lore for your mmorpg and set your players to live and interact with it, and another to funnel them in a series of events that they have no control over them or the outcome. The funny bit was that WoW as usual tried to copy SW:TOR on that aspect, it's called the Cataclysm expansion and was the worst expansion yet made and a huge mistake as they themselves admitted.
Do you want to see really good world building? Then you should check GW2 and how the dynamic events affect the world around you. You're part of the world, you affect the world in a small manner, but you are by no means all powerful and the world does not revolve around you. In fact, if you don't participate the world and events around you go by without your involvement. This is how an mmorpg roleplaying world should work. Quest hubbing and telling a story in this fashion was (or is if you like) a stepping stone behind dynamic events, but it was needed to reach there and it was working and still is (see how LOTRO handles quests and quest hubs for example).
The bottom line is that while Tera is not ahead of its time in terms of questing (nothing is really, GW2 is not out yet), it's not behind either. You are getting yourself a full mmorpg experience found in any other true mmorpgs (SW:TOR is a coop game as I said) up to and including rift type of events. What remains to be seen is if we'll get the four server battlegrounds and possible dynamic events in the future (which I kind of doubt it for the current zones).
Originally posted by eddieg50
...
I recently saw the movie "Shawshank redemption" and just finished reading the book "to kill a mockingbird" and I am here to tell you I am so happy that the movie and the book dragged me from beggining to end
I'm glad for you, I would expect the same to happen when playing any single player game really. mmorpgs are just not meant to be played that way. Single player games are like watching a runner doing 100 meters. mmorpgs are like watching football, two entirely different beasts.
You do make some good points, however swtor has small groups , crafting , companions, PvP, raids, space,Guilds, etc, in short everything you might expect in a mmorpg, so this kind of debunks your statement that swtor is a single player game with co op, when you criticise a game please accurately do so.
It sounds like you are trying to pigeon hole all the story lines into your own plot and that is ok, however this is an mmorpg with millions of people playing and an mmo does not lend itself to that and although you call this a single player game bioware and millions do not agree.
I have not played gw2 yet but I have played gw quite a bit, they also do a good job of building a world, how ever I played gw for its excellent PvP which i do find to be better than swtor. I would like to see swtor abandon PvP and work on space, but this is not going to happen cause there are to many people who love PvP;
Tera is not only not ahead of its time in terms of questing but they are way behind and have shown laziness when it comes to questing especially compared to swtor-it is not even close, swtor crushes tera when it comes to story, quests, voice overs , cut scenes-dont take my word for it the fact is if you read others criticisms the "quest problem" is what is holding tera back.
Like Tera and many other players you are forgetting the RPG part in mmorpg , I am so happy that Bioware did not forget that part.
One thing I do understand is that the developers of Tera may not have had the money to do what Swtor did and that I understand as it cost big bucks for that kind of production, but that does not excuse them for their lack of creativity when it comes to quests and story building. Look at AOC, people praised them for their combat (deservedly so) but yet after lvl 20 People left, why? because those people and others also praised them for their story, voice overs, cut scenes, production, when people left Tortage the voice overs , cut scenes and production disappeared, I do give AOC credit for trying to carry out the story line but they did it with a wall of text and people could not handle that. That tells me that People wanted to see the story presented in a movie fashion along with cut scenes , voice overs and production.
I do thank Tera for trying to come up with a nice tweak on the combat system (although i like AOC better) but it will take more than that and monsters with big butts to make a interesting and popular mmorpg
Let's be realistic here. SWTOR isn't the MMORPG that I most want to play, but it's still an MMORPG, saying that it's not is just some politically or ideologically made statement. But by everyone not being hindered by such motives, SWTOR is regarded and treated as an MMORPG, the whole industry does.
If you don't like the emphasis it puts on its story based questing or how they implemented the MMO features, well, you're free to do so, but that doesn't make it any less an MMORPG. But it shares all the features commonly seen in (themepark) MMORPG's, so if SWTOR isn't an MMORPG, then 9 out of 10 MMORPG's aren't MMO's. Kinda nonsense.
And please don't use the 'but it doesn't feel like an MMO to me', I've learnt that feelings are as subjective and erratic as they come, and wildly differing from one person to the next.
