Sorry, any article with that title not mentioning Entertainers and Non-Combat Professions is a farce. Really Player generated content and multi passenger vehicles were more important?
I tried to be realistic in my list. They aren't going to put in a Musician or Dancer class and give it a storyline from 1-50. Same for other non-combat professions. What would a dancer's storyline look like? It just doesn't fit the game.
Believe me, I considered all this when putting together the list, but they just don't fit this particular game.
Phooey! Why wouldn't they? I seriously believed a long time they would, given how popular this feature was among all people I know. I mean, I know NOW it is unrealistic, because the people involved in making SWTOR are apparently dimwits. But per se I see no reason why not to implement an Entertainer system. It would not have to be a class, but a more elaborate "hobby" or alter ego or controllable companion.
See there is a LEGION of ideas I could come up with. But Bioware was so narrowminded that ALL needed to be around their heroic story. It is like your right leg is stronger and you cut off the left leg because of that. Poppycock! Why has it all revolve around story? I disagree. I profoundly disagree!
The story was a great and much needed addition, but they added it at the expense of literally everything else! It is still inconceivable why any sane person would make a MMO like this, so reduced to one aspect, good Sir.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Funny to watch the video of Chris Roberts (Wing Commander, Privateer, Freelancer) talking about his new game Star Citizen, when somebody mentions SWTOR (starts around the 47 minute mark).
Even he says something along the lines of "it's an incredibly well executed single player game, that millions of people can play", something I know Mike disagrees with, sorry.
To me, the game blows as an MMO and doesn't have the foundations to ever be one without a major rewrite.
Is this game free now right now? becouse im just waiting to play it again becouse I bought the collectors edition before it release and want to play it as a alt MMO for me. so is it free now?
swtor will never be what swg was. They spent so much time focusing on wow and ignoring swg lol. Even if swtor could be close to what swg ever was the real problems are this.
1. EA need i say more here?
2.Incompetent/poor/bad coding
3. Incompetent management and incompetent dev team.
4.High arrogance and this "we know better then you" attitude specifically james ohlen. It took george zoeller leaving for bh's to get a dam interupt lol. Every bh was complaining about that and he did what he wanted and claimed he listened to the customer.
5. Gabe ametegelo. This guy screwed up on warhammer he apparently didnt learn anything from there. He then cam to swtor and re made the same mistakes that he did there. This guy needs to be fired yesterday
6. PVP swtor has the most god aweful chainstun gear grindfest almost as bad as lord of the rings online.
7. hero engine this engine seems to be a very bad choice. I remember hearing it was easy to add content and all this well where is it?
Very sad i would honestly pay 100 bucks a month to play swg2 anyday. Swtor will never escape the ghost of swg NEVER!!
The old SWG was full of mistakes, misteps and mis-management. But I still feel that the good outweighed the bad. I'd pay $60 a month for it again (over a few account shared with my wife). I won't play SWTOR again even when it's free. That's not just a rib kick to SWTOR because it's en vogue, I preferred the old SWG and would be willing to challenge the addage "you can't go home again".
I don't know... swg was pretty much a ghost town. Had some good ideas but a lot of issues also. swtor isn't perfect but it is a pretty overall nice game.
Things I'd like to see
1. Real space combat and harvesting kinda like swg
2. dynamic events - Maybe kinda hard since all the worlds are theme parks. Maybe they could instance something...
3. More companion choices. I always thought it would be cool to have an option to pick and choose some companions.
4. Make light/dark choices matter. Add a light dark tree where you can spend light and dark points like skill points to customize your character. Maybe even transform powers.
5 would probably be enough for me to return it kept me in SWG for years after I was bored of the ground game so I'd love to see something similar in SWTOR.
I would of went with the focus on open world planets, open world PvP like Bounty Hunting (no instanced pvp such as battlegrounds, arena,etc) the crafting, the professions skill system, one character with the ability to untrain and train skills, no levels, player cities, reasons for players to go to buildings such as cantinas/taverns.
But I guess everyone has their own taste. I guess I would summarize mine under all the immersive, social aspects of SWG, rather than multi-person mounts...
I'm pretty sure they were trying to be realistic; offer suggestions that might be somewhat do-able. I could actually imagine multiplayer vehicles, for example. provide tools for player events, etc.
Your suggestions add up to "make TOR into SWG". Even big maps like Hoth and Tatt would never accommodate player made cities, for example. You'd have to rewrite the whole game.
