Of course, that's an honest attempt at looking at something. you most certainly aren't interested in doing anything objective or honest.
Originally posted by iceman00
But KOTOR was released in 2003. Jade Empire was released in 2005. So wouldn't it be appropriate to state that Jade Empire had KOTOR gameplay instead?
The system was in development for an unannounced game when they got the Star Wars deal. After Jade Empire came out most in the industry agreed that was the unannounced title.
Originally posted by iceman00
Funny, I never exploited those imbalances and bugs. Even when i played my CM, I found ways to play it other than the 2k tick mind poison. Against an experienced pvp group, those scrubs were fodder.
We all knew the game had some bugs. But it had one of the greatest economies ever in a game. It had one of the best social communities ever established in a game. And it had a relatively functional pvp (if not rvr) system. Given the fact that most MMOs during that time were hot buggy messes, it was a good game for its time.
Of course, that's an honest attempt at looking at something. you most certainly aren't interested in doing anything objective or honest.
Then you were certainly in the minority. However your post does not address what I posted about 1,000,000 boxes and 250,000 subs being a massive vote against the Pre-CU.
The great economy? You mean the one where new players couldn't afford weapons and armor because they were priced at thousands of credits for grind garbage? They couldn't even consider the 10 million credit top of the line weapons and armor. The kind that were imperative to be competitive in what you call 'relatively functional pvp'.
Want to break into that awesome sandbox crafting and harvesting? Sorry, the harvesters weren't even for sale for credits. You had to be in one of the special guilds or friends with an established architect to even get your hands on the big harvesters.
Community? You mean the forced community of sitting down to a glorified chat room for doctor buffs? Yea, you seem to be remembering with a biased haze. The way I remember it is a bored afk doctor with a circle of afk adventures around him. The only interaction was the 10,000 credits handed over when you sat down and then the 10 minutes plus of afk just to get buffs.
How about those cantinas? No chat bubbles, no interaction, just more credit drops, afk players and bored entertainers whining on the forums about making the adventurers stay at their keyboards and talk to them. (If you know the name Kwee from Ten Ton Hammer, then you know I speak the truth) So much for 'one of the best communities'.
PvP? It was popular for some of the 250k subs. Unlock Jedi making everyone cry, CH and their rancors wiping entire guilds, and that lovely poison exploit you so proudly avoided. Who else did? Because I didn't see them, and the forums sure never quieted down about it.
So yea, let's review...
Imbalanced Professions/PvP - Check! (of course I did mention this earlier)
Boring buff system hazily remembered as 'community' - Check!
Broken economy within three months of release? - Check!
You know your fond memories, I know the reality.
I played the Pre-CU about a year after the release untill the NGE hit, the best time in the game. It was a massive sprawling economic sucess, thousands of player made tents with vendors hanging all there belongings for people to see. There were hundreads of player run cities all designed unique to there taste, every time you logged on it was a new expierence because the players could truly build and form the world into something of there own. It was, in the simplest sence, the definition of what made sandboxes.
Theres a lot of great things to tell about the game, the evolution of mmorpgs cant help but take notice to SWG and what the game did for the genre. Like most things in life, failure dosn't mean it wasnt sucesfull in the long run. As such with SWG, even though for being way ahead of its time in terms of inovation, getting everything to run took a long time, and I got lucky cause I got to play the best time of the game, a year after all the bugs had been worked out.
Looking back on it now though, the game had already been damanged beyond repair even in the times between pre-cu and the nge. People had different ideas of what they wanted the game to be, and that I think played a big role in the games downfall. I think the code was genious, the game it self was a master piece, the way it flowed and the way the community fed off of each other given the time frame in mmos, it was very well planned and executed.
I just wanted to say, I always keep SWG on my HD cause its a great game and play it regularly.
You need to realize something....
Since the game didn't satisfy his personal desires, the game sucked objectively. In order to convince himself of the point he started with, he uses a bit of hyperbole, a ton of anachronism, and fails at understanding certain mechanics to arrive at that conclusion.
When all he had to say was "this game wasn't for me." Even if he wanted to discuss things, he could do so in a better manner, other than realizing that when we say "community" we mean those who actually liked playing alongside other people, and working together on various projects. I myself hated decorating and all that stuff. But when the guild needed our city to have a good cantina, you bet your ass I went to the remote shops in the galaxy to find the best stuff, sparing no expense (final bill, 20 million rofl).
Was the game perfect? Of course not. Did it have bugs? Absolutely. Did a failure to deliver on a lot of the grandiose things they were promising lead to a lot of people leaving? You bet. Would the game be a steaming pile of garbage if it was released in 2012? Hell yes it would! Yet for a 2003 game, it was a mighty fine game, with some things to teach the MMOs of today.
But such a nuanced explanation is lost on trolls like him.
Of course, that's an honest attempt at looking at something. you most certainly aren't interested in doing anything objective or honest.
Originally posted by iceman00
But KOTOR was released in 2003. Jade Empire was released in 2005. So wouldn't it be appropriate to state that Jade Empire had KOTOR gameplay instead?
The system was in development for an unannounced game when they got the Star Wars deal. After Jade Empire came out most in the industry agreed that was the unannounced title.
Originally posted by iceman00
Funny, I never exploited those imbalances and bugs. Even when i played my CM, I found ways to play it other than the 2k tick mind poison. Against an experienced pvp group, those scrubs were fodder.
We all knew the game had some bugs. But it had one of the greatest economies ever in a game. It had one of the best social communities ever established in a game. And it had a relatively functional pvp (if not rvr) system. Given the fact that most MMOs during that time were hot buggy messes, it was a good game for its time.
Of course, that's an honest attempt at looking at something. you most certainly aren't interested in doing anything objective or honest.
Then you were certainly in the minority. However your post does not address what I posted about 1,000,000 boxes and 250,000 subs being a massive vote against the Pre-CU.
The great economy? You mean the one where new players couldn't afford weapons and armor because they were priced at thousands of credits for grind garbage? They couldn't even consider the 10 million credit top of the line weapons and armor. The kind that were imperative to be competitive in what you call 'relatively functional pvp'.
Want to break into that awesome sandbox crafting and harvesting? Sorry, the harvesters weren't even for sale for credits. You had to be in one of the special guilds or friends with an established architect to even get your hands on the big harvesters.
Community? You mean the forced community of sitting down to a glorified chat room for doctor buffs? Yea, you seem to be remembering with a biased haze. The way I remember it is a bored afk doctor with a circle of afk adventures around him. The only interaction was the 10,000 credits handed over when you sat down and then the 10 minutes plus of afk just to get buffs.
How about those cantinas? No chat bubbles, no interaction, just more credit drops, afk players and bored entertainers whining on the forums about making the adventurers stay at their keyboards and talk to them. (If you know the name Kwee from Ten Ton Hammer, then you know I speak the truth) So much for 'one of the best communities'.
PvP? It was popular for some of the 250k subs. Unlock Jedi making everyone cry, CH and their rancors wiping entire guilds, and that lovely poison exploit you so proudly avoided. Who else did? Because I didn't see them, and the forums sure never quieted down about it.
So yea, let's review...
Imbalanced Professions/PvP - Check! (of course I did mention this earlier)
Boring buff system hazily remembered as 'community' - Check!
Broken economy within three months of release? - Check!
You know your fond memories, I know the reality.
