Originally posted by CyclopsSlayer 3 WoW zones is WAY over estimating for many of the worlds. One WoW zone per planet feels more like it, but the zones and planet sizes vary widely. Much of what you can see you can't travel to based on exhaustion zones and terrain. Wide open desert zones of Tatooine? Nope, stay on the road or die. Very little actual terrain to travel on and explore.
this is a very misinformed post. some worlds are close to the size of one wow zone, well i can think of one world that is that small at least.
the rest are roughly the size of 3 wow zones. also, some zones you do pretty much "stay on the road" which i agree is pretty restrictive and annoying.
but other worlds like tatooine are definitely not like that, it is odd that you mentioned that planet in particular because it is definitely not one that forces you to stay on the road like coruscant and narshadaa for example.
all that said, i think vanilla wow wasn't really that much bigger if at all and when you consider that SWTOR had wz's and the same amount of raid content, i would argue that there was more content in this game at release than wow had.
this is coming from someone who played both at release.
i honestly don't think SWTOR lacks content, its the way that content is implemented and the quality of some of it.
IMO the open pvp is the biggest joke of the game, you rarely run into the other faction and the WZ's are the only pvp the game has.
wow at release had great open pvp, even without any BG's. TM and stranglethorn pvp is some of the funnest times i have ever had in wow.
How does ThemePark total world size even matter? Once you have done the quests, or outleveled a specific zone, you will have little to no reason to come back.
You have to give credit where credit is due. Even Vanilla WoW, maybe especially vanilla wow, felt huge to me when i first played it in 2005. I mean you could almost get 2 chars to 60 on completely different level paths. And joining an instance run ... lets say in desolace if you had never been to kalimdor before ... man that was insane. You could either go dustwallow marsh, thousand needles, feralas, complete with hostile NPC guarded settlements on the way. Or try the longer but safer darkshore, ashenvale, stonetalon route. Neither was easy to find if you didn't know the way, and both where hell on a PvP server.
And at the end of your treck you had a monster of an instance hardly anyone knew their way around, with plenty of ways to screw up.
Pity they changed the gamedesign to the mixed zones, instant instance teleporting etc. Most of the fun back then was "invading" hostile land like hillsbrad foothills with a mixed level zerg or going into instances you where not supposed to get into like the one in your enemies faction city. In many ways Vanilla WoW was a really good MMO imho.
Originally posted by Imperator101 I have concluded that TOR is probably way smaller then WoW, while I have never played the game or have seen every single world map, I came up with a simple solution to determine which MMO has a bigger land area. TOR has 17 planets, I assume each planet is the size of 3 WoW zones, WoW has 85 zones, TOR would be the size of 54 WoW zones. This 3 zones per planet is being very generous, some maps are very small. Even if you only included Vanilla WoW, it would probably be 70-80% the size of TOR. Even though this MMO seems very large with all the planets, it truly is a very small MMO by todays standards.
Read the OP and just had to comment on it before continuing to read.......................Im not disagreeing with you but how can you do another SWTOR vs WOW post when all you played was WoW? Thats like saying Apples are better then Oranges but I only had apples.........Now your comparing SWTOR to WOW but which WOW are you looking at? The WoW that was only a year old? b/c how are you going to compare 1 year to 8 years? I think I made my point
Originally posted by Rydeson One should not use physical size as the only criteria for determining size of world.. Look at Tattoine for example.. The map is huge and I love that.. BUT.. How much actual content is there? How fast can you consume the content of that zone/planet? Shouldn't that be the bigger questions? In both SWTOR and RIFT I consumed all of the zones while leveling ONE character to max level.. However, you can't say that about WoW or older games like EQ, which were huge compared to today's crap.. In my opinion..
Very true^^.
Most of the newer games are so linear that playing 1-2 characters basically let's you see the zones and quest's.I never played much EQ,but EQ2,WOW and even GW2 seem much more in variation of levelling choices.Variation is good,usually.
If you are story-focused like SWTOR, you normally limit the leveling choice so you get a more focused narration.
GW2 does some interesting mechanics that are paper-thin (now that we have seen what this so called 'DE' is) and gives you options when leveling but the story / lore / char part is atrociously bad.
