VenthiosLestaran
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Posts posted by VenthiosLestaran
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you know that LOTRO didn't launch with high res textures either
No. It didn't. It launched with everything they were capable of having at the time though. They didn't yank high res textures out of the game. They added in high res texture packs with DX 11 functionality, you know, improvements?
SWTOR had it, took steps backwards, and now is holding them safely locked away.
Not a good comparison.
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What more do you think it could possibly give you in erms of choices effecting outcome in the game? Some global change to the entier game and its story? Hahaha....right. No, seriously...that's a totally realistic expectation. As much as I look forward to ALSO playing GW2, I really can't wait until people realize that GW2 is basically the same sort of illusion of choice and consequence. "Oooh, I either have an orphanage or a hosiptal in my personal story district but it's just a different skin on essentially the same underlying thing. Exciting!" "Oooh, the centaurs destroyed the village...but it wil be back again tomorrow as if it all never happened!!! Exciting!!!" The QQ is going to be hilarious....unless, of course, GW2 gets magically lucky and all of its players are just "fanboiz"...even the ones complaining here abotu the same illusion of choice...for enjoying themselves and ignoring that it's an illusion and just willingly setting aside their disbelief. OOOh, what a novel thought....willing suspension of disbelief...someone quick, write that down so we don't forget it.
There is a lot of stuff in that post that you managed to divine from nowhere based on anything I've said in this thread. I really think you should relax. There's so much vitriol in that post I really have no where to start so, I'll try.
There is no over lying difficult thing that the major events that occur within the Black Talon instance can't be brought up again in a later part of the game. As you have two choices in it, live or die for the captain, and live or die for the general. Both of these characters could have been brought back later in the story if you let them live, that would give a sense of your choices mattering more. What's so difficult about that?
Not sure how you divined that mess of angry out of that but, whatever. As for GW2? Why would anyone think that you can physically change the landscape of an MMO with the choices you make as one of millions? It's not about changing the entire world, but making the choices have meaning to your character in the long run. If you get a statue in a town only YOUR character can see, you still feel like it's yours when you see it.
Indeed. I'd like to see one that goes something like this:"OOPS, your player is frozen in carbonite for 3 weeks...hope you have an alt!!!"
You think this is a good idea? Locking you out of your character for three weeks? Good luck with the game that does that, and I hope people would choose to play it, because they won't.
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Perhaps in the Old Republic, the Sith adopted a Hutt mentality?
Every time I try to go "Ho ho ho.." I just end up sounding like Santa. It's not a good match, no sir. My beard doesn't help the situation any either.
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I vote Pie er no BACON definately bacon.
Body type 4/old but tbh unless you went LS you wouldn't really all mentory. Perhaps your corpulence could be rp'd as an effect of corruption (think Baron Harkonin form Dune). And your Aprentices could be from a long line of apprentices that you advance to a certain point then kill them draining their power ( and adding to your corpulence ). You know Bacon?
I'm fat with the souls of my enemies and those that I use to grow more corpulent with power. A curious approach, and interesting none the less. However, DS corruption has a penchant to make you skinny and frail in cannon.
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I like the concept of #4 more. Seems to have more depth.
I played my Imp Agent as a lean, but older agent type who was totally dedicated to the Empire and it's citizens (not the Sith though, he distrusts and dislikes them.) It's amazing how taking that concept, and choosing my answers based on that developed a really complex character. I even had a crisis of faith moment.
On a light hearted side, I also learned that an older, patriotic Imperial Agent can still be a man-whore.
That's a really interesting idea you had there. I was fiddling with the idea that the color crystal he would use is one he took from a fallen Jedi's lightsaber, a Padawan he killed in his youth that set him on the path towards balance within the force, rather than one of the polar opposites.
Where as the Body Type 3, wouldn't have had that experience yet, and just bases his choices off the ideals he keeps from his home and heart. Compelling, but with less definition due to age.
Type 4... Yeah it's overweight but it looks better than type 3 IMO. Frankly though all the male body types are kinda crap.You know, that's true they all look kind of bad but, you make do. You won't believe this but, I'm a bit overweight myself. My wife says she would prefer me this way over a lean cut body because she just likes my self image as an older man who knows what's what, minus the cocky hotheaded behavior.
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What I did is made a witty, smart *** Type 3 Sith Assassin. I enjoy it sooo much, even rping as him. Trust me, its the way to go.
Also, please for the love of god don't go LS. I see so many of them it makes me cry.
