The game will actually release as the first in a revolutionary new breed of Choose Your Own Adventure Audio Books.
...if your character is proficient in Animal Husbandry and you wish to stab the Tuskan Mahout in the back of the neck, insert disk thirty seven and fast forward to twenty two minutes and fifteen seconds. If your character possesses the Sword of Destiny and has it equipped to a free action inventory slot, rewind to thirty three minutes and forty five seconds. If you wish to hear your options again, rewind to one hundred and nine minutes.
Basil on
0
Doctor DetroitNot a doctorTree townRegistered Userregular
Of course, with this whole focus on story, it would kinda stink to have them slot in low-level Flashpoints after most people have passed that particular level already.
Also, would "heroic" versions of the low-level Flashpoints make sense, from a story point of view?
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ArrynAsk not the InnkeeperFor destiny is thy name!Registered Userregular
Of course, with this whole focus on story, it would kinda stink to have them slot in low-level Flashpoints after most people have passed that particular level already.
Also, would "heroic" versions of the low-level Flashpoints make sense, from a story point of view?
Well, really being able to repeat Flashpoints at all might not make sense from a story point of view. And as I recall, that was an early sticking point for them and they had to decide after much debate to make them repeatable at all. Eventually they choose to do so for the sole reason that a lot of MMO-players basically just like to run instances.
I would think the same logic could easily carry over to endgame.
As much sense as heroics/experts in WoW and Rift. And Rift has the normal version of dungeons a whole lot more integrated in the story for that zone than WoW.
He's not just getting it from there though. The Beta Q&As give the same numbers.
I may be wrong here but usually in a beta the testers are testing some specific things; from what I've known of other betas during a closed beta process the tester aren't usually given all of the content. Some content is reserved / restricted so the testers can focus their testing and feedback on certain game elements.
Of course, with this whole focus on story, it would kinda stink to have them slot in low-level Flashpoints after most people have passed that particular level already.
Also, would "heroic" versions of the low-level Flashpoints make sense, from a story point of view?
Well, the smart thing to do would be to add the flashpoints in at endgame.
He's not just getting it from there though. The Beta Q&As give the same numbers.
I may be wrong here but usually in a beta the testers are testing some specific things; from what I've known of other betas during a closed beta process the tester aren't usually given all of the content. Some content is reserved / restricted so the testers can focus their testing and feedback on certain game elements.
I mean, I suppose maybe. MMOs at this stage of Beta don't usually work that way though.
And either way, it just ends up back at "well, I sure hope they've got something else coming they've never talked about before".
those two extra planets are no doubt the two completely end game planets they mentioned briefly at Comic Con. and based on some of their other teases, I wouldn't be surprised if one or both of those planets has a World PvP dynamic to it.
If they have more flashpoints they're sitting on, I'd be stoked to hear it, but indications from the beta testers in a few of the Q&As is that it's not the case. The beta testers are playing warzones that Bioware hasn't talked about, so it would seem logically consistent that any flashpoints they haven't talked about that are slated for launch would be in testing now too. Sure, they could put in flashpoints after release, but that could be said about basically anything, so that doesn't really mean anything at this point.
See I think this is one of those areas you can't treat TOR like other MMOs. Sure there might only be three formal instances available, but I see many of the World quest lines almost doubling as instances. Take what we saw of the fight with the General on Alderaan. Other games might have made that into a more traditional dungeon - but in TOR its an instanced area at the end of a quest line.
Same for hard versions of those instances. According to Ohlen during a Q&A they're thinking about adding hard modes not as another wheel to grind through for more gear (how WoW does it) but instead so players don't feel like they missed out on part of the story if they missed the window for an instance - while having it still be challenging (instead of say going back into a lvl 30 instance at lvl 50 and steamrolling everything).
Mnemon-Corbantis on
Empire - Veela Server
0
Spenzkriegeh's a pretty cool guyRegistered Userregular
Honestly, I'll trust (at this point) a beta leaker's word than the official site. BioWare is playing information, as far as the officially released kind, really close to the vest. Perhaps they're still wanting to test all the flashpoints before officially committing to them being "on disc" at release?
As one person I know that is testing put it:
"It's like buying a kit car. Instead of a Ferarri on the outside and a Fiero on the inside... this game is the opposite."
They actually said they're going to wait until after the September testing weekends before setting a release date. Just to make sure there are no glaring issues or surprises.