Yep and it seems nowadays it's one or the other.Either story and linear or more variation,but dare I say...shallow.
most of swtor character/ lore is even more shallow,,most of it is so predictable , that its quite funny
gw2 at least does this with some humour,,just like wow does
the few surprises that swtor throws in , are sadly bad ones,,immersion breaking bugs, bugged storyline bosses etc
so let me ask u this,,HOW am i supposed to enjoy this great storyline WHILE MASHING BUTTONS ,
AND FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE??..might as well ask me to play the piano, while while im standing on a flagpole
Well comparing maybe vanilla wow to SWtor, yes, its quite small. In some part you can claim it in part being due to trying for a more linear approach to the world compared to WoW which tried to make areas more open ended, something SWTOR didn't really do much until later on with some of the zones. It makes some sense though with SWTOR as it attempts to do story focus which a more 'linear' set of the world allows for it to work a lot easier without making things seem so jumbled.
most of swtor character/ lore is even more shallow,,most of it is so predictable , that its quite funny
gw2 at least does this with some humour,,just like wow does
the few surprises that swtor throws in , are sadly bad ones,,immersion breaking bugs, bugged storyline bosses etc
so let me ask u this,,HOW am i supposed to enjoy this great storyline WHILE MASHING BUTTONS ,
AND FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE??..might as well ask me to play the piano, while while im standing on a flagpole
SWTOR is essentially a Star Wars story. Whether you like the story / lore / char in Star Wars (which has a very distinct good vs evil slant) is up to you.
As to your second point, I'd ask how you can eat popcorn while watching a movie. I have no problem doing those two things so not sure why you can not.
If you can not do two things at once that's totally fine, I won't judge you.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Originally posted by hikaru77 SWTOR landmass is probably bigger than Vanilla WoW Ladmass, I mean TOR also have lots of caves, buildings and underground structures.
When you take both faction sides for planets, buildings and instances. I would say TOR is much bigger in actual size of the map than Vanilla WoW. But players don't look at acutal facts of size and so forth. Only how it feels to play. And the feeling i had while playing WoW in 1995 was that the game was huge. It took a long time to get to some places and questing actually took a lot of time with travel and PvP on a PvP server. Time sinks, low drop rates and grinding made you time in places much longer as well. Adding to the feeling you get of the game world being very big.
TOR is part of the current ADD gaming the masses seem to have at the moment. No one really wants to grind or "work" in a game anymore. So most current games make questing and leveling very fast. So you could have the largest game mass in history, but it would still feel small when you take out grinding and just fast forword characters to the end game grind. Making it feel small.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? R.A.Salvatore
Originally posted by Axxar SWTOR has its flaws, but its storylines are not even remotely close to being as shallow as WoW or even GW2.
If I wanted to read a story, I would just cuddle up on the sofa with a book.. My library has thousands of storylines, that would take me a lifetime to read, and it doesn't cost me $15 a month to enjoy them.. EQ is still my favorite MMORPG to date and it didn't need storylines to succeed..
Originally posted by Axxar SWTOR has its flaws, but its storylines are not even remotely close to being as shallow as WoW or even GW2.
If I wanted to read a story, I would just cuddle up on the sofa with a book.. My library has thousands of storylines, that would take me a lifetime to read, and it doesn't cost me $15 a month to enjoy them.. EQ is still my favorite MMORPG to date and it didn't need storylines to succeed..
I have an opposite preference to you.
While I enjoy a good book, I also like a good story in my video games as I get to see them in action rather than just through words.
I play games mostly for the story so SWTOR is my preferred MMO.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Originally posted by Axxar SWTOR has its flaws, but its storylines are not even remotely close to being as shallow as WoW or even GW2.
If I wanted to read a story, I would just cuddle up on the sofa with a book.. My library has thousands of storylines, that would take me a lifetime to read, and it doesn't cost me $15 a month to enjoy them.. EQ is still my favorite MMORPG to date and it didn't need storylines to succeed..
By that token, there's no reason for movies to exist... After all, there are books! Stories should be told in no other media!
On topic: the thing that kills the world in SWTOR is not the size, or even the zone loads (though that does get annoying fast). The real thing is, after you complete your quests and datacron runs, there's next to no reason to keep visiting the zones. The whole thing is much too focused on combat & story.
You have to give credit where credit is due. Even Vanilla WoW, maybe especially vanilla wow, felt huge to me when i first played it in 2005. I mean you could almost get 2 chars to 60 on completely different level paths. And joining an instance run ... lets say in desolace if you had never been to kalimdor before ... man that was insane. You could either go dustwallow marsh, thousand needles, feralas, complete with hostile NPC guarded settlements on the way. Or try the longer but safer darkshore, ashenvale, stonetalon route. Neither was easy to find if you didn't know the way, and both where hell on a PvP server.
And at the end of your treck you had a monster of an instance hardly anyone knew their way around, with plenty of ways to screw up.
Pity they changed the gamedesign to the mixed zones, instant instance teleporting etc. Most of the fun back then was "invading" hostile land like hillsbrad foothills with a mixed level zerg or going into instances you where not supposed to get into like the one in your enemies faction city. In many ways Vanilla WoW was a really good MMO imho.