As for the quest outcome in SWTOR: in AoC you're the 'Chosen One' just like any other player, in WoW you defeat Arthas, just like the thousands of other players that also defeat the same Arthas guy etc.
edit: heh, I just saw this is a TERA thread, my bad. Just saw this thread flash by on the main page and felt like replying on the quoted post above.
Would be wrong to say SWTOR isn't an mmorpg however they build it like a single player and add mmo on top of it is what most people feel. Sure you still call it mmorpg but to most people it doesn't feel like mmorpg. Just like how instance based game like dragon nest and vindicutus are mmorpgs but many people don't feel like they are because of lack of open world.
Questing is a means to an end for most people. No one reads the text. I spacebarred through all of SWTOR's dialogue. Who cares? If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie with a much better plot than something a bunch of video game designers could come up with.
Since you seem to be fond of Shadowbane, you should appreciate a game's lack of emphasis on questing and storyline in favor of fun gameplay mechanics.
I find TERA's combat to be less mind-numbing than SWTOR's. It's nice to have to worry about positioning and reading your enemies rather than just unloading your standard rotation over and over with almost no regard to changing circumstances. What do I spend 90% of my time doing when I play MMOs? Combat. TERA gets combat right.
Questing is a means to an end for most people. No one reads the text. I spacebarred through all of SWTOR's dialogue. Who cares? If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie with a much better plot than something a bunch of video game designers could come up with.
Since you seem to be fond of Shadowbane, you should appreciate a game's lack of emphasis on questing and storyline in favor of fun gameplay mechanics.
I find TERA's combat to be less mind-numbing than SWTOR's. It's nice to have to worry about positioning and reading your enemies rather than just unloading your standard rotation over and over with almost no regard to changing circumstances. What do I spend 90% of my time doing when I play MMOs? Combat. TERA gets combat right.
And let's face it, SWTOR's pvp is abysmal.
WEll, I always read the text and never once space barred through any of SWToR.
Having said that, Tera is the first game EVER that I didn't read the text. The quests for the most part are abysmal.
Love the game but I have been having a hard time reading any of Tera's quests.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Questing is a means to an end for most people. No one reads the text. I spacebarred through all of SWTOR's dialogue. Who cares? If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie with a much better plot than something a bunch of video game designers could come up with.
Since you seem to be fond of Shadowbane, you should appreciate a game's lack of emphasis on questing and storyline in favor of fun gameplay mechanics.
I find TERA's combat to be less mind-numbing than SWTOR's. It's nice to have to worry about positioning and reading your enemies rather than just unloading your standard rotation over and over with almost no regard to changing circumstances. What do I spend 90% of my time doing when I play MMOs? Combat. TERA gets combat right.
And let's face it, SWTOR's pvp is abysmal.
WEll, I always read the text and never once space barred through any of SWToR.
Having said that, Tera is the first game EVER that I didn't read the text. The quests for the most part are abysmal.
Love the game but I have been having a hard time reading any of Tera's quests.
Text size is also an issue, its too fcking small most of the time. I find it take too much effort to read the text even if the story might have been interesting.
Questing is a means to an end for most people. No one reads the text. I spacebarred through all of SWTOR's dialogue. Who cares? If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie with a much better plot than something a bunch of video game designers could come up with.
Since you seem to be fond of Shadowbane, you should appreciate a game's lack of emphasis on questing and storyline in favor of fun gameplay mechanics.
I find TERA's combat to be less mind-numbing than SWTOR's. It's nice to have to worry about positioning and reading your enemies rather than just unloading your standard rotation over and over with almost no regard to changing circumstances. What do I spend 90% of my time doing when I play MMOs? Combat. TERA gets combat right.
And let's face it, SWTOR's pvp is abysmal.
spacebarring through swtor quests is like not useing combos in AOC. The story , quests, voice overs, cut scenes are the main feature of swtor. I will say this FOR ALL OF YOU WHO ARE THINKING OF BUYING SWTOR- Did you like dragon age, Mass effect 2 and 3, even Baldurs Gate shadows of amin?-because if you liked those games and can imagine them in an mmorpg than this game is for you, especially if you like the story and rpg parts of those games, now the reverse is true if you did not like those games you are prob not going to like swtor so dont waste your money.