I played the Pre-CU about a year after the release untill the NGE hit, the best time in the game. It was a massive sprawling economic sucess, thousands of player made tents with vendors hanging all there belongings for people to see. There were hundreads of player run cities all designed unique to there taste, every time you logged on it was a new expierence because the players could truly build and form the world into something of there own. It was, in the simplest sence, the definition of what made sandboxes.
Theres a lot of great things to tell about the game, the evolution of mmorpgs cant help but take notice to SWG and what the game did for the genre. Like most things in life, failure dosn't mean it wasnt sucesfull in the long run. As such with SWG, even though for being way ahead of its time in terms of inovation, getting everything to run took a long time, and I got lucky cause I got to play the best time of the game, a year after all the bugs had been worked out.
Looking back on it now though, the game had already been damanged beyond repair even in the times between pre-cu and the nge. People had different ideas of what they wanted the game to be, and that I think played a big role in the games downfall. I think the code was genious, the game it self was a master piece, the way it flowed and the way the community fed off of each other given the time frame in mmos, it was very well planned and executed.
I just wanted to say, I always keep SWG on my HD cause its a great game and play it regularly.
You need to realize something....
Since the game didn't satisfy his personal desires, the game sucked objectively. In order to convince himself of the point he started with, he uses a bit of hyperbole, a ton of anachronism, and fails at understanding certain mechanics to arrive at that conclusion.
When all he had to say was "this game wasn't for me." Even if he wanted to discuss things, he could do so in a better manner, other than realizing that when we say "community" we mean those who actually liked playing alongside other people, and working together on various projects. I myself hated decorating and all that stuff. But when the guild needed our city to have a good cantina, you bet your ass I went to the remote shops in the galaxy to find the best stuff, sparing no expense (final bill, 20 million rofl).
Was the game perfect? Of course not. Did it have bugs? Absolutely. Did a failure to deliver on a lot of the grandiose things they were promising lead to a lot of people leaving? You bet. Would the game be a steaming pile of garbage if it was released in 2012? Hell yes it would! Yet for a 2003 game, it was a mighty fine game, with some things to teach the MMOs of today.
But such a nuanced explanation is lost on trolls like him.
I support you guys that see SWG for what it really was. Not perfect but a true MMO that went far beyond the gameplay mechanics.
That other guy...all I can say is what a tool. Shame at what he missed because he just didn't get it.
In the cities and stuff. I often hear people say the swotor cities are stale and not alive. But how imporatnt is it to people?
Yes I know that is a GW2 clip. Its not meant to start a war the game simply has tons of that stuff so it has better examples. Between cow racing and diving board you can do flips off of and NPCs having 5 minute conversations and NPC that have 5-10 minutes of scripted action you would never know about unless you followed. Not talking about Dynamic event content. Just things that have no bearing on advancement just happening and even interacting with your character.
How important are these things to a game like SWTOR? Is it just fluff or is it somehow essenital?
I think it would have been good for BW to have spent time with the worlds/cities to have made them more lively. Even in beta it was brought up how stale the game felt. Nice big cities, and couldn't sit down or even have anything to do in the cantinas (once again couldn't sit down). The npcs stood around did nothing, it was so dull. I think there are a good many things that made people unsub and this added to it I'm sure.
In the cities and stuff. I often hear people say the swotor cities are stale and not alive. But how imporatnt is it to people?
Yes I know that is a GW2 clip. Its not meant to start a war the game simply has tons of that stuff so it has better examples. Between cow racing and diving board you can do flips off of and NPCs having 5 minute conversations and NPC that have 5-10 minutes of scripted action you would never know about unless you followed. Not talking about Dynamic event content. Just things that have no bearing on advancement just happening and even interacting with your character.
How important are these things to a game like SWTOR? Is it just fluff or is it somehow essenital?
I think it would have been good for BW to have spent time with the worlds/cities to have made them more lively. Even in beta it was brought up how stale the game felt. Nice big cities, and couldn't sit down or even have anything to do in the cantinas (once again couldn't sit down). The npcs stood around did nothing, it was so dull. I think there are a good many things that made people unsub and this added to it I'm sure.
I've never seen an explaination if one was ever given.
Have they ever explained why there is a fleet station and not using cantinas as a hub?
Cantinas is so perfect for hubs since they kinda do fit into lore and small enough to be crowded which adds life right?
Why didn't they put mini-games like pazaak and pod racing? Hell, that thing they call a space game is a perfect system for pod raceing is it not? A little adjustment here and tweek there and whammo we have competitive pod racing.
Anyways I just never seen any explaination why they electected to make the game so anti-social when it only takes little things.
Originally posted by iceman00 You need to realize something.... Since the game didn't satisfy his personal desires, the game sucked objectively. In order to convince himself of the point he started with, he uses a bit of hyperbole, a ton of anachronism, and fails at understanding certain mechanics to arrive at that conclusion. When all he had to say was "this game wasn't for me." Even if he wanted to discuss things, he could do so in a better manner, other than realizing that when we say "community" we mean those who actually liked playing alongside other people, and working together on various projects. I myself hated decorating and all that stuff. But when the guild needed our city to have a good cantina, you bet your ass I went to the remote shops in the galaxy to find the best stuff, sparing no expense (final bill, 20 million rofl). Was the game perfect? Of course not. Did it have bugs? Absolutely. Did a failure to deliver on a lot of the grandiose things they were promising lead to a lot of people leaving? You bet. Would the game be a steaming pile of garbage if it was released in 2012? Hell yes it would! Yet for a 2003 game, it was a mighty fine game, with some things to teach the MMOs of today. But such a nuanced explanation is lost on trolls like him.
You don't know me.
After reading this you have absolutely no idea about how I felt about SWG.
I played it far more than you did, I can assure you of that.
The only difference is I don't look at it with rose colored glasses. I don't have to worship at the SWG altar. It was just a game and I can be critical of its faults. Someone that floats away to dreamland when they remember the game can't do that.
Hyperbole? Name something in my posts that I have exaggerated. You can't because I experienced it firsthand. What about my statements are anachronistic? I have 38 GB of fraps to use as reference from my time as guild chronicler, I was a correspondent for two different professions, and in those roles I talked to the devs directly. I had a SWG podcast for 3 years. I was in the game up to my eyeballs. So don't tell me I hated the game.
The difference is I remember it accurately so when someone finally decides to do a sandbox again I can recall it correctly instead of the mind numb response of the (pretty boring now) fanbase's mantra of 'Pre-CU SWG rawked, NGE ruined it, damn SoE!'
When they say, 'Bring back the economy' I can refrain, 'but not the broken mission terminals.' or 'But allow players access to all blueprints so there is no community hoarding and glass ceilings'.
When they say, 'Bring back the cool interaction!' I can refrain, 'Without turning it into a boring AFK fest.'
When they say, 'Bring back the awesome PvP' I can refrain, 'Without the CH domination, the Mind Poison exploits, or the Superclass Jedi'.
All you do if you just remember it it as wholly good (and I mean more than just saying, 'Ya, it hads its bugs!' without accurately remembering those bugs) is cause devs that listen to the fans to rebuild incorrectly. From inaccurate wistfulness rather than a cold and critical look at what worked and what didn't and why some things appealed to the players. (often it was because something was broken) So many have tried and failed maybe the worshipers need to stop worshiping it to other developers and recall it accurately. Maybe then they will realize some had a great time in PvP because it was broken and they owned everyone. if that is replicated, who does it help? Or a player run political community where it ruins the atmosphere of the genre with urban blight, who knows maybe the next attempt has a fix for it. But if nobody remembers the problems with that 'awesome player city stuff' then they'll just repeat the mistakes.