This is what alot of todays mmo:s are missing, heck even todays WoW! Guess my last hope for a new mmo is Blizzard next one IF THEY REMEMBER.... what made their little baby WoW so very special...
One example I see everytime I follow a new mmo is the hysterical yelling "FORBID GANKING UHUUUBUUHUUU" Remembering when I started playing WoW back in 05 I think it was, Blizzard made it VERY VERY VERY SIMPLE:
PvP servers are now there for you who want that kind of playstyle
PvE servers ...........
RP..........
Blizzard know what they're doin to make everyone happy! My big hopes to "Titan" (very small hope for elder scrolls meanwhile;) )
Some of you are proving our points for us.. You view MMORPG's as the same as console games or general single player PC games.. I want my genre back.. I do not want the players that jumped over into my yard to play THEIR style of gaming.. I do not play MMORPG's to relive some pre-written storyline.. KoTOR, Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls of done that along with countless others.. In my opinion, if you don't have the creative imagination to stimunlate your own mind, then please go back to your Xbox's or PC games and leave my MMO genre alone.. LOL We all see what happen when KoTOR fans wanted a MMO to play.. bahahahaha WoW was the first and only single player PC game that made the transition into the MMO genre with any success.. I doubt it will ever be repeated, even by Blizzard themself.. Not sure whey every dev team since has tried to duplicated it..
TOR has big worlds, the size of the worlds being too small is unlikely to be a problem to you when you're playing the game.
Alderaan, Tatooine, Hoth, Belsavis; all of those are worlds that might take you an hour or more to cross on a mount if you just try to ignore all mobs.
The problems with the worlds however, is that the devs took unnecessary measures to seperate the factions from each other and that they don't give you much of an incentive (ouside datacrons) to go exploring. Most people with whom I used to play never saw 75% of the big worlds listed above.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
SWTOR could have had smaller worlds for all i care, the game doesnt really encourage exploration and as soon as youre done leveling on one planet, there really isnt any reason to go back.
Originally posted by Rydeson Some of you are proving our points for us.. You view MMORPG's as the same as console games or general single player PC games.. I want my genre back.. I do not want the players that jumped over into my yard to play THEIR style of gaming.. I do not play MMORPG's to relive some pre-written storyline.. KoTOR, Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls of done that along with countless others.. In my opinion, if you don't have the creative imagination to stimunlate your own mind, then please go back to your Xbox's or PC games and leave my MMO genre alone.. LOL We all see what happen when KoTOR fans wanted a MMO to play.. bahahahaha WoW was the first and only single player PC game that made the transition into the MMO genre with any success.. I doubt it will ever be repeated, even by Blizzard themself.. Not sure whey every dev team since has tried to duplicated it..
I view all video games (including MMOs) as disposable entertainment products.
If you disagree with that view, tough.
Contrary to popular belief, there are MMOs that are profitable and some are even 'WoW-clones'.
DDO, LoTRO, Aion all made their development costs plus profit.
Are they as big as 'WoW'? No, but they made money for the company so they were successful.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Comments
this is a very misinformed post. some worlds are close to the size of one wow zone, well i can think of one world that is that small at least.
the rest are roughly the size of 3 wow zones. also, some zones you do pretty much "stay on the road" which i agree is pretty restrictive and annoying.
but other worlds like tatooine are definitely not like that, it is odd that you mentioned that planet in particular because it is definitely not one that forces you to stay on the road like coruscant and narshadaa for example.
all that said, i think vanilla wow wasn't really that much bigger if at all and when you consider that SWTOR had wz's and the same amount of raid content, i would argue that there was more content in this game at release than wow had.
this is coming from someone who played both at release.
i honestly don't think SWTOR lacks content, its the way that content is implemented and the quality of some of it.
IMO the open pvp is the biggest joke of the game, you rarely run into the other faction and the WZ's are the only pvp the game has.
wow at release had great open pvp, even without any BG's. TM and stranglethorn pvp is some of the funnest times i have ever had in wow.
SWTOR lacks that.
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You have to give credit where credit is due. Even Vanilla WoW, maybe especially vanilla wow, felt huge to me when i first played it in 2005. I mean you could almost get 2 chars to 60 on completely different level paths. And joining an instance run ... lets say in desolace if you had never been to kalimdor before ... man that was insane. You could either go dustwallow marsh, thousand needles, feralas, complete with hostile NPC guarded settlements on the way. Or try the longer but safer darkshore, ashenvale, stonetalon route. Neither was easy to find if you didn't know the way, and both where hell on a PvP server.
And at the end of your treck you had a monster of an instance hardly anyone knew their way around, with plenty of ways to screw up.
Pity they changed the gamedesign to the mixed zones, instant instance teleporting etc. Most of the fun back then was "invading" hostile land like hillsbrad foothills with a mixed level zerg or going into instances you where not supposed to get into like the one in your enemies faction city. In many ways Vanilla WoW was a really good MMO imho.