Shadowbane was a very unique game for its time, it did not have a huge pop but it did have a very devoted one. It was a sand box with world PvP that was done really well, it promoted grouping and it was very easy to find a group, it had great classes and great tallents, it was similar to dark fall but much much better imo.
Yea swtor PvP compared to other mmo's is average (not abysmal). IMO the only good PvP is World PvP , they should just have servers for that. If they are not going to have world PvP than I think that swtor should abandon PvP and work on the space game which needs to be fleshed out
Questing is a means to an end for most people. No one reads the text. I spacebarred through all of SWTOR's dialogue. Who cares? If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie with a much better plot than something a bunch of video game designers could come up with.
Since you seem to be fond of Shadowbane, you should appreciate a game's lack of emphasis on questing and storyline in favor of fun gameplay mechanics.
I find TERA's combat to be less mind-numbing than SWTOR's. It's nice to have to worry about positioning and reading your enemies rather than just unloading your standard rotation over and over with almost no regard to changing circumstances. What do I spend 90% of my time doing when I play MMOs? Combat. TERA gets combat right.
And let's face it, SWTOR's pvp is abysmal.
WEll, I always read the text and never once space barred through any of SWToR.
Having said that, Tera is the first game EVER that I didn't read the text. The quests for the most part are abysmal.
Love the game but I have been having a hard time reading any of Tera's quests.
Text size is also an issue, its too fcking small most of the time. I find it take too much effort to read the text even if the story might have been interesting.
that is one reason I stopped playing Eve, the text was so small and you could not control the font size. "In space no one can hear you text"
Text size is also an issue, its too fcking small most of the time. I find it take too much effort to read the text even if the story might have been interesting.
lol, oh tell me about it. I've been feeling that pain latel as I think I need glasses.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
After playing the closed beta I must say "will someone take me home to SWTOR", Tera is like all the other asian grinders ,especially Perfect World. Now if you like Perfect World that is fine but I guess I have been spoiled by SWTOR, What Have You Done To Me SWTOR You Have Ruined Me For Other Games!!!!. I never used to mind reading the WALL of Text, now I have hit the Wall!!!. My eyes were ready to explode out of my head after reading what Tera thinks is a good story, lets see "kill the jerkabees" "get five hides of of MOO moons" etc, etc. I had read about this exciting combat but did not see or experience it---combo's you call that combo's you want combo's go play AOC you will get decent combo's or even eq2.
We have seen this all before , pretty graphics and the usual wall of text with bad quests mixed in with blah crafting and the usual PvP. "Those damn Yankees are destroying our mmo's, wait I see a shining light with a brilliant story line, take me back to SWTOR, please take me back to SWTOR" "Tera, Tera, what will become of Tera" "Frankly my dear I dont give a damn!"
Has to be a troll, no one actually likes SWTOR.
Are you a Pavlovian Fish Biscuit Addict? Get Help Now! I will play no more MMORPGs until somethign good comes out!
All I have to say is... lets weigh and compare Tera's Budget to SWTOR's budget..... Now lets give the pros and cons of both games:
SWTOR: 200 million
Pros
Little more engageed questing system
player story
Rail shooter
Your own spaceship...(though model shared with class)
Lots of planets to explore (even though they are small and faction split mostly, until higher levels)
Its Star Wars
Lightsabers
Cons
WoW in space
horrible pvp
hutball
easy
Resolve system
Nothing new in combat
Easy raids
Terrible Engine/performance
Discourages grouping
LUCAS Arts
TERA: 35 million (40billion WON)
Pros
Combat system
Political System
Engaging PvP
Guild vs Guild
Difficult Instances all the way to cap
Player skill is required... cant just roll face on keyboard
Server V Server
Battlegrounds that have meaning... (political system involvement)
BAMs
Encourages grouping
HUGE world
Rifts to introduce raiding (until they can figure out how to introduce raids with the combat system)
Not built around the questing system you can grind BAM's and instances to level at the same speed if not quicker
Unreal 3 Engine
Cons
Questing system is horrible
Korean import
Voice acting in the few instances it is seen....horrible
Still a themepark at its core
Gear difference in PvP is huge
Elin
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
You know, I was in the Tera closed beta recently, and yes, for my 1-11 levels that I did on 3 characters it was all pretty much standard fair with a twist on the combat mechanics.