I'm here with an accurate recollection of the game because I was one of it's biggest fans. The only reason you call me a hater is because you can't remember it clearly enough to remember it as it really was instead you remember it as it could have been. that does nobody any good. We can all dream, but not all of us can be accurately critical of things we truly enjoy.
Seriously, go back to my posts and tell me where I got something factually wrong. (not an opinion, but facts about the system wrong)
So that pretty much sums up your pop psychology look at me, and what my intentions are. The simple fact is you can't build a game from pie-in-the-sky dreams, but you can from a solid idea you remember as fun and then fix that idea as you rebuild it.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Originally posted by Bardus I support you guys that see SWG for what it really was. Not perfect but a true MMO that went far beyond the gameplay mechanics. That other guy...all I can say is what a tool. Shame at what he missed because he just didn't get it.
Probably shouldn't insult people on the forums, for one its against the forum rules, and second when you're ignorant of the intent of the person you insult, you're the one that ends up looking like an idiot. Read he post above to see where your assumption is wrong.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
How much time has been wasted in this thread talking about something other than what needs to be done to SWTOR? I'm going to add a user to my ignore list and talk about the topic instead.
The development team needs to focus on improving worlds, making systems more complicated as an option for those who want to explore more complex game mechanics (such as allowing for more choices in modding, etc.), and introducing non-linear game aspects.
Of course, that's an honest attempt at looking at something. you most certainly aren't interested in doing anything objective or honest.
Originally posted by iceman00
But KOTOR was released in 2003. Jade Empire was released in 2005. So wouldn't it be appropriate to state that Jade Empire had KOTOR gameplay instead?
The system was in development for an unannounced game when they got the Star Wars deal. After Jade Empire came out most in the industry agreed that was the unannounced title.
Originally posted by iceman00
Funny, I never exploited those imbalances and bugs. Even when i played my CM, I found ways to play it other than the 2k tick mind poison. Against an experienced pvp group, those scrubs were fodder.
We all knew the game had some bugs. But it had one of the greatest economies ever in a game. It had one of the best social communities ever established in a game. And it had a relatively functional pvp (if not rvr) system. Given the fact that most MMOs during that time were hot buggy messes, it was a good game for its time.
Of course, that's an honest attempt at looking at something. you most certainly aren't interested in doing anything objective or honest.
Then you were certainly in the minority. However your post does not address what I posted about 1,000,000 boxes and 250,000 subs being a massive vote against the Pre-CU.
The great economy? You mean the one where new players couldn't afford weapons and armor because they were priced at thousands of credits for grind garbage? They couldn't even consider the 10 million credit top of the line weapons and armor. The kind that were imperative to be competitive in what you call 'relatively functional pvp'.
Want to break into that awesome sandbox crafting and harvesting? Sorry, the harvesters weren't even for sale for credits. You had to be in one of the special guilds or friends with an established architect to even get your hands on the big harvesters.
Community? You mean the forced community of sitting down to a glorified chat room for doctor buffs? Yea, you seem to be remembering with a biased haze. The way I remember it is a bored afk doctor with a circle of afk adventures around him. The only interaction was the 10,000 credits handed over when you sat down and then the 10 minutes plus of afk just to get buffs.
How about those cantinas? No chat bubbles, no interaction, just more credit drops, afk players and bored entertainers whining on the forums about making the adventurers stay at their keyboards and talk to them. (If you know the name Kwee from Ten Ton Hammer, then you know I speak the truth) So much for 'one of the best communities'.
PvP? It was popular for some of the 250k subs. Unlock Jedi making everyone cry, CH and their rancors wiping entire guilds, and that lovely poison exploit you so proudly avoided. Who else did? Because I didn't see them, and the forums sure never quieted down about it.
So yea, let's review...
Imbalanced Professions/PvP - Check! (of course I did mention this earlier)
Boring buff system hazily remembered as 'community' - Check!
Broken economy within three months of release? - Check!
You know your fond memories, I know the reality.
This stuff only began 1 year after the game was released when the holocrons -> unlockiing force sensitivity began. SWG had the best crafting system, Player bounty hunting, pvp was very large scale and epic. Sure it had a ton of bugs and frustrating times but overall during its time the game was flipping awesome until holocrons entered the mix. Then people started going afk grinding and it was all down hill from there.
Needs to be done, to call a halt to the lowering numbers of suscriprions and make new people and old fans interested intoo this game again?
Can it be saved at all?
It's too late to be asking now.
Amazing feedback and suggestions on everything from class balance to world PVP to PVE issues and server issues - all were given on the SWTOR official forums but it was all deleted by their fascist moderators.
The feedback they received, they dismissed and ignored, saying that they knew better than their players.
They can stew in the juice of their failure and enjoy their unemployment checks.
They deserve their failure, it is entirely the fault of EAware's arrogant, incompetent and dishonest staff.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
Needs to be done, to call a halt to the lowering numbers of suscriprions and make new people and old fans interested intoo this game again?
Can it be saved at all?
It's too late to be asking now.
Amazing feedback and suggestions on everything from class balance to world PVP to PVE issues and server issues - all were given on the SWTOR official forums but it was all deleted by their fascist moderators.
The feedback they received, they dismissed and ignored, saying that they knew better than their players.
They can stew in the juice of their failure and enjoy their unemployment checks.
They deserve their failure, it is entirely the fault of EAware's arrogant, incompetent and dishonest staff.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
Just so you know, I was one of the many people who actively supported Bioware, tested their content on PTS, made long feedback threads with constructive suggestions etc.
In short, I spent MY time and MY energy trying to help the game. All for free, and with the best of intentions.
I don't think we ask for much, and we certainly don't expect a perfect product - just a bit of civility and communication for those who provide feedback when asked for it. We got neither.
ALL of that feedback on PTS forums, from me and others, was either dismissed out of sheer arrogance, or deleted. Getting infracted and banned for posting feedback was really the cherry on the cake.
I hold the staff of SWTOR in utter contempt for both their censorship and their dismissal of all the ideas that could have helped SWTOR. They are arrogant, incompetent and, on a personal level, untrustworthy. I stand by what I said.
I hope they never work again in the gaming industry or any sort of forum/communications/etc job - and, simply put, do not profit or gain a paycheck ever again from said traits above.
Needs to be done, to call a halt to the lowering numbers of suscriprions and make new people and old fans interested intoo this game again?
Can it be saved at all?
It's too late to be asking now.
Amazing feedback and suggestions on everything from class balance to world PVP to PVE issues and server issues - all were given on the SWTOR official forums but it was all deleted by their fascist moderators.
The feedback they received, they dismissed and ignored, saying that they knew better than their players.
They can stew in the juice of their failure and enjoy their unemployment checks.
They deserve their failure, it is entirely the fault of EAware's arrogant, incompetent and dishonest staff.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
Just so you know, I was one of the many people who actively supported Bioware, tested their content on PTS, made long feedback threads with constructive suggestions etc.
In short, I spent MY time and MY energy trying to help the game. All for free, and with the best of intentions.
I don't think we ask for much, and we certainly don't expect a perfect product - just a bit of civility and communication for those who provide feedback when asked for it. We got neither.
ALL of that feedback on PTS forums, from me and others, was either dismissed out of sheer arrogance, or deleted. Getting infracted and banned for posting feedback was really the cherry on the cake.