Smart move too I think.
I also think there's plenty of content lined up for launch. I think, like most MMOs do these days, they have some content they can spring on the community after 30-60 days post-launch. This gives you a nice press boost after the hype of the launch fades and keeps players already invested satiated. The end-game planet they talked about, could likely be what they hold back for post-launch.
I think, given where the game is at right now, this pre-launch period is being handled well by Bio. It is maintaining slow, gradual momentum without over-committing and ensuring they have a nice little surprise to reveal at each major convention. The #SWTOR hashtag is still going nuts on Twitter since they started the pre-order campaign, I wager Bio must be pretty pleased with that.
3 Flashpoints is really not very many for each side.
1 @ level 10
2 @ level 30
2 @ level 47
Total of 5 for each faction spread out across levels. There is also apparently a 6th "hard mode" at Level 50.
I think you're thinking about Warzones... in which case there are 3 for each side.
5 Flashpoints Total. 3 for each side. The Empire won't be able to do Taral V or Esseles. Similarly, the Republic won't be doing Boarding Party or Black Talon.
Q : Are there more flashpoints then those on the main site? If so how many more?
Yes. Currently, there's one for each faction around level 10, two for each faction around level 30, and two for each faction around level 47.
There is also a “heroic” flashpoint available at level 50, which to a large degree ties together the stories from the previous ones.
Now, BioWare isn't actually TELLING us where to find these, so it's very possible that there are more level 50 flashpoints people haven't found yet.
Puts the total at 5 for each faction. Plus the heroic one (likely not 'heroic' as in difficulty, but more like heroic as in 'heroic quest chain' kind of heroic).
Of course, with this whole focus on story, it would kinda stink to have them slot in low-level Flashpoints after most people have passed that particular level already.
Also, would "heroic" versions of the low-level Flashpoints make sense, from a story point of view?
They can. In RIFT, in normal version of Darkening Deeps, at the end, you hear the Gedlo Council discussing an egg and it hatching. In the expert version, you hear them discussing the egg hatching and being very aggressive/evil (Scarn, the last boss of expert DD). You can link them together.
They actually said they're going to wait until after the September testing weekends before setting a release date. Just to make sure there are no glaring issues or surprises.
Can you link to this? I'd be interested in reading more.
am0n on
0
Spenzkriegeh's a pretty cool guyRegistered Userregular
Of course, with this whole focus on story, it would kinda stink to have them slot in low-level Flashpoints after most people have passed that particular level already.
Also, would "heroic" versions of the low-level Flashpoints make sense, from a story point of view?
Well, really being able to repeat Flashpoints at all might not make sense from a story point of view. And as I recall, that was an early sticking point for them and they had to decide after much debate to make them repeatable at all. Eventually they choose to do so for the sole reason that a lot of MMO-players basically just like to run instances.
I would think the same logic could easily carry over to endgame.
Scenario 1: Instead of a "flashpoint" you can change the wording to "contention". The mobs are the same and it becomes a tiered "survival mode" where instead of facing a final boss you just face increasingly harder waves of mobs. This happens on the same area as the flashpoint where the opposing forces are attempting to retake the area.
Scenario 2: When we originally go through the flashpoint it's recorded on holodiscs. We just re-encounter that with different stipulations on subsequent runs. So, we're only actually running the flashpoint once... just reliving an computer generated (within the game... getting inceptional here) encounter again and again to "hone our decision making abilities" and correct any mis-steps we had without risk of man or equipment.
I'm sure the group at BW have put a lot of thought into this to make it make sense. At least... I hope.
RS: Eide
RC: Ais
0
Spenzkriegeh's a pretty cool guyRegistered Userregular
Can you link to this? I'd be interested in reading more.
Well, without a link... I can speculate. Speculation is fun!
They could do 3 increasingly large testing weekends. Evaluate data and announce a release date at the end of September for mid-late October. That wouldn't be any different than what Blizzard did when they announced WoW to release 3 weeks out (early November for mid-late November release).
So, obviously there's been a lot of fuss and arguing about advanced classes and whether or not we should be able to change them. There's since been an announcement that they'd implement the ability to change ACs, but have hinted that the curve would be rather severe, with an earlier switch being really cheap but each subsequent switch being quite expensive.