But you know what, I like leveling in MMORPGs, even standard theme parks, I tend to burn out once I get to the top level and try to figure out what there is to do.
I'm not a raider, and not into gear grinds, don't mind grinding for cash a bit and I love things to do with territory control.
Not sure if Tera has any of that yet, but might be worth a shot vs SWTOR which I am currently playing and suddenly lost interest in my level 47 Commando because I don't really want to reach 50, which will be the end of the road for me I fear. (Re-rolled a sniper on empire side just to stave off the inevitable and see more of the story)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
And eddieg by calling it asian grinders its pretty obvious you didn't even play the game at all. Because the lvl speed is pretty close to rift/WoW/swtor, there isn't much lvling grinding at all when you can hit 30+ in 24hrs which is like half way through the game.
You must be the first guy EVER to use that as a PRO when it comes to listing pros and cons of an MMO.
wait what? i didn't even list any pro or cons here o.o
Hm, your post implied that the fast levelling is a good thing. If not, my bad.
Okay so TERA is not for you, I can understand and respect that. I personally wouldn't be here on the TERA boards making a post about going back to SWTOR, simply because I felt TERA wasn't for me. I would simply just just go back.
And eddieg by calling it asian grinders its pretty obvious you didn't even play the game at all. Because the lvl speed is pretty close to rift/WoW/swtor, there isn't much lvling grinding at all when you can hit 30+ in 24hrs which is like half way through the game.
You must be the first guy EVER to use that as a PRO when it comes to listing pros and cons of an MMO.
wait what? i didn't even list any pro or cons here o.o
Hm, your post implied that the fast levelling is a good thing. If not, my bad.
Not saying its a bad thing either .
I simply meant its fast because the person i was quoting said it was an asian grinder which means it takes forever to lvl but Tera has same lvl speed as most western mmorpgs. Good or bad depend on player ^_^
Comments
I got a good little chuckle outta the title of this thread.
But at the same time I feel old since alot of people didnt get it
I prefer TERAs quest UI over SWTORs, after skipping over all quest context and/or voice overs TERA felt better to follow afterwards :P
I bet Frank Darabont and Harper Lee had more fun with those than you did, wouldn't it be nice to create a story rather than to follow one? Oh i do know that TERA wont do that, but when I want to play a game the story is the last f'n thing i care to pay attention to, just my 2c. Good luck with your SWTOR adventures, I'm going to hack and bash my way through TERAs awesome combat.
I find it ironic because I feel like this about TERA vs other games combat...
After having staunchly defended SWTOR for over a year I unsubbed last week.
I just was tired of having nothing to do and no more story to play and the new stuff is just narrowing down the amount of things you can do, 1 raid to do instead of 2, and everyone will want to do the new WZ rather than old ones, and one new WZ will hardly break up the monotony.
The entire lack of any world PVP at all really killed SWTOR for me, how refreshing TERA is in that respect.
Well, going the SW:TOR way is not hte solution really. SW:TOR is a single player game with a coop slapped on it at the last second, and it shows. Yes, mmorpgs need a strong lore aspect and in this regard star wars has an advantage because you don't need the game to introduce you to it. But assuming that we didn't know anything about star wars before playing the mmorpg, how much part of the world you felt once the linear questing to 50 ended? You started a loner and ended a loner.
As for the roleplaying aspect of the game itself, that was really bad when placed in an mmorpg environment. Sure, for a single player game it would work great. If they had made an archam asylum style of game with coop (which SW:TOR should have been imho before EA got greedy), then the roleplay paths could work. But lets have a look at what you have now:
The only class whose story could be remotely plausible is the agent. I suppose a universe of millions could afford 5.000 top ultra agents.
On the other hand, 5.000 bounty hunters winning the annual hunt put us back ... 5.000 years. Right.