I hold the staff of SWTOR in utter contempt for both their censorship and their dismissal of all the ideas that could have helped SWTOR. They are arrogant, incompetent and, on a personal level, untrustworthy. I stand by what I said.
I hope they never work again in the gaming industry or any sort of forum/communications/etc job - and, simply put, do not profit or gain a paycheck ever again from said traits above.
Then I will leave you to feel the way you do and voice them. I disagree and still feel you are being extremely harsh to those you don't actually know. There was some feedback there that they could have grown from. It is not, however, a team effort to moderate forums. Unless your Anet who takes personal pride in fully integrating the team with the community. Anet is the only development team to do this I believe, and so your frusteration is only caused by about two or three people. Even they are just doing a job. A bad job? Perhaps. As I stated I've seen the feedback they tossed and much of it was helpful. Still I don't consider doing a bad job at work to be equal to the judgement given.
Regardless I appreciate the brief consideration of the subject. I hope more people stop and think for a second about the impact of their words on the internet. Downright disgusting and hateful things are said on the web, often aimed at people they don't know for things that they don't fully understand or are just simply petty. For example, people have been arrested for sending death threats to the bioware team for the Mass Effect 3 ending. An ending that some did not enjoy is hardly worth someones life.
If you are comfortable representing yourself with what you say and you understand its impact then so be it. At least you thought about it. Didn't mean to derail the thread though, just to add some contemplation while posters are posting.
Needs to be done, to call a halt to the lowering numbers of suscriprions and make new people and old fans interested intoo this game again?
Can it be saved at all?
It's too late to be asking now.
Amazing feedback and suggestions on everything from class balance to world PVP to PVE issues and server issues - all were given on the SWTOR official forums but it was all deleted by their fascist moderators.
The feedback they received, they dismissed and ignored, saying that they knew better than their players.
They can stew in the juice of their failure and enjoy their unemployment checks.
They deserve their failure, it is entirely the fault of EAware's arrogant, incompetent and dishonest staff.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
Just so you know, I was one of the many people who actively supported Bioware, tested their content on PTS, made long feedback threads with constructive suggestions etc.
In short, I spent MY time and MY energy trying to help the game. All for free, and with the best of intentions.
I don't think we ask for much, and we certainly don't expect a perfect product - just a bit of civility and communication for those who provide feedback when asked for it. We got neither.
ALL of that feedback on PTS forums, from me and others, was either dismissed out of sheer arrogance, or deleted. Getting infracted and banned for posting feedback was really the cherry on the cake.
I hold the staff of SWTOR in utter contempt for both their censorship and their dismissal of all the ideas that could have helped SWTOR. They are arrogant, incompetent and, on a personal level, untrustworthy. I stand by what I said.
I hope they never work again in the gaming industry or any sort of forum/communications/etc job - and, simply put, do not profit or gain a paycheck ever again from said traits above.
Then I will leave you to feel the way you do and voice them. I disagree and still feel you are being extremely harsh to those you don't actually know. There was some feedback there that they could have grown from. It is not, however, a team effort to moderate forums. Unless your Anet who takes personal pride in fully integrating the team with the community. Anet is the only development team to do this I believe, and so your frusteration is only caused by about two or three people. Even they are just doing a job. A bad job? Perhaps. As I stated I've seen the feedback they tossed and much of it was helpful. Still I don't consider doing a bad job at work to be equal to the judgement given.
Regardless I appreciate the brief consideration of the subject. I hope more people stop and think for a second about the impact of their words on the internet. Downright disgusting and hateful things are said on the web, often aimed at people they don't know for things that they don't fully understand or are just simply petty. For example, people have been arrested for sending death threats to the bioware team for the Mass Effect 3 ending. An ending that some did not enjoy is hardly worth someones life.
If you are comfortable representing yourself with what you say and you understand its impact then so be it. At least you thought about it. Didn't mean to derail the thread though, just to add some contemplation while posters are posting.
To be clear, I don't wish them bodily harm. That would be crazy.
Not having them make games and booting EA's suits out of the industry would not be a bad thing however. Let's face it, those guys have no respect for video games or their customers, so why would we want them to stay.
You can't save this game at all, using the HeroEngine is just shooting yourself in the head, and that's exactly what BioWare does everytime with their games.
This game is a complete failure right from the engine itself, it's the typical MMO thing we've all seen and played, nobody wants that, and nobody ever will anymore.
It's old and overused, and if you really wanted that style of game than you'd just go and play WoW.
Using the HeroEngine for Star Wars was probably the worst idea to come, instead they should've just built their own engine from the ground up and made it more like star wars where there was ACTUAL combat with lightsabers, blasters, etc. With actual hitboxes yet still being an MMO. If not, then they should've just stuck it to the way KOTOR was but make it online.
The ONLY possible way for this game to be good is with either of the above suggested, which would require making a whole new game. And thus TOR would be no more.
I can't see how they haven't gone f2p yet with barely any subscribers, let alone the fact how they haven't shut down the servers and called it quits. - All of this being my personal views/opinions, not meant to be taken as fact.
You can't save this game at all, using the HeroEngine is just shooting yourself in the head, and that's exactly what BioWare does everytime with their games.
This game is a complete failure right from the engine itself, it's the typical MMO thing we've all seen and played, nobody wants that, and nobody ever will anymore.
It's old and overused, and if you really wanted that style of game than you'd just go and play WoW.
Using the HeroEngine for Star Wars was probably the worst idea to come, instead they should've just built their own engine from the ground up and made it more like star wars where there was ACTUAL combat with lightsabers, blasters, etc. With actual hitboxes yet still being an MMO. If not, then they should've just stuck it to the way KOTOR was but make it online.
The ONLY possible way for this game to be good is with either of the above suggested, which would require making a whole new game. And thus TOR would be no more.
I can't see how they haven't gone f2p yet with barely any subscribers, let alone the fact how they haven't shut down the servers and called it quits. - All of this being my personal views/opinions, not meant to be taken as fact.
In all fairness, please research a little before accusing Hero and a little understanding what the engine really is. 1st read this http://www.heroengine.com/2011/11/heroengine-meets-starwars/ . In short it says Bioware insisted getting the engine while it was still just a concept and they (Bioware) said they will code the rest in themselves. Hero told them if they want it then just write the check but Bioware will be on their own with it, Hero cannot support it. The engine in TOR is only Hero by name and resembles nothing that Hero is today.
I'll also add a quote from a developer of TheRepopulation which is using Hero. Hero has come under scrutiny there because of TOR's preformance so here is an exchange between a poster and developer on that forum. (names omited)
XXX wrote:Really liking a lot everything going on with the game. Just trying to understand why not use something more mainstream? Like Unreal or Cryengine or something normal? Or even a custom.
Hero Engine is an engine designed from the ground up to support MMOs. Those other engines are not. There are many things that Hero Engine does out of the box that are beneficial for MMO developers, things like seamless, instancing, a very configurable spatial awareness system, it's well fitted to extend, scripts can be compiled and have the changes running in a matter of seconds (as opposed to restarting servers, and then uploading that is used in most every other engine), etc. Unreal and Cryengine were made with first person shooters in mind. Their networking is focused more on that type of design, collaberative editing, small areas less players. They are of course configurable, but your talking about a ton of extra time spent to implement things that Hero Engine already does and does well. Of course those engines are better rendering engines than Hero. They have better graphical features. But that's just a small part of an MMO.