On Jung Ma I hardly ever saw any LS Sorcs, all red sabers all day err day. Body type 3 does look completely and totally awesome that is true..I don't know, I usually RP characters that really try to break the mold..A non troll type 4 could be interesting..
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So, I'm giving SWTOR another month and another whirl. I leveled a Jug to 50, but really I wanted to be an Inquisitor who spams lightning all day. Thing is, I really liked Darth Baras as a design.
Do I do the typical Body Type 3 pro awesome? Or do I go for the Body Type 4, an old inquisitor, who's found his balance, who has packed on a bit in his old age and wisdom. The character design aspect of that is really interesting, ad even in Body Type 4, the armor looks pretty okay.
Type 3 offers more of a macho, yet still light sided experience in that his strength as a slave has been tempered by the knowledge of where he came from, what he used to be. He's strong, powerful, yet tempered.
I find myself leaning towards the older, wiser, flawed in body type sorcerer type 4, whom has things to teach others. He'd be a Sith Pureblood, so I'd be erasing his past as a slave, and simply have the character just have been adept with the force instead of direct lightsaber combat.
What do you folks think..type 3..or type 4?
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Silly people...
the new gear will be
Ludicrous Gear!
What the hell was that! ...They've gone to Plaid!
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Pretty sure NOT killing the Captain in Black Talon gets me another/different Boss to fight...just saying. Seems to be changing it enought right there...
Yet you still capture or kill the general, which is never brought up ever again, anywhere. In the overall arc of the story - it has no impact. You don't ever find later that the general could have helped you in a situation, and you never find out that the general being dead could have spared you trouble.
It gives you an alternate path through a flashpoint, nothing more.
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There are nodoubt other insatnces taht favor the other alignment choice. Given that people in other threads are whining that "my choices mean nothing!!!"...you just provided an instnace where it meant something. So which is it? Shoudl everyone be complaining about X or the opposite of X? Seems the pantwetter patrol on these forums hasn't gotten its act straight, because the complaints about the game in diametrically opposed ways abound.
"Choices mean nothing." should not mean "One choice is punished vs another." Both choices should grant different rewards. When a "choice" is made, it should alter the way the story moves on, granted for a pointless fetch quest like that one, there's no way it could alter anything. The only "Choice" you have, is being punished, or not being punished.
Not a good design, sorry man.
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Note: Guild Wars 2 does look awesome played it at PAX it was fun. Heh. But I think people will be sorely disappointed when they find its not all its cracked up to be. I think it will be an amazing game but I wouldn't get my hopes up for it being the new "Change" in mmo game play. NCSOFT wont allow it to be. They are a horrible company and their games tend to fail hard. Aion, Tabula Rasa the list could go on. Arena Net is awesome though and they will do great but NCSOFT is a big mistake.
Anyone who lets themselves get eaten up by the Hype monster is a fool really, they are. NCSoft owned ArenaNet since 2002, before GW1 released in 2005. Your presumptions about them not allowing something to change anything or be good are a little silly considering GW1 was loved by many many people, and sold very well.
People don't think NCSoft was their parent company until AFTER they made GW1, which isn't true. "Change" in MMO game play doesn't have to mean utterly revolutionary, it can just take things that were done before, and make them better and interesting again, like TOR did for questing the 1st time through.
Rumor and opinion are dangerous things, especially when touted as fact. Aion didn't do very well, and Tabula Rasa was just horrible yes, but different dev teams did both. TOR has the sad chagrin of being the next attempt by Mythic that was absorbed and placed under BW Austin. You can see their influences very easily in TOR. For the good, and the bad.
Note: The BioWare that produces Mass Effect is completely separate from BioWare Austin, which is primarily made up of Mythic, which is not the same Mythic that made DAoC. Which is why I'm still buying ME3.
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Round and round and round we go. My fleet has 80, my fleet has 20, my fleet has 190. Really guys and gals it doesn't matter until BW let's us all know how many people they have subbed. Just forget it for now and wait for them to let some info out.
That's all there is to it.
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The better question is, what games have really come out that would be a better seller than a Star Wars MMO produced by BioWare? I'd say nothing really. It's nice to see the game sold very well, but it doesn't really mean that much.
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Dunno what you're talking about. I log on and I see pretty much nothing but standards and a few heavies.
Standard isn't a lot of players by our most reasonable guesstimates. You want your servers to be heavy and full, not standard and a few heavy. ESPECIALLY just three months after launch.
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So your fuzzy math trumps his anecdotal evidence?
Please.
Frankly, I don't care who provides me with the numbers; I can see for myself with my own eyes. The game sucks. The people who realize this are quitting, and they are quitting quickly. 1.2 can't save this stinker.