And of course Darths. 10.000 darths in a council that can hold 12 people at all times. If this is not a dead end outcome for an mmorpg story, I don't know what is.
The above assumes 20.000 per side per server. Multiply to reach the whole SW:TOR population and the absurdity of the story that places the player in the highest position possible in an mmorpg becomes that much more absurd. Not to mention that the story hit a dead end. You're now Darth, master of the Empire's universe, only step higher is emperor. Would you seriously consider it good roleplaying if a quarter of the players were made Emperors in an expansion?
This big introduction was meant treally to argue that there is one thing crafting an intricate lore for your mmorpg and set your players to live and interact with it, and another to funnel them in a series of events that they have no control over them or the outcome. The funny bit was that WoW as usual tried to copy SW:TOR on that aspect, it's called the Cataclysm expansion and was the worst expansion yet made and a huge mistake as they themselves admitted.
Do you want to see really good world building? Then you should check GW2 and how the dynamic events affect the world around you. You're part of the world, you affect the world in a small manner, but you are by no means all powerful and the world does not revolve around you. In fact, if you don't participate the world and events around you go by without your involvement. This is how an mmorpg roleplaying world should work. Quest hubbing and telling a story in this fashion was (or is if you like) a stepping stone behind dynamic events, but it was needed to reach there and it was working and still is (see how LOTRO handles quests and quest hubs for example).
The bottom line is that while Tera is not ahead of its time in terms of questing (nothing is really, GW2 is not out yet), it's not behind either. You are getting yourself a full mmorpg experience found in any other true mmorpgs (SW:TOR is a coop game as I said) up to and including rift type of events. What remains to be seen is if we'll get the four server battlegrounds and possible dynamic events in the future (which I kind of doubt it for the current zones).
I'm glad for you, I would expect the same to happen when playing any single player game really. mmorpgs are just not meant to be played that way. Single player games are like watching a runner doing 100 meters. mmorpgs are like watching football, two entirely different beasts.
If you dont give a damn about tera why dont you go to GW2 and complain about graphics and slow combat...
Do you think GW2 will be different??, you are wrong my dear, if you like MMO you really have to learn deal with kill xx mobs go somewhere else deliver crap to npc and kill boss there and here lalalalalal....
But more important, go troll somewhere else in this world, deal????
Let's be realistic here. SWTOR isn't the MMORPG that I most want to play, but it's still an MMORPG, saying that it's not is just some politically or ideologically made statement. But by everyone not being hindered by such motives, SWTOR is regarded and treated as an MMORPG, the whole industry does.
If you don't like the emphasis it puts on its story based questing or how they implemented the MMO features, well, you're free to do so, but that doesn't make it any less an MMORPG. But it shares all the features commonly seen in (themepark) MMORPG's, so if SWTOR isn't an MMORPG, then 9 out of 10 MMORPG's aren't MMO's. Kinda nonsense.
And please don't use the 'but it doesn't feel like an MMO to me', I've learnt that feelings are as subjective and erratic as they come, and wildly differing from one person to the next.
As for the quest outcome in SWTOR: in AoC you're the 'Chosen One' just like any other player, in WoW you defeat Arthas, just like the thousands of other players that also defeat the same Arthas guy etc.
edit: heh, I just saw this is a TERA thread, my bad. Just saw this thread flash by on the main page and felt like replying on the quoted post above.
I would agree that AoC has a rather weak beginning as an mmorpg. It improves as you move away from Tortage. As for WoW, you're part of an army to kill Arthas. An elite soldier perhaps, but still one of the many.
And btw, just because somebody wants to market something as X, doesn't it qualifies as that. Feature wise, SW:TOR is identical to GW1, yet one has EA hyping machine behind it tuting it as mmorpg while the other has honest developers admitting it is a coop game.
Seriously, Tera has some weak quest structure, but it's more of an mmorpg than SW:TOR will ever become. Both because they don't try to say a single player story and because the engine is more capable to deal with a massive amount of people in one place. The only thing that keeps SW:TOR afloat is the EA marketing machine and the strong ip, the game itself is rather weak, for an mmorpg (it tells a rather good single player story admittedly).