FYI Repop was originally written in T3D. Before all of these engines became available for cheap (and then free), all of these engines were $500,000+ licenses, which is out of our price range.
XXX wrote:Also I just hate the ugly cartoony look the thing superimposes.
That actually has nothing to do with Hero Engine. Those were shaders that Bioware elected to go with in TOR. Same goes for all of TORs mechanics. Love them or hate them, they were developer decisions. I think all too often people mistake how much is the engine, and how much is actual code. Hero Engine (similar to most every other engine) is just a core. When you start with Hero Engine you basically have an empty shell that has a faked ability bar (preset abilities, not tied to characters), a compass and an example of character selection. From there its up to the developers to create the rest.
TORs gameplay (good or bad) is the result of their design decisions. Their design called for a theme park style game, and they elected to go with higher polygon counts than most MMOs. You may not be able to notice that when you play it because of the shaders, but they have pretty hefty polygon counts. They also are using much more complex shaders and texture counts than many of the other MMOs out there, and many more clothing/texture options. The game is designed to look the way it does, and run pretty well in most cases. However, when you get a ton of people in a small area, all wearing different clothing types, it's going to chug. That's completely a design decision. They went for what would work in most cases, and got crucified by some users for how it performs in the other situations (primarily Ilum).
Many in the general public they assume the engine is the game, and you just theme it how you want it. But that's not quite true. Hero Engine could be used in an FPS, a space simulator, an RPG, RTS, whatever you want to create with it. It could be action based or RPG based. It could be optimized to run well on poor machines, or it could be optimized to look great but have performance issues on those same boxes.
We've tried the other MMO middleware available, and we choose Hero Engine. We're completely happy with that decision. That's not to say it's a perfect engine. Every engine on the market has it's own strengths and weaknesses. But as the entire package, I think it's your best bet for developing MMOs in a timely manner."
ZZZ wrote:Essentially it gives you a bunch of features to work with, but it's up to you how you mold it into a final product?
This bit is very correct. Basically with Hero you get an engine that has proven networking, collaberative world design, and all the low level features integrated. They also provide some useful functional examples of how to implement many game types in their Reference code. But the real strength is in their toolsets and the proven tested code.
The mechanics and other decisions though are really per project specific. The majority of the gameplay features in each game will be primarily built on code they wrote specifically for their own project.
The only real complaints I have with Hero Engine are rendering wise that it isn't on par with the top engines out there. Shadows for example are not as good as you'll get from the Unreal Engine or Crytek. It's not on par with those engines rendering wise if you use their in-house renderer. It's competitive with other MMOs, but it's not state of the art in that aspect. But it has many other features that were tailor made for MMOs that make it well worth the tradeoff.
I'm not some Hero fanboy that's insulted by people blaming Hero for TOR's shortcomings but I can't help doing a facepalm when I see Hero getting all the blame. Everything wrong with TOR lies solely in EA's lap, no blame can be deflected elsewhere I'm sorry.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
Yah, i cry every night before sleep because of them : *
if you cant take the heat dont do the job.
Nobody held a gun and forced them to sign up for EA.
And large amount of stuff was outsourced anyway.
No, i have no sympathy for incompetence, and im not really fond of sugar coating stuff too much.
Theres no phrases like "you have lot of room for improvement" in my speech. Because exactly that kind of sugar coating drove the crisis, incompetence and mediocrity hidded by bunch of sugar coated phrases.
And yes, if i fail in my job just once ill never be able to work in the industry any more because ill lose my license. How about that, will you cry for me too? lol
Needs to be done, to call a halt to the lowering numbers of suscriprions and make new people and old fans interested intoo this game again?
Can it be saved at all?
It's too late to be asking now.
Amazing feedback and suggestions on everything from class balance to world PVP to PVE issues and server issues - all were given on the SWTOR official forums but it was all deleted by their fascist moderators.
The feedback they received, they dismissed and ignored, saying that they knew better than their players.
They can stew in the juice of their failure and enjoy their unemployment checks.
They deserve their failure, it is entirely the fault of EAware's arrogant, incompetent and dishonest staff.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
Just so you know, I was one of the many people who actively supported Bioware, tested their content on PTS, made long feedback threads with constructive suggestions etc.
In short, I spent MY time and MY energy trying to help the game. All for free, and with the best of intentions.
I don't think we ask for much, and we certainly don't expect a perfect product - just a bit of civility and communication for those who provide feedback when asked for it. We got neither.
ALL of that feedback on PTS forums, from me and others, was either dismissed out of sheer arrogance, or deleted. Getting infracted and banned for posting feedback was really the cherry on the cake.
I hold the staff of SWTOR in utter contempt for both their censorship and their dismissal of all the ideas that could have helped SWTOR. They are arrogant, incompetent and, on a personal level, untrustworthy. I stand by what I said.
I hope they never work again in the gaming industry or any sort of forum/communications/etc job - and, simply put, do not profit or gain a paycheck ever again from said traits above.
I am with you! I went through the same process as you, and I feel the same anger towards Bioware for the years of being ridiculed and attacked.
I told them on their forum and in beta testing plenty of times what would be needed. I can only emphatically agree to every word of Greyhoof!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
What needs to be done? The first step would be falling off your toilet, hitting your head and creating the Flux Capacitor. The next step involves a DeLorean.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
What needs to be done? The first step would be falling off your toilet, hitting your head and creating the Flux Capacitor. The next step involves a DeLorean.
Lol, best answer yet. XD
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Not in a way that people posting would considered though.
Not a lot that can be done with the game itself, certainly not quickly, other than tinkering. However:
1. Scrap the monthly subscription.
2. Paid for DLC
3. The box price allows co-op play for a period of time (3 months maybe?) after which a sub is needed ($25 for 12 months maybe).
But even with this it is only possibly because you have to get the message out, all those boxes on shelves say 30 days included after which sub needed etc. Big campaign to inform those who bought the game initially but I suspect most won't come back for the co-op play. you would be able to sell it as a single-player game however but ....
Not in a way that people posting would considered though.
Not a lot that can be done with the game itself, certainly not quickly, other than tinkering. However:
1. Scrap the monthly subscription.
2. Paid for DLC
3. The box price allows co-op play for a period of time (3 months maybe?) after which a sub is needed ($25 for 12 months maybe).
But even with this it is only possibly because you have to get the message out, all those boxes on shelves say 30 days included after which sub needed etc. Big campaign to inform those who bought the game initially but I suspect most won't come back for the co-op play. you would be able to sell it as a single-player game however but ....
I think it is to late.
IMO their worst mistake of all was billing it as a MMO.
If they did it the Skyrim or GW2 way and only charged for expansions then TOR would be considered one if not the most epic games of all time and none of us would of ever thought to scrutinize it the way we are now.
Far more people would buy it and play it regularly I bet.
As is with a monthly fee and the MMO label it's not worth my bandwidth.
To make it worthy as a MMO....I don't think it's possible. The foundation for their design choices are far too restrictive. There is nothing they can do now to make it a real MMO without just calling the game as it is one big starting area and building a whole new galaxy after leveling. Since the starting area cost over 200 mill I seriously doubt that will happen.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
Yah, i cry every night before sleep because of them : *
if you cant take the heat dont do the job.
Nobody held a gun and forced them to sign up for EA.
And large amount of stuff was outsourced anyway.
No, i have no sympathy for incompetence, and im not really fond of sugar coating stuff too much.