As much as I'd tend to agree with your assessment of the games quality not being exactly where a lot of players would have hoped it would be given it's dev time and cost, lashing out this was just isn't going to do anyone any good AJK.
We can't know the exact stats, but trends show a downward movement that should be cause for great concern. Anyone who simply disregards the notion really doesn't care if this game dies off, sits at a tepid low sub count, or grows. They only care about themselves and it's a really sad thing to know.
I'm sure you wanted the game to be great, let go of the disappointment and try to enjoy what you can.
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Huttball is pretty awesome
And proving that compelling narrative is actually a strong motivator. I'm still not convinced it's all that well suited for an MMO though.
In this current iteration? It isn't. However, now that the rough lump of ore has been dropped in front of the developer market - it can be processed and refined.
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In all seriousness tho, when do u guys think they would do a x-server pvp/server merge/server transfer??? Do u think it'll come as soon as march? Reason I ask is im seriously debating starting all over on another severer that's heavy but that mean I'm gonna lvl another guardian to lvl 50, and no I don't wanna lvl something else bc once they do let us merge or transfer that would mean I have to legacies and I wouldn't want that... But if you all seriously think it'll be within a month then I'll just wait, any longer and it's time to start over for this guy ya know
More than likely you will not see merges/transfers in march. Beyond that yes you can expect them in I'd say 2-4 months. Bit of a broad time frame, but it's not an unknown thing they're needed. You're better off re-rolling for now, and moving your main when you can.
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The only reason so many people are bored is we have become spoiled demanding brats who are accustomed to chewing through content (whether it be in video games or other things) at an alarming rate instead of using our own imaginations as the necessary part of the entertainment process they always were and must be.
Your assumption makes sense for players whom hit cap in a few weeks or less. However, the issue is that the content goes by too quickly even if you're not trying. A game like this, does everything it can to remove your imagination from the equation. By the fact that the story is entirely told as a movie. You don't need to Imagine your character doing something because you can clearly see him do it.
The leveling curve was simply too fast if you're not making alts and playing a very small amount of time. I use my imagination to RP on Jung Ma, but even that tends to break down if things go wrong for one reason or another - like a key player leaving the RP.
It's a core design flaw, and a very painful one. It can be corrected in future expansions, but as for now it has to be lived with and that's about it. You hit 50, you raid or die really. Roll an alt, and if you don't like that? Time to leave. Interactive activities for players of all levels must Never be shunned.
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That is why my BT groups always fill up instantly when I say into the general chat
"LFG BT speed run, space bar required"
that's right...instantly.
Like everything else innovative Bioware has done, it's only interesting once. GREAT idea for an RPG, horribly stupid for something you want people to pay monthly to keep playing.
Idea =/= Implementation. The idea is you need to find a way to balance the two, like everything. If SWTOR adopted the idea that ArenaNet came up with, they might make some damn good use of it. Story mode in a dungeon you have to do first - which unlocks exploration mode. Where you can go and do more things, find more stuff, encounter different events and enemies on different paths through the dungeon.
Now, with SWTOR's design as it stands? Impossible for these older flashpoints. However there is not one thing stopping new flashpoints from incorporating new and great ideas. Balance, in all things. Even the Force.
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Companion involvement is a very big one. People overlook this for some reason, but its definitely a genre first. Hirelings and voiceless tag-alongs in other MMOs do not count. This is pushing the companion forward in MMOs, DEFINITELY.
The personal story, context to quests, VO for every NPC. This is pushing the genre forward. It's been done before to a much lesser degree, yes, but as I said, this is pushing that metric FORWARD. It has not been done this well in any game previous. No where even CLOSE. No, not even Conan. Maybe if they continued what they had on Tortage with the rest of the game you could argue that, but even then, this is far better.
Those are two really big things. You can't dispute either. Sure maybe you don't like them, or they don't appeal to you, but that doesn't discredit them in any way.
The companions are a distinctly sharp double edged sword. They remove need for other players - while at the same time they offer more choices for the solo player. This needs better balance because at the moment it's actively discouraging questing with other players as far as I'm concerned. I like pet classes, I played a Mage in EQ1 for years. They were tied at the hips to their pets, just like you are in TOR to your companions.
They tell stories yes, they are interactive yes, but at the cost of what is a good question. Even GW2 was considering companions, but they removed it entirely because they felt it detracted from community interaction, which I believe it does. TOR's a prime example.
Another issue is they're effectively pointless at 50, until new leveling content comes out. They need to find a way to better blend their companions with all aspects of the game, without detracting from the experience of an MMO. This may not be feasible at this time - however in the future of MMO's, it may very well be. I'm not a dev though.