What I'm wondering is what we've heard about switching talents (or whatever they are called) within an advanced class. I don't mind being stuck as a Guardian, but I don't know if I want to be stuck in any one of the Guardian's unique trees. From what little I know, one is primarily a damage tree while the other is primarily a tank tree. Makes a lot of sense to me, compared to WoW, but WoW didn't add advanced classes on top of that.
So, obviously there's been a lot of fuss and arguing about advanced classes and whether or not we should be able to change them. There's since been an announcement that they'd implement the ability to change ACs, but have hinted that the curve would be rather severe, with an earlier switch being really cheap but each subsequent switch being quite expensive.
What I'm wondering is what we've heard about switching talents (or whatever they are called) within an advanced class. I don't mind being stuck as a Guardian, but I don't know if I want to be stuck in any one of the Guardian's unique trees. From what little I know, one is primarily a damage tree while the other is primarily a tank tree. Makes a lot of sense to me, compared to WoW, but WoW didn't add advanced classes on top of that.
They've said you can. Not dual spec, more like how WoW originally had it; you have to go back to town, pay an increasing, but manageable, fee and then redistribute points.
Honestly, I'll trust (at this point) a beta leaker's word than the official site. BioWare is playing information, as far as the officially released kind, really close to the vest. Perhaps they're still wanting to test all the flashpoints before officially committing to them being "on disc" at release?
As one person I know that is testing put it:
"It's like buying a kit car. Instead of a Ferarri on the outside and a Fiero on the inside... this game is the opposite."
So, it'll look like shit AND be fragile and expensive to maintain?
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
And the new BetaCake videos were great. The fourth one (Sith Inq Gameplay 4) was great. If quests are presented (or at least the initial of a series) with that kind of detail, I'm actually going to be interested in paying attention to it.
And the new BetaCake videos were great. The fourth one (Sith Inq Gameplay 4) was great. If quests are presented (or at least the initial of a series) with that kind of detail, I'm actually going to be interested in paying attention to it.
ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
But its BioWare.
I actually do trust that they know what they are doing. They have yet to make a bad game, imo.
I get that that is just my opinion, but their games speak for themselves. They put the time in necessary to make sure they do things right. Yes this is an MMO and they have never made one, but I doubt they are making decisions all willy-nilly without doing the research and testing necessary.
No, I'm sorry BioWare. You aren't masters of MMORPG creation, you're a fresh faced noob as much as Blizzard was six or seven years ago.
For better or worse, remember that BioWare bought out a lot of folks at SOE's Austin studio and just kind of rolled them up into SW:TOR.
Ugh, I am doing everything I can right now to not delete my last post now that I know this...
Well, it is still BioWare. Their company atmosphere and culture hopefully changed the SOE Austin guys into more BioWare than SOE. I still have faith in good ol' BioWare.
I actually do trust that they know what they are doing. They have yet to make a bad game, imo.
I get that that is just my opinion, but their games speak for themselves. They put the time in necessary to make sure they do things right. Yes this is an MMO and they have never made one, but I doubt they are making decisions all willy-nilly without doing the research and testing necessary.
It's not about it being BioWare or their games. It's about Moore's Law. When you say stupid shit like this, Karma comes and bites you in the ass.
FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
Bioware as a company hasn't made an MMO, but it'd be naive to think they didn't have team members who had worked on them, had done their research, etc. Also they have doctors there. Doctors. Are you a doctor? Didn't think so.
They can. In RIFT, in normal version of Darkening Deeps, at the end, you hear the Gedlo Council discussing an egg and it hatching. In the expert version, you hear them discussing the egg hatching and being very aggressive/evil (Scarn, the last boss of expert DD). You can link them together.
Oh yeah, forgot about that. Pretty cool way to do it really: in normal mode you can have a bunch of miners working. In heroic max-level mode the miners are gone and there's a path open to a new boss that isn't available in normal mode.
No, I'm sorry BioWare. You aren't masters of MMORPG creation, you're a fresh faced noob as much as Blizzard was six or seven years ago.
Which could also be seen as a huge advantage for them, since they're not tied down by their own bias as to what a MMO "should" be.
Yeah, maybe you could argue Blizzard had no clue about what they were doing, and Sony had all the advantages in the follow up with EQ2. And of course, we all know how that story ended.
Oh, and Asheron's Call 2, anyone? I think that game lasted literaly 8 minutes before they threw in the towel and shut it down.
What's the context of that comment anyway? Seeing that it's from the official forums, my bias tells me not to worry about it too much. The official forums aren't exactly a sea of legitimate criticism and good ideas, so I have my doubts about whatever he's replying to.