Theres no phrases like "you have lot of room for improvement" in my speech. Because exactly that kind of sugar coating drove the crisis, incompetence and mediocrity hidded by bunch of sugar coated phrases.
And yes, if i fail in my job just once ill never be able to work in the industry any more because ill lose my license. How about that, will you cry for me too? lol
I don't think that's fair either. If you lose your license because you've messed up that's one thing. But I'm not going to throw insultes your way and say you DESERVE to not have a job because of it without knowing you at all.
Studies show that people adopt an extremely aggressive persona on the internet. Statistically If I were to talk to you in person you would say something entirely different and not be as harsh.
If you are as you describe yourself in your words above, you would be a jerk in real life. I don't know you so I can't say. And yes, I would feel bad for you. Not having a job and having to pay for bills and food and upkeep is not a happy day. Yes you signed up. Doesn't mean I'm going to be happy if you fail. So, again to reiterate, yes I would feel bad for you if you lost your license.
Not in a way that people posting would considered though.
Not a lot that can be done with the game itself, certainly not quickly, other than tinkering. However:
1. Scrap the monthly subscription.
2. Paid for DLC
3. The box price allows co-op play for a period of time (3 months maybe?) after which a sub is needed ($25 for 12 months maybe).
But even with this it is only possibly because you have to get the message out, all those boxes on shelves say 30 days included after which sub needed etc. Big campaign to inform those who bought the game initially but I suspect most won't come back for the co-op play. you would be able to sell it as a single-player game however but ....
I think it is to late.
IMO their worst mistake of all was billing it as a MMO.
If they did it the Skyrim or GW2 way and only charged for expansions then TOR would be considered one if not the most epic games of all time and none of us would of ever thought to scrutinize it the way we are now.
Far more people would buy it and play it regularly I bet.
As is with a monthly fee and the MMO label it's not worth my bandwidth.
To make it worthy as a MMO....I don't think it's possible. The foundation for their design choices are far too restrictive. There is nothing they can do now to make it a real MMO without just calling the game as it is one big starting area and building a whole new galaxy after leveling. Since the starting area cost over 200 mill I seriously doubt that will happen.
I kind of doubt this. If you make something that looks a lot like an MMO and then say it isn't everyone will act like there is something wrong or that you are covering something up. Especially if you are wholly owned by EA.
In the end use whatever acronym you want SWTOR gets boring fairly fast and even has boringness problems right from the beginning.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
Yah, i cry every night before sleep because of them : *
if you cant take the heat dont do the job.
Nobody held a gun and forced them to sign up for EA.
And large amount of stuff was outsourced anyway.
No, i have no sympathy for incompetence, and im not really fond of sugar coating stuff too much.
Theres no phrases like "you have lot of room for improvement" in my speech. Because exactly that kind of sugar coating drove the crisis, incompetence and mediocrity hidded by bunch of sugar coated phrases.
And yes, if i fail in my job just once ill never be able to work in the industry any more because ill lose my license. How about that, will you cry for me too? lol
I don't think that's fair either. If you lose your license because you've messed up that's one thing. But I'm not going to throw insultes your way and say you DESERVE to not have a job because of it without knowing you at all.
Studies show that people adopt an extremely aggressive persona on the internet. Statistically If I were to talk to you in person you would say something entirely different and not be as harsh.
If you are as you describe yourself in your words above, you would be a jerk in real life. I don't know you so I can't say. And yes, I would feel bad for you. Not having a job and having to pay for bills and food and upkeep is not a happy day. Yes you signed up. Doesn't mean I'm going to be happy if you fail. So, again to reiterate, yes I would feel bad for you if you lost your license.
Before you criticize a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes.
Because then you are a mile away and you have his shoes and can say whatever the fuck you want.
As in finally admit Star Wars is better watched than played.
You want us to pretend there have never been any good Star Wars games just because SWTOR sucks? heh.
There is no reason to pretend.
Then you never should have bought Knights Of the Old Republic Online if you didnt think the single player games were good. And anyone that thinks Rogue Squadron was a bad game...didnt play it.
And yet the same company that made it, made an MMO by copying its formula and now we are here in a thread asking what can be done to fix it....
KOTOR = Baldur's Gate personalities, dialogue and story quality + Jade Empire gameplay
Rogue Squadron = reskinned Wing Commander
What made both of those games fun was that they were fun games reskinned to include the Star Wars IP. That's usually a fairly easy way to make a game fun from Star Wars to TMNT.
OMG no, KOTOR did not have jade empire gameplay, quit talking like you know something, jade empire was completely action based, while KOTOR was designed directly from the star wars d20 roleplaying pen and papaer game, making it more like balduars gate, but the way the feats worked was exactly like the pen and paper game. There have been fun Star Wars games.
What needs to be done? The first step would be falling off your toilet, hitting your head and creating the Flux Capacitor. The next step involves a DeLorean.
Now you've done it, you made me watch the movies again
Comments
You need to realize something....
Since the game didn't satisfy his personal desires, the game sucked objectively. In order to convince himself of the point he started with, he uses a bit of hyperbole, a ton of anachronism, and fails at understanding certain mechanics to arrive at that conclusion.
When all he had to say was "this game wasn't for me." Even if he wanted to discuss things, he could do so in a better manner, other than realizing that when we say "community" we mean those who actually liked playing alongside other people, and working together on various projects. I myself hated decorating and all that stuff. But when the guild needed our city to have a good cantina, you bet your ass I went to the remote shops in the galaxy to find the best stuff, sparing no expense (final bill, 20 million rofl).
Was the game perfect? Of course not. Did it have bugs? Absolutely. Did a failure to deliver on a lot of the grandiose things they were promising lead to a lot of people leaving? You bet. Would the game be a steaming pile of garbage if it was released in 2012? Hell yes it would! Yet for a 2003 game, it was a mighty fine game, with some things to teach the MMOs of today.
But such a nuanced explanation is lost on trolls like him.
I support you guys that see SWG for what it really was. Not perfect but a true MMO that went far beyond the gameplay mechanics.
That other guy...all I can say is what a tool. Shame at what he missed because he just didn't get it.
I think it would have been good for BW to have spent time with the worlds/cities to have made them more lively. Even in beta it was brought up how stale the game felt. Nice big cities, and couldn't sit down or even have anything to do in the cantinas (once again couldn't sit down). The npcs stood around did nothing, it was so dull. I think there are a good many things that made people unsub and this added to it I'm sure.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
I've never seen an explaination if one was ever given.
Have they ever explained why there is a fleet station and not using cantinas as a hub?
Cantinas is so perfect for hubs since they kinda do fit into lore and small enough to be crowded which adds life right?
Why didn't they put mini-games like pazaak and pod racing? Hell, that thing they call a space game is a perfect system for pod raceing is it not? A little adjustment here and tweek there and whammo we have competitive pod racing.
Anyways I just never seen any explaination why they electected to make the game so anti-social when it only takes little things.
You don't know me.
After reading this you have absolutely no idea about how I felt about SWG.
I played it far more than you did, I can assure you of that.
The only difference is I don't look at it with rose colored glasses. I don't have to worship at the SWG altar. It was just a game and I can be critical of its faults. Someone that floats away to dreamland when they remember the game can't do that.