Read the OP and just had to comment on it before continuing to read.......................Im not disagreeing with you but how can you do another SWTOR vs WOW post when all you played was WoW? Thats like saying Apples are better then Oranges but I only had apples.........Now your comparing SWTOR to WOW but which WOW are you looking at? The WoW that was only a year old? b/c how are you going to compare 1 year to 8 years? I think I made my point
I didn't see vanilla in the OP at all.
most of swtor character/ lore is even more shallow,,most of it is so predictable , that its quite funny
gw2 at least does this with some humour,,just like wow does
the few surprises that swtor throws in , are sadly bad ones,,immersion breaking bugs, bugged storyline bosses etc
so let me ask u this,,HOW am i supposed to enjoy this great storyline WHILE MASHING BUTTONS ,
AND FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE??..might as well ask me to play the piano, while while im standing on a flagpole
SWTOR is essentially a Star Wars story. Whether you like the story / lore / char in Star Wars (which has a very distinct good vs evil slant) is up to you.
As to your second point, I'd ask how you can eat popcorn while watching a movie. I have no problem doing those two things so not sure why you can not.
If you can not do two things at once that's totally fine, I won't judge you.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
When you take both faction sides for planets, buildings and instances. I would say TOR is much bigger in actual size of the map than Vanilla WoW. But players don't look at acutal facts of size and so forth. Only how it feels to play. And the feeling i had while playing WoW in 1995 was that the game was huge. It took a long time to get to some places and questing actually took a lot of time with travel and PvP on a PvP server. Time sinks, low drop rates and grinding made you time in places much longer as well. Adding to the feeling you get of the game world being very big.
TOR is part of the current ADD gaming the masses seem to have at the moment. No one really wants to grind or "work" in a game anymore. So most current games make questing and leveling very fast. So you could have the largest game mass in history, but it would still feel small when you take out grinding and just fast forword characters to the end game grind. Making it feel small.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
If I wanted to read a story, I would just cuddle up on the sofa with a book.. My library has thousands of storylines, that would take me a lifetime to read, and it doesn't cost me $15 a month to enjoy them.. EQ is still my favorite MMORPG to date and it didn't need storylines to succeed..
I have an opposite preference to you.
While I enjoy a good book, I also like a good story in my video games as I get to see them in action rather than just through words.
I play games mostly for the story so SWTOR is my preferred MMO.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Definitley agree with you on this.
By that token, there's no reason for movies to exist... After all, there are books! Stories should be told in no other media!
On topic: the thing that kills the world in SWTOR is not the size, or even the zone loads (though that does get annoying fast). The real thing is, after you complete your quests and datacron runs, there's next to no reason to keep visiting the zones. The whole thing is much too focused on combat & story.
WoW at 1 year old,l with just the free-roaming Eastern Kingdoms plus Kalimdor too was a giant compared to the tiny, cramped rat mazes of SWTOR.
This is what alot of todays mmo:s are missing, heck even todays WoW! Guess my last hope for a new mmo is Blizzard next one IF THEY REMEMBER.... what made their little baby WoW so very special...
One example I see everytime I follow a new mmo is the hysterical yelling "FORBID GANKING UHUUUBUUHUUU" Remembering when I started playing WoW back in 05 I think it was, Blizzard made it VERY VERY VERY SIMPLE:
PvP servers are now there for you who want that kind of playstyle
PvE servers ...........
RP..........
Blizzard know what they're doin to make everyone happy! My big hopes to "Titan" (very small hope for elder scrolls meanwhile;) )
Their "stories" are hit and miss.
I made a Jedi Consular and the stortyline was just as shallow as any other MMO, maybe I should have researched before I made mine.
TOR has big worlds, the size of the worlds being too small is unlikely to be a problem to you when you're playing the game.
Alderaan, Tatooine, Hoth, Belsavis; all of those are worlds that might take you an hour or more to cross on a mount if you just try to ignore all mobs.
The problems with the worlds however, is that the devs took unnecessary measures to seperate the factions from each other and that they don't give you much of an incentive (ouside datacrons) to go exploring. Most people with whom I used to play never saw 75% of the big worlds listed above.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
SWTOR could have had smaller worlds for all i care, the game doesnt really encourage exploration and as soon as youre done leveling on one planet, there really isnt any reason to go back.
I view all video games (including MMOs) as disposable entertainment products.
If you disagree with that view, tough.
Contrary to popular belief, there are MMOs that are profitable and some are even 'WoW-clones'.
DDO, LoTRO, Aion all made their development costs plus profit.
Are they as big as 'WoW'? No, but they made money for the company so they were successful.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.