What's the context of that comment anyway? Seeing that it's from the official forums, my bias tells me not to worry about it too much. The official forums aren't exactly a sea of legitimate criticism and good ideas, so I have my doubts about whatever he's replying to.
Someone was asking for them to give us more details about things instead of just saying 'we're not going to answer that.' The mod was replying that they can't give us details, to trust them as they know what they are doing.
After Dragon Age 2 Bioware has made me put this face :? on whatever is being pushed by them in the future. And they even co-opted one of their worst writers to do the smuggler level 20+ quests. One reason I'm going Empire .
Still, all the posted stuff so far about this game has made me preorder it without a release date. They haven't gotten to the point like Blizzard has where I can just trust them.
Unless their team in charge of gameplay and storyline are made wholly up of everyone who worked on Baldur's Gate.
After Dragon Age 2 Bioware has made me put this face :? on whatever is being pushed by them in the future. And they even co-opted one of their worst writers to do the smuggler level 20+ quests. One reason I'm going Empire .
Still, all the posted stuff so far about this game has made me preorder it without a release date. They haven't gotten to the point like Blizzard has where I can just trust them.
Unless their team in charge of gameplay and storyline are made wholly up of everyone who worked on Baldur's Gate.
I think its basically supposed to be a time waster, so when youre waiting for your friend to log on or finish that quest so you guys can go do something together, you can do a quick fun space mission and kill time. It looks good, but who knows how itll actually play.
Posts
...if your character is proficient in Animal Husbandry and you wish to stab the Tuskan Mahout in the back of the neck, insert disk thirty seven and fast forward to twenty two minutes and fifteen seconds. If your character possesses the Sword of Destiny and has it equipped to a free action inventory slot, rewind to thirty three minutes and forty five seconds. If you wish to hear your options again, rewind to one hundred and nine minutes.
Also, would "heroic" versions of the low-level Flashpoints make sense, from a story point of view?
Well, really being able to repeat Flashpoints at all might not make sense from a story point of view. And as I recall, that was an early sticking point for them and they had to decide after much debate to make them repeatable at all. Eventually they choose to do so for the sole reason that a lot of MMO-players basically just like to run instances.
I would think the same logic could easily carry over to endgame.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BretonBrawler
Well, the smart thing to do would be to add the flashpoints in at endgame.
I mean, I suppose maybe. MMOs at this stage of Beta don't usually work that way though.
And either way, it just ends up back at "well, I sure hope they've got something else coming they've never talked about before".
Empire - Veela Server
See I think this is one of those areas you can't treat TOR like other MMOs. Sure there might only be three formal instances available, but I see many of the World quest lines almost doubling as instances. Take what we saw of the fight with the General on Alderaan. Other games might have made that into a more traditional dungeon - but in TOR its an instanced area at the end of a quest line.
Same for hard versions of those instances. According to Ohlen during a Q&A they're thinking about adding hard modes not as another wheel to grind through for more gear (how WoW does it) but instead so players don't feel like they missed out on part of the story if they missed the window for an instance - while having it still be challenging (instead of say going back into a lvl 30 instance at lvl 50 and steamrolling everything).
Empire - Veela Server
Honestly, I'll trust (at this point) a beta leaker's word than the official site. BioWare is playing information, as far as the officially released kind, really close to the vest. Perhaps they're still wanting to test all the flashpoints before officially committing to them being "on disc" at release?
As one person I know that is testing put it:
"It's like buying a kit car. Instead of a Ferarri on the outside and a Fiero on the inside... this game is the opposite."
RC: Ais
Smart move too I think.
I also think there's plenty of content lined up for launch. I think, like most MMOs do these days, they have some content they can spring on the community after 30-60 days post-launch. This gives you a nice press boost after the hype of the launch fades and keeps players already invested satiated. The end-game planet they talked about, could likely be what they hold back for post-launch.
I think, given where the game is at right now, this pre-launch period is being handled well by Bio. It is maintaining slow, gradual momentum without over-committing and ensuring they have a nice little surprise to reveal at each major convention. The #SWTOR hashtag is still going nuts on Twitter since they started the pre-order campaign, I wager Bio must be pretty pleased with that.
Arryn's quote (from the Beta Q&A) from last page:
Puts the total at 5 for each faction. Plus the heroic one (likely not 'heroic' as in difficulty, but more like heroic as in 'heroic quest chain' kind of heroic).
