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Mythic did a better job with WAR than they did with SWTOR
plzignoreme
Member Posts: 12
WAR is/was considered a failure by many, but I honestly didn't think it was too horrible and actually managed to hit endgame.
The thing is that WAR did a lot of stuff right with respect to making a successful MMO:
1. It encouraged local community interaction through public quests, which are quests that everybody can participate in in an area (like rifts in Rift, or the open events like in GW2)
2. Instant social interaction through remote PvP queues. I loved doing pure BGs/PvP as a means of advancement and getting my fill of the community rather than be forced to run through the boring quests and then empty PQs (public quests).
Of course it did lack a lot of group content and other necessary facets of a good MMO, but the aforementioned added to SWToR would make it fundamentally a better game.
I realize they will be adding a LFD tool, albeit within the server (rather weak decision not making it across servers... hopefully that will change).
What I don't get is why they invested so much on the single player aspect of the game when people play these games to interact with other people. It's like crafting a knife with a beautiful handle, but a dull blade.
Comments
No they didn't. If they did, it wouldn't have literally crashed and burned. I think the PvP was better, and the PQ's were a nice addition to MMOs, but the game was pretty bad overall. And the content was shit.
TOR is a much better game, and it's not even close. Even with all of its flaws.
I disagree. The solo content is, without a doubt, the best of any MMOs to date. However, what's the point of playing an MMO if the best content is solo?
Why even bother going online at all (ignoring the new stupid DRMs)?
Well, they also added too few servers at first, rendering them all completely full. Later they added a massive amount of servers into which everyone would switch to causing a major downfall on the average server population, hence making it socially messed up.
I personally thought that it was a great game, even though I was never a fan of the grittiness. It could have had more content, I agree but it didn't instantly crash and burn.
They both failed, IMO. Public quests was a very good idea and I liked that. But from a story/lore point of view quests are better in SWTOR. It is a good singleplayer game compared to other MMORPG:s. But not compared to the best real singleplayer games.
If you want to explore a virtual world and interact with other players they are both bad. But SWTOR is much worse. WAR had more potential. But they made some mistakes and released it unfinished and unpolished.
I wouldn't say they failed as games, they just failed to appease to the right audience. I personally loved both games, but I wouldn't pay monthly for either of them. I'd hardly say they were failures at all.
In the end, most players want a game with bright colours and/or classic game mechanics. Which makes me wonder whether or not ArenaNet is going to change this with GW2. But aslong as they keep polishing it until it is perfect (As you previously mentioned that WAR and SWToR hadn't) I think they might pull it off.
(I don't think TERA will though, you couldn't actually move and fight at the same time, making PvP a bit too static even though it was sort of FPS. They forgot that mobility is a big part of FPS games, even though they made it into a fantasy game. Excuse my random rambling).
You can disagree all you want, but Rose Colored Glasses aside, WAR did crash and burn. Something to keep in mind though, there is no such thing as "solo", except when content can ONLY be done solo. The word I think you want is "soloable" and it makes sense that the best content will be the content most seen, so it will always be the "soloable" content.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Edit: I wanted to edit my last post. over coffee I thought of a few features in WAR that were superior to SWTOR.
The classes in WAR were way better than the classes in SWTOR.
The Instanced pvp scenarios were better than SWTORs instanced pvp maps.
WAR actually had Open world pvp in every area (while the game was populated).
While SWTOR has a much more refined questing experience WAR added in PQs that atleast at launch gave its playerbase a reason to play together outside an instance.
WARs crafting while ultimately being meaningless (like every other themeparks crafting system) was a unique take on what games were doing at the time. SWTORs crafting is a confused mess, aa system trying to be so different its hardly functional.
WHile using the same engine WARs combat is much tighter and responsive than the combat in SWTOR. Which is pathetic since WAR generally has terribad combat compared to games like WoW & AoC.
One would wonder if WAR was so much better than SWTOR why did it die off? Well because WAR lacked solid pve content and it made the fatal mistake of catering to PVPers. Pvpers show no game loyalty, they will drop your game if game balance isn't in their favor. Unlike Pvers that will stick with the same two or three progression raids for years while you develop more.
Playing: Nothing
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You're saying that SWToR isn't crashing and burning?
There is such a thing as solo:
When you're given content that can be done by a single player i.e. it was designed to be done by a single player, then the challenge vanishes when it is done by more than one player and its content becomes moot at that point, because what's the point of playing through something when it's easy?
