WoW had that as a design goal too in their latest expansion.
We'll see how it goes with TOR.
They've been somewhat successful in WoW.
I do not believe that the specific pacing the Bioware team are aiming for is anywhere near WoW's current pacing either. Judging from the fansite impressions, it's slower in the build they played.
But I can't tell the future so yes, we'll see what happens.
So basically they've narrowed down their previous release window from "June-December" to "July-December?"
They narrowed the release date last month from any time in 2011 to the 2nd half of 2011. It's like a two month narrowing, but at the very least, it's less ridiculous than not ruling out May and June because you want to play some bullshit coy marketing game, where you're trying to game theory your competition. If it's a good game, it'll do well. If it's not, it'll probably still do OK.
This is why I'm in engineering and accounting and not marketing. I really don't have the propensity for it.
They have maintained the "outside chance" that the release could slip to January of 2012, but there is a slim chance that will happen and they're covering their bases in case.
Yeah, it's definitely a Beta version of the game, and I wonder if the guy playing it has short term memory problems, but it does look like they've made a lot of strides in improving the look of the game. The combat of multiple enemies with the out of combat heal is a nice change. The dialog scenes look cool. Getting the standard kill quests through the bonus quest system is also a nice change.
If you don't like the action bar style MMOs, this game won't be for you.
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
Well, the story bits look fine (though some of them are quite awkwardly animated), but the combat is pretty much carbon copy of WoW. Even Rift wasn't that blatant with their "creative borrowing". I mean, sure, you can't expect every game to re-invent the wheel, but stealing the wheels from another car isn't exactly the best solution, either.
How is it a carbon copy of WoW? You mean it is the same level of quality?
Fizban140 on
0
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
3 things about that video:
1. I noticed KOTOR music reused in it.
2. That lightsaber constructing bit was the definition of cheesy.
3. The traitor Jedi. I like how you can let him live in return for future rewards/rude awakenings.
I'm mostly neutral to that video because it's clearly a beta video and because the majority of it is still in essence things we know and expect from SW:TOR based on everything we've seen so far. I skipped a lot of the combat.
Well, the story bits look fine (though some of them are quite awkwardly animated), but the combat is pretty much carbon copy of WoW. Even Rift wasn't that blatant with their "creative borrowing". I mean, sure, you can't expect every game to re-invent the wheel, but stealing the wheels from another car isn't exactly the best solution, either.
How was Rift any less of a "just like WoW" mmo then this?
It's an action bar MMO. You'd expect it to like as much like WoW as any of those and it does.
Well, personally I've played many WoW like MMO's, including WoW, and I've just been over that for four years now.
I have played many other MMO's which have done original things, and consider only those kinds of games to be worth my time. The games attempting to do something better.
All glory to TOR and its voice acting, it's Legacy quest (that's the "main plot" quest in Galaxies after they fucked it up), and its dumbass choice wheel with "GLORIOUS HUMILITY" - "A QUESTION?" - "UNCHARACTERISTIC DARK SIDE ASSHOLE CHOICE" fantastic options.
But beyond that, what I just can't get beyond is the gameplay. That gameplay is horrendous. I'm sure it caters to all sorts of fan-bases and skill levels, but it's just been done to death and I can't be complicit in its use any longer.
Ironically enough, that kind of gameplay is technically what KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 play like. More or less. So at least it fits the universe.
Honestly, I'm kind of curious as to why you guys had such high hopes regarding the gameplay being different as they've basically shown since like 2008 that TOR will be an action bar MMO in the style that we've had since Everquest. The Taral V video should have confirmed that like two months ago.
I do love that "If Trailers told the Truth" thing mostly because I never understood why anyone gave a shit about any of the TOR trailers which very obviously had nothing to do with anything. Basically, they payed a bunch of people a shitload of money to make a random silly CGI short to drum up excitement from silly people.