Ah and one last thing. Lore for me is very important, to the point of being a game breaking aspect. But there is one thing about building a strong world environment, where you can adventure, and another to put yourself in a horse you can't dismount in a rally you can't control. Storytelling that puts you on the lead have a place, it's called single player games. Skyrim was a great example of one, imagine how bloated and distorted that game would have been if everyone was the superman you eventually become.
It's not 'somebody', the whole industry, from game companies to news companies to gaming sites regard SWTOR as an MMORPG, gamers as well, at least everyone who hasn't a bone to pick with SWTOR just because they dislike it for the choices its creators have made with the game. If you dislike the definition public perception and opinion use for MMORPG's, that's on you, and purely on you. The rest of the gaming industry, hell, the rest of the world doesn't have that problem: a shooter is a shooter, an RTS is an RTS and an MMORPG is an MMORPG.
Look, you hate MMO's that have a heavy emphasis on story based questing, I get it. Just don't make some political stance about it, as if it makes an MMORPG suddenly not an MMORPG anymore. It just makes them MMORPG's you dislike and not have that element that you're looking for in the MMORPG's you want to play.
This is why I hate it when people talk from their feelings and emotions, it just puts rationality, logic and objectivity on a second place, how they 'feel' about something suddenly having more weight than how things are or simple facts.
You do make some good points, however swtor has small groups , crafting , companions, PvP, raids, space,Guilds, etc, in short everything you might expect in a mmorpg, so this kind of debunks your statement that swtor is a single player game with co op, when you criticise a game please accurately do so.
It sounds like you are trying to pigeon hole all the story lines into your own plot and that is ok, however this is an mmorpg with millions of people playing and an mmo does not lend itself to that and although you call this a single player game bioware and millions do not agree.
I have not played gw2 yet but I have played gw quite a bit, they also do a good job of building a world, how ever I played gw for its excellent PvP which i do find to be better than swtor. I would like to see swtor abandon PvP and work on space, but this is not going to happen cause there are to many people who love PvP;
Tera is not only not ahead of its time in terms of questing but they are way behind and have shown laziness when it comes to questing especially compared to swtor-it is not even close, swtor crushes tera when it comes to story, quests, voice overs , cut scenes-dont take my word for it the fact is if you read others criticisms the "quest problem" is what is holding tera back.
Like Tera and many other players you are forgetting the RPG part in mmorpg , I am so happy that Bioware did not forget that part.
One thing I do understand is that the developers of Tera may not have had the money to do what Swtor did and that I understand as it cost big bucks for that kind of production, but that does not excuse them for their lack of creativity when it comes to quests and story building. Look at AOC, people praised them for their combat (deservedly so) but yet after lvl 20 People left, why? because those people and others also praised them for their story, voice overs, cut scenes, production, when people left Tortage the voice overs , cut scenes and production disappeared, I do give AOC credit for trying to carry out the story line but they did it with a wall of text and people could not handle that. That tells me that People wanted to see the story presented in a movie fashion along with cut scenes , voice overs and production.
I do thank Tera for trying to come up with a nice tweak on the combat system (although i like AOC better) but it will take more than that and monsters with big butts to make a interesting and popular mmorpg
Would be wrong to say SWTOR isn't an mmorpg however they build it like a single player and add mmo on top of it is what most people feel. Sure you still call it mmorpg but to most people it doesn't feel like mmorpg. Just like how instance based game like dragon nest and vindicutus are mmorpgs but many people don't feel like they are because of lack of open world.
Questing is a means to an end for most people. No one reads the text. I spacebarred through all of SWTOR's dialogue. Who cares? If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie with a much better plot than something a bunch of video game designers could come up with.
Since you seem to be fond of Shadowbane, you should appreciate a game's lack of emphasis on questing and storyline in favor of fun gameplay mechanics.
I find TERA's combat to be less mind-numbing than SWTOR's. It's nice to have to worry about positioning and reading your enemies rather than just unloading your standard rotation over and over with almost no regard to changing circumstances. What do I spend 90% of my time doing when I play MMOs? Combat. TERA gets combat right.
And let's face it, SWTOR's pvp is abysmal.