I can see player cities being more do-able than player generated content, as the worlds are designed around the stories that Bioware created, and does not have game altering mechanics. In SWG you had the mission terminals, and the missions were generic. In CoH you have generic missions and it varies behind the same door. In STO it also has generic missions via the Anomilies in places like the Delta Volanis cluster, which loads up a random mission. You do not have this sort of thing in SWTOR
Player cities in SWTOR could be done similar to what LOTRO has, instead of getting the "Exhaustion Zone" warning, they could make an instance assecsible to enter and you go in pre-made player cities, and then buy houses. Better still obviosuly, you have an area where it is like SWG, but the LOTRO approach probably is more feasible
Hoth certainly would not have houses / player cities, but Tatooine could, and even in SWG not all planets could have player housing / cities - eg Dathomir, Endor, Kash, Musty
Sadly I do not see any of these things happening in SWTOR now, as even when the game just got off the ground and was doing well, Bioware were reluctant to consider these ideas, and now with all the layoffs, probably will never happen.
I got to say that is the worst list I even saw anybody come up with of stuff they wanted from SWG., with the exception of space combat.
My list
(1) Player housing the ability to place a house and or city anywhere you wanted
(2) Crafting is a joke in swtor, what we need is crafting from swg pre nge when crafting actually meant something and depended on you know how to make a quality product or not.
(3) space yes I agree space on rails is boring, and lets let us decide what type of ship to fly. The bh ship who came up with that idea you need to add the kse in there. I guess they had to have room for your crew.
(4) pvp is a joke, huttball even more so, I would like to see pvp areas like we had in swg.
(5) Armor, omg the armor in swg is plain ugly. Every body looks like everybody else. I love the fact back in swg we could wear clothing and put tapes and armor plates in. Then we got unlucky and they went to ris armor so every bh wanted to look like the others. I knew some bh's that wore clone armor and died quickly to my master light saber skills. However the armor in swtor looks non star wars like and it is just ugly. I still remember nighthawk who showed up in his brand new suit of ris armor to take me out, and yes he did after 45 minutes of pvp. I asked him was it worth it, he said no he just paid 1.2 million credits to buy that suit of armor and I had taken it down to 0 durring the fight, he forgot to put in his anti decay kits on it, and my bounty was only a meer 50k. Risk vs reward yes add that too.
They need real space combat like they had on SWG. Some of my best SWG memories were the weekly PvP events that the players organized themselves on the Starsider server. If a joystick isn't involved it's not a flight sim.
Honestly as I believe most people who played swg.. BRING IT BACK. That game was the best prior to the combat over haul and changing the game so everyone could be a jedi.. Most of us that had a jedi loved the game. And the people bitching about it took to long to earn one.. sorry for them. Sandbox games like swg are really hard to come by. JTLS was the best expansion to a game I have ever seen. All I know is if Sony rebuilt swg from the point of JTLS it would have 500,000 people paying for it tomorrow. I know I myself would pay 30 a month just to have that game back.
First, to the OP / Article Author - I appreciate the effort. It seems impossible to have a reasonable discussion on this subject without unrealistic nostalgia. I loved SWG as much as anyone and my favorite bit (usage experience for people using things you crafted) was cut early on and is never mentioned except by me
Still I think a comparison of the two games does provide a means by which suggestions can be offered to improve SWTOR.
1. Multi-person vehicles - this can be added through Guilds and/or through the Legacy system. Vehicles could become big enough to move a party around as well as offer a vendor , med station, and mail box. With the right upgrades of course.
2. UGC/Player Events - Again some of this can be linked to guilds and to the legacy system. Perhaps even allowing a player to use shadows of his characters as NPCs in the UGC. In some ways this could solve a complaint: players have been wanting quests without all the voice over and cut scenes. UGC could be decidedly non-cut scene oriented to offer up these quests. Ideally they could release something akin to what Bethesda does for its Elder Scrolls games. That way items could also be created. I will say however, that there would need to be someone(s) dedicated to handling IP issues considering how liberally some players would play with names and story arcs.
3. Faction Warfare & Space Combat - Space Combat in SWG was not that great, but it certainly is better than SWTOR. If guilds are really getting capital ships as a guild bases, these could and should be allowed into space combat and faction warfare. The capital ships could eb so damaged they have to be repaired to get the base functions back online. I absollutely agree there should be planets fully dedicated to open world PvP without any major quests associated.
4. Player Housing - I do not mind instanced housing as long as one could decorate it. For that matter, instanced crafting malls and guild bases as well. Its not perfect, but it would add some socialness to the game.
Nice view on what you would like to see added Mike, I however would love to see... Full fleshed out space game, Unlockable classes/species, Open worlds, player housing, non combat classes, player driven economy, deep crafting, random resources that change spawns and stats, so many things I could go on all day. This was the game that hurt me most... I'll never forget.
