On January 08 2012 01:51 floor exercise wrote: I just don't understand why it's always some foregone conclusion that a new MMO is going to suck more than an old one. Why even make them then?
As far as something like "polish" which is pretty vague in itself, Rift at 1/5th the cost (60m and 300m respectively, correct me if I am wrong) of TOR was more polished, it was incredibly close to wow and in many cases improved on it with things like multiple specs, aoe loot, etc. These are not things that TOR should be expected to ship without, it just makes no sense to think it's some impossibility. Especially not for the money they threw at it.
Content wise I think it's sort of a misconception to act like new games should have less content out of the box than an old MMO. The only truly relevant content is that of the newest expansion for a given MMO. I don't believe it should be hard to meet or exceed that amount of content for a new game, given both larger budgets and development time for a new MMO than an expansion.
I refuse to believe there is any reason a new game cannot be as good an experience as an older more established MMO. As a consumer it's not my job to rationalize the failure of devs
This video provides a decent summary of your first point/question:
It's a case that EA sees Blizzard making a motza from WoW and wants in on some of that sweet action. They get Bioware to try and develop an MMO. Thing is, Bioware doesn't know how to make an MMO. They have only developed interactive movies and it shows in the results. I don't even think SWTOR is aimed at gamers, I think it's aimed at RPers and Star Wars fanboys.
I personally think there is an opportunity to get a piece of the MMO/Blizzard dominated pie, currently held by by WoW, (even along side Titan in the future) for gamers that want an alternative. I do not think however the way Bioware/EA has gone about attempting to achieve that with SWTOR was the right way. With Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 coming up pretty soon, I think SWTOR's days are numbered.
Yea it is quite simple really, if you want to make a game that is based on the wow skeleton you have to look at it and ask yourself: is this comfortably better than wow across the board? Oh, the answer is no? Well then goodluck keeping your subscribers for longer than a couple months before they either go back to wow or try the next attempt at a clone.
On January 08 2012 01:33 Boonbag wrote: the game is pretty good, you guys compare it to wow that had 7 years of polishing
This doesn't make any sense. SWTOR today competes with WOW today, why are Bioware/EA allowed to release a game in 2011 that is held to 2004 standards?
I know, I have no clue how these people reason this idea in their head that it is okay to release a game in 2011 but have the same problems that games that were released over 5 years ago (who had since then fixed the problem). Why can't they just fix the problem before releasing it?
They problably spent so much damn money on this game they had to start making it back already.
On January 08 2012 01:33 Boonbag wrote: the game is pretty good, you guys compare it to wow that had 7 years of polishing
This doesn't make any sense. SWTOR today competes with WOW today, why are Bioware/EA allowed to release a game in 2011 that is held to 2004 standards?
I know, I have no clue how these people reason this idea in their head that it is okay to release a game in 2011 but have the same problems that games that were released over 5 years ago (who had since then fixed the problem). Why can't they just fix the problem before releasing it?
They problably spent so much damn money on this game they had to start making it back already.
So the same as every single other MMO then? It's always going to be like that because at some point you just can't delay it anymore.
Final class quest for the Consular class quest chain in swtor . Was lots of fun to watch. I was laughing my ass off at the end because my buddy on vent was making jokes about the bug, fraps oddly didnt pick vent up for some reason. Which is sad because it was f'ing hilarious. But newho enjoy.
People saying "standards have risen over the last X years herp a derp" are fooling themselves.
Game releases will always have bugs, game breaking and exploit glitches. Its been around and its not going away any time soon.
ONLY through the huge testing of the release (masses of players playing and finding them.) can they find and fix them. I agree aspects of SWTOR are bad and shouldnt have happened, but many of them are bloody inevitable.
To name a couple releases in the last year or two filled with bugs. (Only the ones i have experienced.)
SC2 (Multiplayer imbalance anyone?) Skyrim. COD Black ops. (Anyone remember it crashing every fucking minute for the first 2 days?) Battlefield 3
Not saying everything is acceptable but your all elitist fools to suggest that it should be released perfect.
Enjoy waiting 15 years for your next game release.
On January 08 2012 14:59 Capped wrote: People saying "standards have risen over the last X years herp a derp" are fooling themselves.