They can. In RIFT, in normal version of Darkening Deeps, at the end, you hear the Gedlo Council discussing an egg and it hatching. In the expert version, you hear them discussing the egg hatching and being very aggressive/evil (Scarn, the last boss of expert DD). You can link them together.
Can you link to this? I'd be interested in reading more.
Scenario 1: Instead of a "flashpoint" you can change the wording to "contention". The mobs are the same and it becomes a tiered "survival mode" where instead of facing a final boss you just face increasingly harder waves of mobs. This happens on the same area as the flashpoint where the opposing forces are attempting to retake the area.
Scenario 2: When we originally go through the flashpoint it's recorded on holodiscs. We just re-encounter that with different stipulations on subsequent runs. So, we're only actually running the flashpoint once... just reliving an computer generated (within the game... getting inceptional here) encounter again and again to "hone our decision making abilities" and correct any mis-steps we had without risk of man or equipment.
I'm sure the group at BW have put a lot of thought into this to make it make sense. At least... I hope.
RC: Ais
Well, without a link... I can speculate. Speculation is fun!
They could do 3 increasingly large testing weekends. Evaluate data and announce a release date at the end of September for mid-late October. That wouldn't be any different than what Blizzard did when they announced WoW to release 3 weeks out (early November for mid-late November release).
RC: Ais
What I'm wondering is what we've heard about switching talents (or whatever they are called) within an advanced class. I don't mind being stuck as a Guardian, but I don't know if I want to be stuck in any one of the Guardian's unique trees. From what little I know, one is primarily a damage tree while the other is primarily a tank tree. Makes a lot of sense to me, compared to WoW, but WoW didn't add advanced classes on top of that.
They've said you can. Not dual spec, more like how WoW originally had it; you have to go back to town, pay an increasing, but manageable, fee and then redistribute points.
So, it'll look like shit AND be fragile and expensive to maintain?
Oh, god, I just saw this on the main forums:
That is something I never want to hear. Ever. Does not bode well.
Nice one.
RC: Ais
Especially from a company that, no, does not know what they're doing.
No, I'm sorry BioWare. You aren't masters of MMORPG creation, you're a fresh faced noob as much as Blizzard was six or seven years ago.
I actually do trust that they know what they are doing. They have yet to make a bad game, imo.
I get that that is just my opinion, but their games speak for themselves. They put the time in necessary to make sure they do things right. Yes this is an MMO and they have never made one, but I doubt they are making decisions all willy-nilly without doing the research and testing necessary.
For better or worse, remember that BioWare bought out a lot of folks at SOE's Austin studio and just kind of rolled them up into SW:TOR.
RC: Ais
Not to mention the entirety of Mythic.
Ugh, I am doing everything I can right now to not delete my last post now that I know this...
Well, it is still BioWare. Their company atmosphere and culture hopefully changed the SOE Austin guys into more BioWare than SOE. I still have faith in good ol' BioWare.
It's not about it being BioWare or their games. It's about Moore's Law. When you say stupid shit like this, Karma comes and bites you in the ass.
That would definitely land in the worse column.
I think they just have one doctor.
Oh yeah, forgot about that. Pretty cool way to do it really: in normal mode you can have a bunch of miners working. In heroic max-level mode the miners are gone and there's a path open to a new boss that isn't available in normal mode.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Which could also be seen as a huge advantage for them, since they're not tied down by their own bias as to what a MMO "should" be.
Yeah, maybe you could argue Blizzard had no clue about what they were doing, and Sony had all the advantages in the follow up with EQ2. And of course, we all know how that story ended.
Oh, and Asheron's Call 2, anyone? I think that game lasted literaly 8 minutes before they threw in the towel and shut it down.
Someone was asking for them to give us more details about things instead of just saying 'we're not going to answer that.' The mod was replying that they can't give us details, to trust them as they know what they are doing.
Whatever. There isn't a single reasonable thing you can say to the people on that forum that will give them any hope or simply make them shut up.
Still, all the posted stuff so far about this game has made me preorder it without a release date. They haven't gotten to the point like Blizzard has where I can just trust them.
Unless their team in charge of gameplay and storyline are made wholly up of everyone who worked on Baldur's Gate.
As long as the QA team was different, yes.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
What I've seen seems particularly limited, and like a minigame without long-term appeal?