"The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"
I prefer we just let TOR die, quickly, so someone else can take a shot at it. Bioware isn't going to make any significant changes to this game.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Can many of you say with a guarantee that if they went the swg route the game would be better off? The game was waayyy over-budget, and as such they choose to try and mimic the most popular mmo with the star wars ip... Now let's just say its still over budget, and they choose to build on what made galaxies good.. Do you think it would pull in the sub numbers and keep those numbers for more than a year, that they needed to pull in?
These guys build Tor with the idea that they wanted to capture those players that were use to wow but tired of that setting, and as such it was a safer bet than to have built upon galaxies style. As someone yes in another topic elsewhere "No dev has found a way to bring a sandbox style game mainstream or acceptable by masses"..
With this being Bioware first mmo, I doubt they would get the sandbox thing down, plus with a over blown budget, I doubt such a game would have pull in the numbers and keep rising like the had envision (we all know how that vision went)...
Comments
Phooey! Why wouldn't they? I seriously believed a long time they would, given how popular this feature was among all people I know. I mean, I know NOW it is unrealistic, because the people involved in making SWTOR are apparently dimwits. But per se I see no reason why not to implement an Entertainer system. It would not have to be a class, but a more elaborate "hobby" or alter ego or controllable companion.
See there is a LEGION of ideas I could come up with. But Bioware was so narrowminded that ALL needed to be around their heroic story. It is like your right leg is stronger and you cut off the left leg because of that. Poppycock! Why has it all revolve around story? I disagree. I profoundly disagree!
The story was a great and much needed addition, but they added it at the expense of literally everything else! It is still inconceivable why any sane person would make a MMO like this, so reduced to one aspect, good Sir.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Funny to watch the video of Chris Roberts (Wing Commander, Privateer, Freelancer) talking about his new game Star Citizen, when somebody mentions SWTOR (starts around the 47 minute mark).
http://uk.gamespot.com/shows/gamespot-live/?event=roberts_space_industries_gdc_panel20121010
Even he says something along the lines of "it's an incredibly well executed single player game, that millions of people can play", something I know Mike disagrees with, sorry.
To me, the game blows as an MMO and doesn't have the foundations to ever be one without a major rewrite.
swtor will never be what swg was. They spent so much time focusing on wow and ignoring swg lol. Even if swtor could be close to what swg ever was the real problems are this.
1. EA need i say more here?
2.Incompetent/poor/bad coding
3. Incompetent management and incompetent dev team.
4.High arrogance and this "we know better then you" attitude specifically james ohlen. It took george zoeller leaving for bh's to get a dam interupt lol. Every bh was complaining about that and he did what he wanted and claimed he listened to the customer.
5. Gabe ametegelo. This guy screwed up on warhammer he apparently didnt learn anything from there. He then cam to swtor and re made the same mistakes that he did there. This guy needs to be fired yesterday
6. PVP swtor has the most god aweful chainstun gear grindfest almost as bad as lord of the rings online.
7. hero engine this engine seems to be a very bad choice. I remember hearing it was easy to add content and all this well where is it?
Very sad i would honestly pay 100 bucks a month to play swg2 anyday. Swtor will never escape the ghost of swg NEVER!!
Or we could just bring back some version of SWG.
The old SWG was full of mistakes, misteps and mis-management. But I still feel that the good outweighed the bad. I'd pay $60 a month for it again (over a few account shared with my wife). I won't play SWTOR again even when it's free. That's not just a rib kick to SWTOR because it's en vogue, I preferred the old SWG and would be willing to challenge the addage "you can't go home again".
I don't know... swg was pretty much a ghost town. Had some good ideas but a lot of issues also. swtor isn't perfect but it is a pretty overall nice game.
Things I'd like to see
1. Real space combat and harvesting kinda like swg
2. dynamic events - Maybe kinda hard since all the worlds are theme parks. Maybe they could instance something...
3. More companion choices. I always thought it would be cool to have an option to pick and choose some companions.
4. Make light/dark choices matter. Add a light dark tree where you can spend light and dark points like skill points to customize your character. Maybe even transform powers.
---
Ethion
ThreatLevel0 -- hall of fame.
That is all.
die laughing.
But seriously, SOMEONE in MMOs (EQII comes close) should try to match player housing in SWG. How hard could it be?
Too hard according the devs of TES:O.
The game needs rich sandbox elements.Anything that has no sandbox elements does not worth the name of mmorpg.
Space combat is the worst ive seen even freelancer had better space combat even x-wing vs tie fighter
There you go.... this list was really blah to me, but everyone has different tastes.