Hyperbole? Name something in my posts that I have exaggerated. You can't because I experienced it firsthand. What about my statements are anachronistic? I have 38 GB of fraps to use as reference from my time as guild chronicler, I was a correspondent for two different professions, and in those roles I talked to the devs directly. I had a SWG podcast for 3 years. I was in the game up to my eyeballs. So don't tell me I hated the game.
The difference is I remember it accurately so when someone finally decides to do a sandbox again I can recall it correctly instead of the mind numb response of the (pretty boring now) fanbase's mantra of 'Pre-CU SWG rawked, NGE ruined it, damn SoE!'
When they say, 'Bring back the economy' I can refrain, 'but not the broken mission terminals.' or 'But allow players access to all blueprints so there is no community hoarding and glass ceilings'.
When they say, 'Bring back the cool interaction!' I can refrain, 'Without turning it into a boring AFK fest.'
When they say, 'Bring back the awesome PvP' I can refrain, 'Without the CH domination, the Mind Poison exploits, or the Superclass Jedi'.
All you do if you just remember it it as wholly good (and I mean more than just saying, 'Ya, it hads its bugs!' without accurately remembering those bugs) is cause devs that listen to the fans to rebuild incorrectly. From inaccurate wistfulness rather than a cold and critical look at what worked and what didn't and why some things appealed to the players. (often it was because something was broken) So many have tried and failed maybe the worshipers need to stop worshiping it to other developers and recall it accurately. Maybe then they will realize some had a great time in PvP because it was broken and they owned everyone. if that is replicated, who does it help? Or a player run political community where it ruins the atmosphere of the genre with urban blight, who knows maybe the next attempt has a fix for it. But if nobody remembers the problems with that 'awesome player city stuff' then they'll just repeat the mistakes.
I'm here with an accurate recollection of the game because I was one of it's biggest fans. The only reason you call me a hater is because you can't remember it clearly enough to remember it as it really was instead you remember it as it could have been. that does nobody any good. We can all dream, but not all of us can be accurately critical of things we truly enjoy.
Seriously, go back to my posts and tell me where I got something factually wrong. (not an opinion, but facts about the system wrong)
So that pretty much sums up your pop psychology look at me, and what my intentions are. The simple fact is you can't build a game from pie-in-the-sky dreams, but you can from a solid idea you remember as fun and then fix that idea as you rebuild it.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Probably shouldn't insult people on the forums, for one its against the forum rules, and second when you're ignorant of the intent of the person you insult, you're the one that ends up looking like an idiot. Read he post above to see where your assumption is wrong.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
How much time has been wasted in this thread talking about something other than what needs to be done to SWTOR? I'm going to add a user to my ignore list and talk about the topic instead.
The development team needs to focus on improving worlds, making systems more complicated as an option for those who want to explore more complex game mechanics (such as allowing for more choices in modding, etc.), and introducing non-linear game aspects.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
This stuff only began 1 year after the game was released when the holocrons -> unlockiing force sensitivity began. SWG had the best crafting system, Player bounty hunting, pvp was very large scale and epic. Sure it had a ton of bugs and frustrating times but overall during its time the game was flipping awesome until holocrons entered the mix. Then people started going afk grinding and it was all down hill from there.
I often wonder if people on the internet ever think about the impact of their words. Have you ever met bioware? Their families? or EA? They all have families too. The things you say on the internet have impact. Although you are anonymous It is still representing you. I have more faith in you as a human being that you would not tell someone you had never met what you just said in the post I quoted. You've heard of them but you don't know any of them. You are looking at them as a corporation when they are really a collection of people.
Have you ever worked on something for years? I believe it is impossible to work on something for years and not have personal stake in it. They all worked very hard on this project and wanted people to like it. Your comments reflect on you more than they do on the people you are directing them at.
Just because you are unsaitisfied with a product hardly warrents what you have said or even your judgements on them in general, unless you've met them personally.
I say this to raise some awareness. It is probable that you won't care about what I've asked. I, however, choose to believe that most people in real life have manners and empathy for others. Perhaps I'm optomistic or even naive. On that note I choose to believe that you would not look their sons and daughters in the face and tell them their fathers and mothers seriously deserve to be unemployed and wallow in depression over a failed project (which is common in the industry, people often feel bouts of depression after a project they've worked on for years flops).
http://www.wix.com/guardiansofthegarter/home
Just so you know, I was one of the many people who actively supported Bioware, tested their content on PTS, made long feedback threads with constructive suggestions etc.
In short, I spent MY time and MY energy trying to help the game. All for free, and with the best of intentions.
I don't think we ask for much, and we certainly don't expect a perfect product - just a bit of civility and communication for those who provide feedback when asked for it. We got neither.
ALL of that feedback on PTS forums, from me and others, was either dismissed out of sheer arrogance, or deleted. Getting infracted and banned for posting feedback was really the cherry on the cake.
I hold the staff of SWTOR in utter contempt for both their censorship and their dismissal of all the ideas that could have helped SWTOR. They are arrogant, incompetent and, on a personal level, untrustworthy. I stand by what I said.
I hope they never work again in the gaming industry or any sort of forum/communications/etc job - and, simply put, do not profit or gain a paycheck ever again from said traits above.
Then I will leave you to feel the way you do and voice them. I disagree and still feel you are being extremely harsh to those you don't actually know. There was some feedback there that they could have grown from. It is not, however, a team effort to moderate forums. Unless your Anet who takes personal pride in fully integrating the team with the community. Anet is the only development team to do this I believe, and so your frusteration is only caused by about two or three people. Even they are just doing a job. A bad job? Perhaps. As I stated I've seen the feedback they tossed and much of it was helpful. Still I don't consider doing a bad job at work to be equal to the judgement given.
Regardless I appreciate the brief consideration of the subject. I hope more people stop and think for a second about the impact of their words on the internet. Downright disgusting and hateful things are said on the web, often aimed at people they don't know for things that they don't fully understand or are just simply petty. For example, people have been arrested for sending death threats to the bioware team for the Mass Effect 3 ending. An ending that some did not enjoy is hardly worth someones life.
If you are comfortable representing yourself with what you say and you understand its impact then so be it. At least you thought about it. Didn't mean to derail the thread though, just to add some contemplation while posters are posting.
http://www.wix.com/guardiansofthegarter/home
To be clear, I don't wish them bodily harm. That would be crazy.
Not having them make games and booting EA's suits out of the industry would not be a bad thing however. Let's face it, those guys have no respect for video games or their customers, so why would we want them to stay.
You can't save this game at all, using the HeroEngine is just shooting yourself in the head, and that's exactly what BioWare does everytime with their games.
This game is a complete failure right from the engine itself, it's the typical MMO thing we've all seen and played, nobody wants that, and nobody ever will anymore.
It's old and overused, and if you really wanted that style of game than you'd just go and play WoW.
Using the HeroEngine for Star Wars was probably the worst idea to come, instead they should've just built their own engine from the ground up and made it more like star wars where there was ACTUAL combat with lightsabers, blasters, etc. With actual hitboxes yet still being an MMO. If not, then they should've just stuck it to the way KOTOR was but make it online.
The ONLY possible way for this game to be good is with either of the above suggested, which would require making a whole new game. And thus TOR would be no more.
I can't see how they haven't gone f2p yet with barely any subscribers, let alone the fact how they haven't shut down the servers and called it quits. - All of this being my personal views/opinions, not meant to be taken as fact.