Game releases will always have bugs, game breaking and exploit glitches. Its been around and its not going away any time soon.
ONLY through the huge testing of the release (masses of players playing and finding them.) can they find and fix them. I agree aspects of SWTOR are bad and shouldnt have happened, but many of them are bloody inevitable.
To name a couple releases in the last year or two filled with bugs. (Only the ones i have experienced.)
SC2 (Multiplayer imbalance anyone?) Skyrim. COD Black ops. (Anyone remember it crashing every fucking minute for the first 2 days?) Battlefield 3
Not saying everything is acceptable but your all elitist fools to suggest that it should be released perfect.
Enjoy waiting 15 years for your next game release.
But also look at games like Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Mario, Metal Gear Solid and a number of Japanese high profile games. While I think the Japanese gaming industry is dragging further behind Western developers in terms of trends, quality and market share, their typical mindset about game development is that once a game is released it is finished. They never developed a strong PC gaming industry so they do not have it in their mindset that they'll just release a game and patch it later. It is entirely possible to make high budget games without game critical errors before release. To ask for perfection is unreasonable. To ask for no glaring or game altering errors at release is perfectly acceptable.
The flip side to this is that it's hard as hell, if not impossible, to get Japanese developers to fix bugs post release. So it would be nice if Western companies kept their current involvement in post-production patching while raising the bar on the acceptable release worthy states of their games.
On January 08 2012 14:59 Capped wrote: People saying "standards have risen over the last X years herp a derp" are fooling themselves.
Game releases will always have bugs, game breaking and exploit glitches. Its been around and its not going away any time soon.
ONLY through the huge testing of the release (masses of players playing and finding them.) can they find and fix them. I agree aspects of SWTOR are bad and shouldnt have happened, but many of them are bloody inevitable.
To name a couple releases in the last year or two filled with bugs. (Only the ones i have experienced.)
SC2 (Multiplayer imbalance anyone?) Skyrim. COD Black ops. (Anyone remember it crashing every fucking minute for the first 2 days?) Battlefield 3
Not saying everything is acceptable but your all elitist fools to suggest that it should be released perfect.
Enjoy waiting 15 years for your next game release.
The standard is not whether or not it will be bug free (no one expects this). What players expect are features that are standard in most games that came out in 2010.
As a sandbox Star Wars roleplayer (Pen & paper, into 20D, into Star Wars: Galaxies when it launched -> until day it got closed because of TOR release) and watching streams of gameplay, I can't really decide if I want to give the game a try or not.
It really seems like a KOTOR3 with a monthly free--it really seems like it's missing an MMO aspect, sans chatrooms. It also seems very stuck in it's story mode, making Roleplay a likely back components--or at least, not "sandboxy."
I also don't like the timeline... I never really got into KOTOR or anything other than original trilogy -> Thrawn Saga or so. I always pen and papered as an Imperial anyways.
Finally, disappointed there's no Bothan playable race :[
Anyone want to give me some counterpoints to the above and talk me into giving it a try?
On January 08 2012 16:36 Alay wrote: As a sandbox Star Wars roleplayer (Pen & paper, into 20D, into Star Wars: Galaxies when it launched -> until day it got closed because of TOR release) and watching streams of gameplay, I can't really decide if I want to give the game a try or not.
It really seems like a KOTOR3 with a monthly free--it really seems like it's missing an MMO aspect, sans chatrooms. It also seems very stuck in it's story mode, making Roleplay a likely back components--or at least, not "sandboxy."
I also don't like the timeline... I never really got into KOTOR or anything other than original trilogy -> Thrawn Saga or so. I always pen and papered as an Imperial anyways.
Finally, disappointed there's no Bothan playable race :[
Anyone want to give me some counterpoints to the above and talk me into giving it a try?
To be honest, if you prefer "sandbox"-style gaming, this game is probably not for you. It was designed right off the bat as a "themepark"-style game, where your path is already laid out in front of you and you make your choices along that path.
I feel like I'm the exact opposite of you in this regard. I didn't like SWG for exactly that reason. I don't enjoy sandbox style games (Elder Scrolls series included). I'd prefer to play through a story that's already been written and experience it that way.
With regard to the MMO aspect, I haven't experienced anything lacking on that part. The only time I felt alone was on the high level planets (40+) but that's because of the fact that there's almost nobody else at that level. The lower level planets have always been packed, even at odd hours. I even run into people all over the place despite the planet instancing.
The game's main selling point throughout its advertising campaign has always been the story. If you don't enjoy that time period, you likely won't enjoy the game. I will say, though, that even without following the lore religiously pre-launch (I only read a couple of the comics a few years ago and none of the novels), I still enjoyed the Jedi Knight story immensely. When I realized how well-connected the main characters were to the KOTOR storyline, I nearly shat myself. That's just me, though. Your mileage may vary.
So i got to 50 as a sith warrior and basically just called it quits there. I will give them tons of credit for actually make questing fun. This is the first, and probably only, mmo I will ever want to make a new character in. That said, I already cancelled my sub because there just isn't anything to do. What I mean by this is basically the pvp balance is really bad and I hate warzone type matches, I'd much prefer WoW-style arena.
That said, in a month or a few when some patches are out I'll take a look and see what they've done. It does have massive potential.
I unsubscribed also, as a person that likes to pvp i absolutly cannot get over unresponsivnes (especially visible in WZ, as there seems to be some weird lag/delay on top of standard weird gcd/animation system), abysmal UI (especially from healer point of view) and lack of WoW arena type enviorment. Leveling is best from all MMO's i've played, but at same point it basicly eradicates any kind of world pvp while doing so. Maybe will resub if they actually make this game something closer to 2011 relased game, not some kind of weird mix single player game with added MMO features. Couse thats how it feels to me atm.
On January 08 2012 14:59 Capped wrote: People saying "standards have risen over the last X years herp a derp" are fooling themselves.
Game releases will always have bugs, game breaking and exploit glitches. Its been around and its not going away any time soon.
ONLY through the huge testing of the release (masses of players playing and finding them.) can they find and fix them. I agree aspects of SWTOR are bad and shouldnt have happened, but many of them are bloody inevitable.
To name a couple releases in the last year or two filled with bugs. (Only the ones i have experienced.)
SC2 (Multiplayer imbalance anyone?) Skyrim. COD Black ops. (Anyone remember it crashing every fucking minute for the first 2 days?) Battlefield 3
Not saying everything is acceptable but your all elitist fools to suggest that it should be released perfect.
Enjoy waiting 15 years for your next game release.
Standards have risen in terms of the game play, not the bugs, the actual game even if it there weren't all the bugs, exploits and glitches.
Your game examples don't really make any sense to me. For a start they aren't MMOs, you've listed an RTS, a single player game, and two FPS. You've just described Blizzard's SC2 as a game release "filled with bugs", in comparison to SWTOR, on the forum of the biggest SC2 community site. Think about that for a moment.
Why is this discussion still happening? It's been a while since the game has came out. I would have thought the discussion would have move on to other stuff besides whether this game will fail or not. People spend too much time theorizing the future of the game. For what purpose? It's so stupid. It's like those people who theorize on strategies but never actually play SC2, just spending time watching livestreams and arguing and theorizing in the strategy forums. It's dumb. If it's not the game for you, then don't play it. There's no need to go everywhere, trying to prove that your theory that this game will fail is right. People are so firmed in their belief that the game will fail that they will try everything to make sure it happens. Play the games that you like and stop ruining the enjoyment for those who does. Stop the hatred.
On January 08 2012 14:59 Capped wrote: People saying "standards have risen over the last X years herp a derp" are fooling themselves.
Game releases will always have bugs, game breaking and exploit glitches. Its been around and its not going away any time soon.
ONLY through the huge testing of the release (masses of players playing and finding them.) can they find and fix them. I agree aspects of SWTOR are bad and shouldnt have happened, but many of them are bloody inevitable.
To name a couple releases in the last year or two filled with bugs. (Only the ones i have experienced.)
SC2 (Multiplayer imbalance anyone?) Skyrim. COD Black ops. (Anyone remember it crashing every fucking minute for the first 2 days?) Battlefield 3
Not saying everything is acceptable but your all elitist fools to suggest that it should be released perfect.
Enjoy waiting 15 years for your next game release.