But seriously, I don't know what people were expecting gameplay wise anyway. "Action Bar MMO" is practically synonymous with "MMO", and for good reason. There's a few FPS mmos or some other style, but geneally they go with standard RPG gameplay, which works.
Holy shit, guys. I could have told you it would be an action-bar MMO from the 10 minutes of the game I played at PAX last year. Anyone could have told you from the PAX East Taral V flashpoint video. The fact that this video is what killed the deal for anyone is mind-blowing in the extreme.
I just started watching the leaked vid -- I find I have to take it in small doses because of the way all the fine details on the landscape start blurring the minute the player character starts running, and it's giving me a headache.
Off hand, I see why people make comparisons to WoW, but there are a lot of RPGs (both single player and multiplayer, across a variety of platforms) that do the whole feat bar with a cooldown timers thing. What I've seen thus far hasn't looked precisely groundbreaking, but I'm not really sure it's fair to say that they're stealing from WoW. It's just, you know, kind of conventional so far.
What really kills me is how slow this guy plays. I'm torn between my hunger for more footage of the game and not wanting to spend the next hour watch him kind of stare at maps and quest screens and wander.
The only thing I got from that video was that the world looks kinda barren, and Im pretty sure that was just because of a lack of other player characters. I didnt watch the whole thing, since you know, I actually want to experience stuff when I play the game so maybe there are other people out there.
Have they said anything about mounts? Like, do you get a speeder bike that you can use on worlds? I want a land speeder.
"Your masturbating with the ambience options -- stop that you must."
"But I'm not yet satisfied with number of light sources!"
"You will be. You will be.."
SammyF on
0
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
Virtually every MMO in existence that is even remotely financially successful and popular owes elements of it's design and gameplay to the EQ/WoW model. The only alternative is a sandbox MMO like EvE, which obviously has it's own strengths and weaknesses.
This is just a case of people brushing up against a recurring problem they keep encountering with the MMO genre which is that they want different gameplay and combat, in some cases drastically different, from the EQ/WoW standard which is both the easiest to recreate and the most safe to sell to the wide range of people you need to be financially viable. The EQ/WoW model is not bad by any stretch, but it's been reused and redone so many times by people hoping to match the glory of WoW that players have simply lost interest in it altogether. MMOs no longer feel like adventures in a virtual world with thousands of other players, living and competing in the same space for glory and fun, but like grinds designed to drain the maximum amount of man hours and subscription fees/micro-transactions out of the players and keep them playing and paying.
MMO gamers are pretty much forced to accept that MMOs are by their nature either sandboxes or themeparks. Everyone needs to be serviced equally in the same presumably fun and heroic way, like a fantasy McDonald's. Doing things different is possible but much harder in an industry dominated by a few small titans and WoW where you pretty much have to commit a very large sum of money and a large amount of time to development to produce a product anywhere near able to compete and gain a steady stream of players and cash to keep things rolling and make a profit. Compared to the shorter timeframes given to even the grandest of triple AAA game titles, as well as the quicker profits they make back, MMOs look very hard to manage and succeed with when you can just create a regular RPG. As well, MMOs have not really gained any truly successful footholds in consoles, where we all know thanks to piracy most of the money is anyways, where other games have made a bucketload of money with hardly any long term investment beyond DLC and multiplayer.
In short, MMOs are pretty much the game genre equivalent of the antithesis to Capitalism. Expecting something as monumentally expensive as TOR apparently is to succeed in a market full of WoW clones, Asian Freemiums and the odd sandbox leads one to naturally expect Bioware, LucasArts and EA to take the safe and easy path where possible, with some cute gimmicks added, so as to avoid (in theory) a flop on the scale of the Titanic in case people don't like your bold new direction either. Plenty of people who complain about MMOs will never be satisfied by any changes short of MMOs becoming FPS games with larger multiplayer components. Bioware is only trying to be successful and cater to the widest number of people, like Lucas did with the prequels. And we all know how well that turned out.
I'm not mentioning GW2 here because there's a thread for that and we already make enough comparisons.