In all fairness, please research a little before accusing Hero and a little understanding what the engine really is. 1st read this http://www.heroengine.com/2011/11/heroengine-meets-starwars/ . In short it says Bioware insisted getting the engine while it was still just a concept and they (Bioware) said they will code the rest in themselves. Hero told them if they want it then just write the check but Bioware will be on their own with it, Hero cannot support it. The engine in TOR is only Hero by name and resembles nothing that Hero is today.
I'll also add a quote from a developer of TheRepopulation which is using Hero. Hero has come under scrutiny there because of TOR's preformance so here is an exchange between a poster and developer on that forum. (names omited)
Hero Engine is an engine designed from the ground up to support MMOs. Those other engines are not. There are many things that Hero Engine does out of the box that are beneficial for MMO developers, things like seamless, instancing, a very configurable spatial awareness system, it's well fitted to extend, scripts can be compiled and have the changes running in a matter of seconds (as opposed to restarting servers, and then uploading that is used in most every other engine), etc. Unreal and Cryengine were made with first person shooters in mind. Their networking is focused more on that type of design, collaberative editing, small areas less players. They are of course configurable, but your talking about a ton of extra time spent to implement things that Hero Engine already does and does well. Of course those engines are better rendering engines than Hero. They have better graphical features. But that's just a small part of an MMO.
FYI Repop was originally written in T3D. Before all of these engines became available for cheap (and then free), all of these engines were $500,000+ licenses, which is out of our price range.
That actually has nothing to do with Hero Engine. Those were shaders that Bioware elected to go with in TOR. Same goes for all of TORs mechanics. Love them or hate them, they were developer decisions. I think all too often people mistake how much is the engine, and how much is actual code. Hero Engine (similar to most every other engine) is just a core. When you start with Hero Engine you basically have an empty shell that has a faked ability bar (preset abilities, not tied to characters), a compass and an example of character selection. From there its up to the developers to create the rest.
TORs gameplay (good or bad) is the result of their design decisions. Their design called for a theme park style game, and they elected to go with higher polygon counts than most MMOs. You may not be able to notice that when you play it because of the shaders, but they have pretty hefty polygon counts. They also are using much more complex shaders and texture counts than many of the other MMOs out there, and many more clothing/texture options. The game is designed to look the way it does, and run pretty well in most cases. However, when you get a ton of people in a small area, all wearing different clothing types, it's going to chug. That's completely a design decision. They went for what would work in most cases, and got crucified by some users for how it performs in the other situations (primarily Ilum).
Many in the general public they assume the engine is the game, and you just theme it how you want it. But that's not quite true. Hero Engine could be used in an FPS, a space simulator, an RPG, RTS, whatever you want to create with it. It could be action based or RPG based. It could be optimized to run well on poor machines, or it could be optimized to look great but have performance issues on those same boxes.
We've tried the other MMO middleware available, and we choose Hero Engine. We're completely happy with that decision. That's not to say it's a perfect engine. Every engine on the market has it's own strengths and weaknesses. But as the entire package, I think it's your best bet for developing MMOs in a timely manner."
This bit is very correct. Basically with Hero you get an engine that has proven networking, collaberative world design, and all the low level features integrated. They also provide some useful functional examples of how to implement many game types in their Reference code. But the real strength is in their toolsets and the proven tested code.
The mechanics and other decisions though are really per project specific. The majority of the gameplay features in each game will be primarily built on code they wrote specifically for their own project.
The only real complaints I have with Hero Engine are rendering wise that it isn't on par with the top engines out there. Shadows for example are not as good as you'll get from the Unreal Engine or Crytek. It's not on par with those engines rendering wise if you use their in-house renderer. It's competitive with other MMOs, but it's not state of the art in that aspect. But it has many other features that were tailor made for MMOs that make it well worth the tradeoff.
I'm not some Hero fanboy that's insulted by people blaming Hero for TOR's shortcomings but I can't help doing a facepalm when I see Hero getting all the blame. Everything wrong with TOR lies solely in EA's lap, no blame can be deflected elsewhere I'm sorry.
Yah, i cry every night before sleep because of them : *
if you cant take the heat dont do the job.
Nobody held a gun and forced them to sign up for EA.
And large amount of stuff was outsourced anyway.
No, i have no sympathy for incompetence, and im not really fond of sugar coating stuff too much.
Theres no phrases like "you have lot of room for improvement" in my speech. Because exactly that kind of sugar coating drove the crisis, incompetence and mediocrity hidded by bunch of sugar coated phrases.
And yes, if i fail in my job just once ill never be able to work in the industry any more because ill lose my license. How about that, will you cry for me too? lol
I am with you! I went through the same process as you, and I feel the same anger towards Bioware for the years of being ridiculed and attacked.
I told them on their forum and in beta testing plenty of times what would be needed. I can only emphatically agree to every word of Greyhoof!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
What needs to be done? The first step would be falling off your toilet, hitting your head and creating the Flux Capacitor. The next step involves a DeLorean.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Lol, best answer yet. XD
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Possibly.
Not in a way that people posting would considered though.
Not a lot that can be done with the game itself, certainly not quickly, other than tinkering. However:
1. Scrap the monthly subscription.
2. Paid for DLC
3. The box price allows co-op play for a period of time (3 months maybe?) after which a sub is needed ($25 for 12 months maybe).
But even with this it is only possibly because you have to get the message out, all those boxes on shelves say 30 days included after which sub needed etc. Big campaign to inform those who bought the game initially but I suspect most won't come back for the co-op play. you would be able to sell it as a single-player game however but ....
I think it is to late.
IMO their worst mistake of all was billing it as a MMO.
If they did it the Skyrim or GW2 way and only charged for expansions then TOR would be considered one if not the most epic games of all time and none of us would of ever thought to scrutinize it the way we are now.
Far more people would buy it and play it regularly I bet.
As is with a monthly fee and the MMO label it's not worth my bandwidth.
To make it worthy as a MMO....I don't think it's possible. The foundation for their design choices are far too restrictive. There is nothing they can do now to make it a real MMO without just calling the game as it is one big starting area and building a whole new galaxy after leveling. Since the starting area cost over 200 mill I seriously doubt that will happen.
I don't think that's fair either. If you lose your license because you've messed up that's one thing. But I'm not going to throw insultes your way and say you DESERVE to not have a job because of it without knowing you at all.
Studies show that people adopt an extremely aggressive persona on the internet. Statistically If I were to talk to you in person you would say something entirely different and not be as harsh.
If you are as you describe yourself in your words above, you would be a jerk in real life. I don't know you so I can't say. And yes, I would feel bad for you. Not having a job and having to pay for bills and food and upkeep is not a happy day. Yes you signed up. Doesn't mean I'm going to be happy if you fail. So, again to reiterate, yes I would feel bad for you if you lost your license.
http://www.wix.com/guardiansofthegarter/home
I kind of doubt this. If you make something that looks a lot like an MMO and then say it isn't everyone will act like there is something wrong or that you are covering something up. Especially if you are wholly owned by EA.
In the end use whatever acronym you want SWTOR gets boring fairly fast and even has boringness problems right from the beginning.
Before you criticize a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes.
Because then you are a mile away and you have his shoes and can say whatever the fuck you want.
OMG no, KOTOR did not have jade empire gameplay, quit talking like you know something, jade empire was completely action based, while KOTOR was designed directly from the star wars d20 roleplaying pen and papaer game, making it more like balduars gate, but the way the feats worked was exactly like the pen and paper game. There have been fun Star Wars games.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
Now you've done it, you made me watch the movies again