Standards have risen in terms of the game play, not the bugs, the actual game even if it there weren't all the bugs, exploits and glitches.
Your game examples don't really make any sense to me. For a start they aren't MMOs, you've listed an RTS, a single player game, and two FPS. You've just described Blizzard's SC2 as a game release "filled with bugs", in comparison to SWTOR, on the forum of the biggest SC2 community site. Think about that for a moment.
Sorry, i didnt realise all of the SC2 patches for balance werent meant to fix the game on a competitive level...or that 5 rax reaper and 1 supply roaches were completely A-OK! O.o
Not bashing SC2, im just pointing out that at release it still needed balance, still does some might argue. You tell me standards have risen in terms of gameplay..i think they are already going to address the combat delay this month (remains to be seen.) but thats all i see in terms of gameplay. If your looking for something to "revolutionise" MMO's other then tank-dps-healer triad, wait for GW2. SWTOR loses absolutely nothing for using that tbh.
Naming different genres of games doesnt take anything from my arguement as people are generalising when they say standards of games have risen, im pointing out ones that havent, and are giant budgets, best in class games and have had multiple games in the series. You really cant turn round and say that when everyone has generalised in the last 5 pages.
Why cant i name an MMO? There are not alot that came out recently with high-budgets, only F2P low budget crap. There IS rift, but from what i heard there was a reasonable amount of polish on the game. It didnt stop the bugs and imbalance and unscheduled maintenance that ive also read up on, not to the extent of swtor but it was all still there, i didnt comment because i didnt experience it.
Also, if you want to talk about game UI brain farts, wtf is the origin shit on BF3? Companies are retarded, and nobody knows why
TBH, i agree there are many things in SWTOR that shouldnt have been so broken or messed up at launch, but then theres the other 80% that some people are crying their tits out over and saying "omg why isnt it perfect at launch" - i have seen the words perfect and launch in the same sentence quite a few times in this thread, WILL. NEVER. HAPPEN.
On January 08 2012 16:36 Alay wrote: As a sandbox Star Wars roleplayer (Pen & paper, into 20D, into Star Wars: Galaxies when it launched -> until day it got closed because of TOR release) and watching streams of gameplay, I can't really decide if I want to give the game a try or not.
It really seems like a KOTOR3 with a monthly free--it really seems like it's missing an MMO aspect, sans chatrooms. It also seems very stuck in it's story mode, making Roleplay a likely back components--or at least, not "sandboxy."
I also don't like the timeline... I never really got into KOTOR or anything other than original trilogy -> Thrawn Saga or so. I always pen and papered as an Imperial anyways.
Finally, disappointed there's no Bothan playable race :[
Anyone want to give me some counterpoints to the above and talk me into giving it a try?
On January 08 2012 01:33 Boonbag wrote: the game is pretty good, you guys compare it to wow that had 7 years of polishing
This doesn't make any sense. SWTOR today competes with WOW today, why are Bioware/EA allowed to release a game in 2011 that is held to 2004 standards?
actually it makes sense in a way, WoW have alot of stuff that works pretty much perfectly because it had so much time perfecting it. MMO's are so big that it will take time to get everything you want done(not talking about content). So in some ways wow is way ahead of SWTOR, and that is mainly because they have developed so much longer.
On January 08 2012 01:33 Boonbag wrote: the game is pretty good, you guys compare it to wow that had 7 years of polishing
This doesn't make any sense. SWTOR today competes with WOW today, why are Bioware/EA allowed to release a game in 2011 that is held to 2004 standards?
actually it makes sense in a way, WoW have alot of stuff that works pretty much perfectly because it had so much time perfecting it. MMO's are so big that it will take time to get everything you want done(not talking about content). So in some ways wow is way ahead of SWTOR, and that is mainly because they have developed so much longer.
But in order to perfect those things, they did them the 'wrong' way first, and then worked on refining and making them the right way.
Bioware doesn't need to look at how they did it the first time, they don't need to follow the footsteps, they just need to look at the way it is now, and either copy or preferably make an improved version.
WoW development is A -> B -> C -> D TOR development should be D -> E, not start over at the beginning like they did for 90% of the stuff in this game. Or in some cases start with something worse, like the UI and lack of mods.
EPT