Have they said anything about mounts? Like, do you get a speeder bike that you can use on worlds? I want a land speeder.
I think it was leaked that there are mounts.
Im going to cruise through so many cities.
I saw the land speeder equivalent of WoW's griffin taxis in that video and I believe that to be the only place you'll see land speeders underneath your character.
Bioware is only trying to be successful and cater to the widest number of people, like Lucas did with the prequels. And we all know how well that turned out.
While I agree that Bioware is trying to be successful by catering to a large number of people, I find the prequel comparison to be inaccurate. Target demographics isn't what caused the prequels to suck. Poor writing, acting, and plotting were the reason it sucked. TOR won't be all things to all people. I think that's well established. I would say they're doing more than throwing in some "cute gimmicks" though unless you think the original Knights of the Old Republic was a normal RPG game with some "cute gimmicks." Personally, the whole totally voiced, every class has an individual story, which you alter through dialog and actions is a pretty big thing to me. I can see if someone doesn't particularly care about that, this game will not be for them.
Posts
They've been somewhat successful in WoW.
I do not believe that the specific pacing the Bioware team are aiming for is anywhere near WoW's current pacing either. Judging from the fansite impressions, it's slower in the build they played.
But I can't tell the future so yes, we'll see what happens.
*sniffs*
I thought they were still hinting at a possible 2012 release.
I liked the snappy sound effects. Lots of zaps, ptangs and pew pews.
They narrowed the release date last month from any time in 2011 to the 2nd half of 2011. It's like a two month narrowing, but at the very least, it's less ridiculous than not ruling out May and June because you want to play some bullshit coy marketing game, where you're trying to game theory your competition. If it's a good game, it'll do well. If it's not, it'll probably still do OK.
This is why I'm in engineering and accounting and not marketing. I really don't have the propensity for it.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
Also Basil, is there a link to a saved VOD?
PSN : TheDagon
Pretty much every game ever : TheDagon
I don't know how long it will be up, but about one hour and thirty minutes of footage has been leaked of the TOR Jedi Knight gameplay.
It goes through the "Construct your Lightsaber" quest.
The video is fantastic, as it single-handedly convinced me never to play this game.
Your opinion may vary.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
You can tell it is a beta copy of the game for sure though, with the lightsaber sounds.
Has closed Beta even started yet?
I'd be slightly worried if they weren't basically aiming for "December" at this point.
If you don't like the action bar style MMOs, this game won't be for you.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
What's unfortunate about it?
1. I noticed KOTOR music reused in it.
2. That lightsaber constructing bit was the definition of cheesy.
3. The traitor Jedi. I like how you can let him live in return for future rewards/rude awakenings.
I'm mostly neutral to that video because it's clearly a beta video and because the majority of it is still in essence things we know and expect from SW:TOR based on everything we've seen so far. I skipped a lot of the combat.
They creep the hell out of me when they talk.
That's because their eyes are inky black voids that want to suck out your soul.
How was Rift any less of a "just like WoW" mmo then this?
It's an action bar MMO. You'd expect it to like as much like WoW as any of those and it does.
I just went back to examine exactly what had made me physically cringe away from my screen, and that was it.
Their lips move but their eyes tell me they're already dead.
I have played many other MMO's which have done original things, and consider only those kinds of games to be worth my time. The games attempting to do something better.
All glory to TOR and its voice acting, it's Legacy quest (that's the "main plot" quest in Galaxies after they fucked it up), and its dumbass choice wheel with "GLORIOUS HUMILITY" - "A QUESTION?" - "UNCHARACTERISTIC DARK SIDE ASSHOLE CHOICE" fantastic options.
But beyond that, what I just can't get beyond is the gameplay. That gameplay is horrendous. I'm sure it caters to all sorts of fan-bases and skill levels, but it's just been done to death and I can't be complicit in its use any longer.
Ironically enough, that kind of gameplay is technically what KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 play like. More or less. So at least it fits the universe.
Anyway, I had high hopes. They had been dashed.