WEll, I always read the text and never once space barred through any of SWToR.
Having said that, Tera is the first game EVER that I didn't read the text. The quests for the most part are abysmal.
Love the game but I have been having a hard time reading any of Tera's quests.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Text size is also an issue, its too fcking small most of the time. I find it take too much effort to read the text even if the story might have been interesting.
spacebarring through swtor quests is like not useing combos in AOC. The story , quests, voice overs, cut scenes are the main feature of swtor. I will say this FOR ALL OF YOU WHO ARE THINKING OF BUYING SWTOR- Did you like dragon age, Mass effect 2 and 3, even Baldurs Gate shadows of amin?-because if you liked those games and can imagine them in an mmorpg than this game is for you, especially if you like the story and rpg parts of those games, now the reverse is true if you did not like those games you are prob not going to like swtor so dont waste your money.
Shadowbane was a very unique game for its time, it did not have a huge pop but it did have a very devoted one. It was a sand box with world PvP that was done really well, it promoted grouping and it was very easy to find a group, it had great classes and great tallents, it was similar to dark fall but much much better imo.
Yea swtor PvP compared to other mmo's is average (not abysmal). IMO the only good PvP is World PvP , they should just have servers for that. If they are not going to have world PvP than I think that swtor should abandon PvP and work on the space game which needs to be fleshed out
that is one reason I stopped playing Eve, the text was so small and you could not control the font size. "In space no one can hear you text"
lol, oh tell me about it. I've been feeling that pain latel as I think I need glasses.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Has to be a troll, no one actually likes SWTOR.
Are you a Pavlovian Fish Biscuit Addict? Get Help Now!
I will play no more MMORPGs until somethign good comes out!
All I have to say is... lets weigh and compare Tera's Budget to SWTOR's budget..... Now lets give the pros and cons of both games:
SWTOR: 200 million
Pros
Little more engageed questing system
player story
Rail shooter
Your own spaceship...(though model shared with class)
Lots of planets to explore (even though they are small and faction split mostly, until higher levels)
Its Star Wars
Lightsabers
Cons
WoW in space
horrible pvp
hutball
easy
Resolve system
Nothing new in combat
Easy raids
Terrible Engine/performance
Discourages grouping
LUCAS Arts
TERA: 35 million (40billion WON)
Pros
Combat system
Political System
Engaging PvP
Guild vs Guild
Difficult Instances all the way to cap
Player skill is required... cant just roll face on keyboard
Server V Server
Battlegrounds that have meaning... (political system involvement)
BAMs
Encourages grouping
HUGE world
Rifts to introduce raiding (until they can figure out how to introduce raids with the combat system)
Not built around the questing system you can grind BAM's and instances to level at the same speed if not quicker
Unreal 3 Engine
Cons
Questing system is horrible
Korean import
Voice acting in the few instances it is seen....horrible
Still a themepark at its core
Gear difference in PvP is huge
Elin
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
You know, I was in the Tera closed beta recently, and yes, for my 1-11 levels that I did on 3 characters it was all pretty much standard fair with a twist on the combat mechanics.
But you know what, I like leveling in MMORPGs, even standard theme parks, I tend to burn out once I get to the top level and try to figure out what there is to do.
I'm not a raider, and not into gear grinds, don't mind grinding for cash a bit and I love things to do with territory control.
Not sure if Tera has any of that yet, but might be worth a shot vs SWTOR which I am currently playing and suddenly lost interest in my level 47 Commando because I don't really want to reach 50, which will be the end of the road for me I fear. (Re-rolled a sniper on empire side just to stave off the inevitable and see more of the story)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Hm, your post implied that the fast levelling is a good thing. If not, my bad.
Not saying its a bad thing either
.
To the OP
Okay so TERA is not for you, I can understand and respect that. I personally wouldn't be here on the TERA boards making a post about going back to SWTOR, simply because I felt TERA wasn't for me. I would simply just just go back.
Best of luck in whatever game you decide to play
Regards
Manaia Jones
I simply meant its fast because the person i was quoting said it was an asian grinder which means it takes forever to lvl but Tera has same lvl speed as most western mmorpgs. Good or bad depend on player ^_^