I've been playing MMOs since MUDs and there is no point in calling content group content when the content can't be challenging when in a group.
It's analogous to only being given enough content for a level range and being overlvled for the remainder of the content.
If you just want to have an I-win button and not concern yourself with the actual gameplay, then why not read a story, or play good old D&D with friends?
Content should be ENGAGING and CHALLENGING, or it might as well not exist at all.
See, I don't think the solo content is very good.
First of all, the voice acting is spotty. Some of the VAs just mailed it in. There's no feeling of life behind their characters. I understand why, because VA for an MMO has to be bland since you have to reuse the assets constantly. But even in the scenes it's dull and that has to do with the VA being directed improperly. Something I've noticed with a lot of VA over the years.
But mostly the stories were dull/stupid, often palagerized and re-written (like Lucas himself was known to do) and frequently unbelievable. My favorite illustration of a typical over-the-top-stupid story is the Czerka planetary quest in Tatooine. It's early enough that most Republican side players ran into it... And it contains the same flaws that pretty much every story has...
You go to help a Republic SECRET AGENT. He's SECRET BASE is compromised by the General Motors of the Galaxy and when you show up they're at the base to kill the informant of some 'secret project.' There's no staff, just the one guy at this base. So you have to kill the hit men. Even worse, after you kill the hitmen the bad guy-boss calls you on the base's SECRET, UNLISTED PHONE and rants on about how he's going to get you. That's just stupid and left credible writing decades and decades ago. Sure, in an Ian Flemming book written in the 1950's you'd see it... "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die... Mwa ha ha ha ha ha" but this is 2012... And that crap went out before most of you were born.
So, you get this strong impression that Republic SIS is so bad that even corporations can beat it. Plus, you find out he's working alone. (Only he's not. I guess all the security was out to lunch.)
To highlight how dumb the 'no security premise is' when you go to the next base, an hour later in the game, suddenly there's a huge staff of armed security at the new base you'll get to in the third zone. But, in the meantime, you're in the second-zone and sent off on a number of wild-goose chases. One of which you have to meet with this old coot who was the chief of security and locked the old Czerka weapons research facility down when something went bad and you need to interview him.
So, dressed as a Jedi with a lightsaber he mistakes me for a repair man.. (Or as a Commando in full commando armor and fracking cannon over my shoulder...) After I fix his broken security/defensive equipment he gives me this blah, blah story. It's not too bad, one of the better VA jobs to honest. Then, of course, the Czerk boss calls me! Yay me, I'm popular!
He lets me know he's going to bomb us and has sent assassin droids to kill us if the bombing doesn't work. Really? Another "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" moment. Once again, and old, old convention abandonded because it's stupid. So then we get attacked. By a space-ship orbiting TWO KILOMETERS above the surface as the boss informs me... And who can MAGICALLY drop 15 assassin droids inside a locked shelter with nobody noticing!
Now, I have to fight my way to the convient bomb-shelter. But old coot just runs there (off camera so it's not even a lame 'escort' mission) and tha assassin droids sent to shut him up (that's why his security/defense equipment was broken) not only leave him alone, but I have to kill virtually all of them on a death-run... I'm thinking how does a guy who's one fractured hip from a walker get there and I, much younger, faster and healthier, can't.
Two problems, beyond the silly set-up, with the following action. It takes time for the robots to get there from the drop-ship. There wasn't enough. Second, the ship is rendered in space while it's bombarding me. 2 Kilometers isn't space, it's blue skies. It's at about 6500 feet. Or, about the same as Saint Veran, a ski-resort town, in the Alps. The point is, it's not outer space. But the ignorant writers totally flub the detail.
And there are two more zones of stupidity and bad writing to go... And at this point, I'm actually horrifed how bad the main planetary quest is... Bad writing. Bad details. Bad set up. And, in the end, it even plummets to further lows...
So when you say it's good writing. No, it's bad writing. I think you, like so many people, haven't actually looked at it from an objective story-critiquing. You just get caught up in the 'voice-acting = good writing' cliche' and are stuck with the "BioWare has good writers/storytellers" cliche. Neither is true or has been true for a long time. They good writers left, the bad ones stayed.
If this story hit my English 280 -- Creative Writing I class -- it'd have been lucky to get a 'C.' If it had been written in a upper-division creative writing class, it'd have gotten an F and the writer probably would have been left crying when s/he got her/his paper back...
As is SWTOR. Just because the (laughable) Gamer journaliists keep palagerizing the same badly written and mis-reported figure from Joystiq doesn't make it right. It just makes it laughable. Not a single one of knew what a financial 'call' was and none of them caught Joystiq's error because they're not business men. They're little boys who play games and write puff-pieces in a niche-market about how great these gaming companies are because that's where the money comes from. And, as Upton Sinclair wrote ever so long ago: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
A call is a specific-quarter-end/year-end mandatory measurement date. So far there have been two 'calls.'
The first was Decemember 31st, 2011. That was reported in early February. You can read it here: http://investor.ea.com/financials.cfm straight from the horse's mouth himself.
The second was March 31st, 2012. That has NOT been reported. And, since it's EA's fiscal year end (they're a March 31st ending company) and they have to be audited. We won't find out until sometime in June when the audited financial statements are released and, if it's really bad news, they won't report at all because the business unit won't be 'material or significant' and won't require disclosure under GAAP.
And the teacher who is handing out those grades is most likely there because he/she could never make a living as a full time writer.
Yeah, that was low, but then so is knocking a video game based on Star Wars for not being Shakespheare.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
They pull ppl off of daoc to work on Warhammer, then they pull and layoff ppl from Warhammer to work on SWTOR. Now DEV are quitting SWTOR to work for a new company.
WAR uses Gamebryo engine, like Rift. Swtor uses Hero engine. I dislike both engines but i think Gamebryo is better than hero. IMO
If this story hit my English 280 -- Creative Writing I class -- it'd have been lucky to get a 'C.' If it had been written in a upper-division creative writing class, it'd have gotten an F and the writer probably would have been left crying when s/he got her/his paper back...
And the teacher who is handing out those grades is most likely there because he/she could never make a living as a full time writer.
Yeah, that was low, but then so is knocking a video game based on Star Wars for not being Shakesphere.
They would probably be a decent judge of child like stories though.are you drinking? It was THE WORST PVE experience, bar none! See what I did there?
well thats really easy: main objective of any game company is to make money
so since swtor sold more copies and has more subscription => they did better job then mythic
The fact that WAR's end game and big build up was to take capital cities and that too many players fighting in the step before that (fortresses) would crash the server and reset all control points to neutral pretty much refutes your point.
But its possible they are bleeding subscribers faster than WAR did after release. We dont know the real numbers. But I think it only proves that marketing and hype was better. A good business man can sell anything and make money. Even if its a very bad product. Of course it will be a fast cash grab. But that was probably intended.
So basically you are saying that games should FORCE teaming up. Tell you what, you go ahead, create and fund that game out of your own pocket. You might even make your money back, but I somehow doubt it. Fact is players these days want the ability to play both ways, which is why most MMOs make content that is soloable AND content the requires teams of various sizes.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
So what I am reading here is that you can NOT back up your claim, though I agree the game is loosing subs, just like every new game does. On top of that you expect that you will never be able to back up your claim. All this despite the fact that making false claims to investors is punishable by enormous fines and jail time in certain situations. Sorry, but I won't even try to have a discussion with this kind of tinfoil hat fears. There is simply no way to actually have a discussion after all, that is the problem with paranoia.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I am saying it...I haven't lost one guild member since launch and I am seeing more people on my server everyday. The free weekends are bringing me more guild members and they are loving the game so far. I won't say they will stay, but they are playing non-stop right now.
Warhammer was a great concept, but the execution was horrible. I was so excited to play that game and I couldn't make it a month before I uninstalled it. I have been playing ToR since early beta and I still enjoy it.
All the games that are coming out and have come out recently are extremely solo friendly and they seem to just end up being played for a month or so and then end up with a so so population and slowly lose their way to F2P.
The whole single player game with a sub doesn't work.
Have to disagree. I played WAR and it was BORING. It was nothing like the Warhammer universe. It lacked many "social" aspects. QP's were a decent idea but they certainly did not bring "community" together other then for those quests. PvP was deader then any MMO I have played. No, WAR was just a bad MMO AT LAUNCH.
Let's party like it is 1863!
As far as i'm concerned Mythic died the second EA bought them up. EA screwed up WAR and SWTOR.
Not that I'm taking any sides on this debate but you can't say swtor crashed and burned while it has 1.7 millions subs and growing(especially with their 1.2 about to hit).
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