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20 december game came out
1 free month -> till 20 januari
many already quit after that (2 mill sold, 1.7 active players)
many ppl used a GC (like myself)
20 januari -> 20 march
21 more days until Armageddon... take that bet from me.
I'd rather play it safe and take no bets. I just re-opened my sub for a month because I have nothing else to do. The game won't hit WoW's millions of subs, it won't, that I can pretty much say for certain. But it will keep a population. The game isn't THAT bad. However, people are starting to expect more and more from companies, some unrealistically so, and some much more realistically so.
It really all depends on how BioWare does in the coming months. This is never going to be the hard-core raiders MMO, or the pro PVP'ers MMO. Who's MMO it will be? I can't say for sure. It really isn't mine though.
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I'll agree with this. Future mmo games will probably be forced to deliver their stories in better ways then the past quest text based stuff. But I imagine that would be more along the lines of cutscenes and cinematics rather than interactive voice acted dialog.
Something along the lines of Half Life and Half Life 2. Where people talk to you but you are not talking back. Way more immersive that way because the minute my british guys says something I would never say all my immersion is broken.
Pretty much the way GW2 has chosen to tell their story. Quick cut scene interaction in which the player is along for the ride. Choosing your dialog is a fun thing to do, but overall it needs more refining. Less choice can sometimes be better overall in some areas. Just like everything it's going to take refinement.
We'll see how it turns out. I can't blame BioWare for trying.
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The thing is, most sound business people don't want to be the first to do something. It's too risky. They want to be second. They want to take a model that has been proven to be successful, then tweak it just enough to call it their own. This isn't "dirty business." It's just how business typically works. Let the other guy take the real risks. MMO developers (including Blizzard) follow this principle.
Genuine innovation isn't something that can be assigned to a committee and then worked into a business plan. Significant innovation is inspired. I might be missing some others, but I can think of three primary games that were genuinely inspired. They had varying degrees of success.
EQ (while technically not the first MMO) was inspired. EQ was born from people wanting to truly represent a table top RPG in a 3D world setting. EQ wasn't born from them looking at another game and thinking, "We should tap into that market." It was born from them genuinely wanting people to experience the awe that RPGers get around a D and D table.
SWG was inspired. For better or worse, it was Ralph Koster's inspiration. He wanted to create a true sandbox. He wanted to design a universe where players could be the "everyman" of Star Wars. He believed if he created a genuine universe, he could hand that to the players and just say, "Here." For various reasons (some his fault, some not his fault), that dream didn't work out so well.
I personally think AoC was inspired. The devs genuinely wanted to take MMOs and make them for grown-ups. They wanted a visceral, brutal game that truly captured the harsh reality created by Robert E. Howard. As with SWG, it didn't work out so well (for various reasons).
There are some others, I'm sure, but I don't have experience in playing them (for example, I hear Eve would fit, but I never played it).
Most other MMOs (IMO) were business decisions. They really just said, "What if we made an MMO based on X. I bet that would sell!"
I think SWTOR is a mix of both. I think TOR - first and foremost - had the business approach. It was, "If we just make a good, simple grass-roots MMO with the Star Wars name, it will sell."
But I personally think that Bioware brought some genuine inspiration. Bioware brought the idea that an MMO should incorporate what they believed were the best elements from their single player RPGs. They made the core of their MMO about the story. I think the story implementation (while not perfect) was an inspired move and a logical step forward, and I think it marks the beginning of story being a fundamental element of MMOs, instead of being a side feature.
Just my long winded opinion.
Agreed in most parts. Large companies with huge financing and backing stand the most to lose, thus they're more likely to play it safe. We'll look towards smaller developers to produce games that have a higher risk vs reward. Everyone should just remain pragmatic about the genre. Change is coming, it's here now actually.
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I think Bioware has with SWTOR pushed towards a more single player perspective which I do not think benefits the genre at all.
Their attempt was amazingly flawed. However, doing it alone was risky and worth a shot. Future games, and maybe even this one, will change their path and improve upon the idea. That's how it's supposed to work.
Graphics Comparison: SWTOR vs LOTRO
in General Discussion
Posted
I know. I played in the beta and thought everything looked great, then come the public beta weekend I said to my wife "Something is wrong, something is different." I couldn't place my finger on it because I never thought they would have yanked the high res..but they did. I'm, still blown away by this fact.
I unsubbed. Resubbed last week out of boredom, and have a sorc to 17. Don't think I'll play him anymore.