I can see player cities being more do-able than player generated content, as the worlds are designed around the stories that Bioware created, and does not have game altering mechanics. In SWG you had the mission terminals, and the missions were generic. In CoH you have generic missions and it varies behind the same door. In STO it also has generic missions via the Anomilies in places like the Delta Volanis cluster, which loads up a random mission. You do not have this sort of thing in SWTOR
Player cities in SWTOR could be done similar to what LOTRO has, instead of getting the "Exhaustion Zone" warning, they could make an instance assecsible to enter and you go in pre-made player cities, and then buy houses. Better still obviosuly, you have an area where it is like SWG, but the LOTRO approach probably is more feasible
Hoth certainly would not have houses / player cities, but Tatooine could, and even in SWG not all planets could have player housing / cities - eg Dathomir, Endor, Kash, Musty
Sadly I do not see any of these things happening in SWTOR now, as even when the game just got off the ground and was doing well, Bioware were reluctant to consider these ideas, and now with all the layoffs, probably will never happen.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Add these other
> Mike B
6 - Player housing / guild homes
7 - SWG Crafting system
8 - Personal player stores
I got to say that is the worst list I even saw anybody come up with of stuff they wanted from SWG., with the exception of space combat.
My list
(1) Player housing the ability to place a house and or city anywhere you wanted
(2) Crafting is a joke in swtor, what we need is crafting from swg pre nge when crafting actually meant something and depended on you know how to make a quality product or not.
(3) space yes I agree space on rails is boring, and lets let us decide what type of ship to fly. The bh ship who came up with that idea you need to add the kse in there. I guess they had to have room for your crew.
(4) pvp is a joke, huttball even more so, I would like to see pvp areas like we had in swg.
(5) Armor, omg the armor in swg is plain ugly. Every body looks like everybody else. I love the fact back in swg we could wear clothing and put tapes and armor plates in. Then we got unlucky and they went to ris armor so every bh wanted to look like the others. I knew some bh's that wore clone armor and died quickly to my master light saber skills. However the armor in swtor looks non star wars like and it is just ugly. I still remember nighthawk who showed up in his brand new suit of ris armor to take me out, and yes he did after 45 minutes of pvp. I asked him was it worth it, he said no he just paid 1.2 million credits to buy that suit of armor and I had taken it down to 0 durring the fight, he forgot to put in his anti decay kits on it, and my bounty was only a meer 50k. Risk vs reward yes add that too.
First, to the OP / Article Author - I appreciate the effort. It seems impossible to have a reasonable discussion on this subject without unrealistic nostalgia. I loved SWG as much as anyone and my favorite bit (usage experience for people using things you crafted) was cut early on and is never mentioned except by me
Still I think a comparison of the two games does provide a means by which suggestions can be offered to improve SWTOR.
1. Multi-person vehicles - this can be added through Guilds and/or through the Legacy system. Vehicles could become big enough to move a party around as well as offer a vendor , med station, and mail box. With the right upgrades of course.
2. UGC/Player Events - Again some of this can be linked to guilds and to the legacy system. Perhaps even allowing a player to use shadows of his characters as NPCs in the UGC. In some ways this could solve a complaint: players have been wanting quests without all the voice over and cut scenes. UGC could be decidedly non-cut scene oriented to offer up these quests. Ideally they could release something akin to what Bethesda does for its Elder Scrolls games. That way items could also be created. I will say however, that there would need to be someone(s) dedicated to handling IP issues considering how liberally some players would play with names and story arcs.
3. Faction Warfare & Space Combat - Space Combat in SWG was not that great, but it certainly is better than SWTOR. If guilds are really getting capital ships as a guild bases, these could and should be allowed into space combat and faction warfare. The capital ships could eb so damaged they have to be repaired to get the base functions back online. I absollutely agree there should be planets fully dedicated to open world PvP without any major quests associated.
4. Player Housing - I do not mind instanced housing as long as one could decorate it. For that matter, instanced crafting malls and guild bases as well. Its not perfect, but it would add some socialness to the game.
Just My 2 Lunars
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Hey look, an X-Wing.
Anyone remember those?
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Now let's just say its still over budget, and they choose to build on what made galaxies good.. Do you think it would pull in the sub numbers and keep those numbers for more than a year, that they needed to pull in?
These guys build Tor with the idea that they wanted to capture those players that were use to wow but tired of that setting, and as such it was a safer bet than to have built upon galaxies style.
As someone yes in another topic elsewhere "No dev has found a way to bring a sandbox style game mainstream or acceptable by masses"..
With this being Bioware first mmo, I doubt they would get the sandbox thing down, plus with a over blown budget, I doubt such a game would have pull in the numbers and keep rising like the had envision (we all know how that vision went)...
Just my 2 cents..