It's really my fault.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
But seriously, I don't know what people were expecting gameplay wise anyway. "Action Bar MMO" is practically synonymous with "MMO", and for good reason. There's a few FPS mmos or some other style, but geneally they go with standard RPG gameplay, which works.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
Off hand, I see why people make comparisons to WoW, but there are a lot of RPGs (both single player and multiplayer, across a variety of platforms) that do the whole feat bar with a cooldown timers thing. What I've seen thus far hasn't looked precisely groundbreaking, but I'm not really sure it's fair to say that they're stealing from WoW. It's just, you know, kind of conventional so far.
Personally however, I expected something more on top of it.
The game just doesn't contain it (gameplay wise, main quest and voices aside).
Have they said anything about mounts? Like, do you get a speeder bike that you can use on worlds? I want a land speeder.
Like what?
I think it was leaked that there are mounts.
That's pretty much exactly the reaction I had.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
"But I'm not yet satisfied with number of light sources!"
"You will be. You will be.."
This is just a case of people brushing up against a recurring problem they keep encountering with the MMO genre which is that they want different gameplay and combat, in some cases drastically different, from the EQ/WoW standard which is both the easiest to recreate and the most safe to sell to the wide range of people you need to be financially viable. The EQ/WoW model is not bad by any stretch, but it's been reused and redone so many times by people hoping to match the glory of WoW that players have simply lost interest in it altogether. MMOs no longer feel like adventures in a virtual world with thousands of other players, living and competing in the same space for glory and fun, but like grinds designed to drain the maximum amount of man hours and subscription fees/micro-transactions out of the players and keep them playing and paying.
MMO gamers are pretty much forced to accept that MMOs are by their nature either sandboxes or themeparks. Everyone needs to be serviced equally in the same presumably fun and heroic way, like a fantasy McDonald's. Doing things different is possible but much harder in an industry dominated by a few small titans and WoW where you pretty much have to commit a very large sum of money and a large amount of time to development to produce a product anywhere near able to compete and gain a steady stream of players and cash to keep things rolling and make a profit. Compared to the shorter timeframes given to even the grandest of triple AAA game titles, as well as the quicker profits they make back, MMOs look very hard to manage and succeed with when you can just create a regular RPG. As well, MMOs have not really gained any truly successful footholds in consoles, where we all know thanks to piracy most of the money is anyways, where other games have made a bucketload of money with hardly any long term investment beyond DLC and multiplayer.
In short, MMOs are pretty much the game genre equivalent of the antithesis to Capitalism. Expecting something as monumentally expensive as TOR apparently is to succeed in a market full of WoW clones, Asian Freemiums and the odd sandbox leads one to naturally expect Bioware, LucasArts and EA to take the safe and easy path where possible, with some cute gimmicks added, so as to avoid (in theory) a flop on the scale of the Titanic in case people don't like your bold new direction either. Plenty of people who complain about MMOs will never be satisfied by any changes short of MMOs becoming FPS games with larger multiplayer components. Bioware is only trying to be successful and cater to the widest number of people, like Lucas did with the prequels. And we all know how well that turned out.
I'm not mentioning GW2 here because there's a thread for that and we already make enough comparisons.
Im going to cruise through so many cities.
I saw the land speeder equivalent of WoW's griffin taxis in that video and I believe that to be the only place you'll see land speeders underneath your character.
While I agree that Bioware is trying to be successful by catering to a large number of people, I find the prequel comparison to be inaccurate. Target demographics isn't what caused the prequels to suck. Poor writing, acting, and plotting were the reason it sucked. TOR won't be all things to all people. I think that's well established. I would say they're doing more than throwing in some "cute gimmicks" though unless you think the original Knights of the Old Republic was a normal RPG game with some "cute gimmicks." Personally, the whole totally voiced, every class has an individual story, which you alter through dialog and actions is a pretty big thing to me. I can see if someone doesn't particularly care about that, this game will not be for them.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise