Diktat
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Posts posted by Diktat
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Mate, that Cider-X guy is a troll. He was trolling in some other threads too
Is not a player, is a bot that blames everybody else's pcs when they report issues with the game.
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I've read some comments, you may or may not like MTs, but they are the way of the future and it's beign adopted by more and more games, to the point that a free little moba called League of Legends dethroned Starcraft 2 on the esport scene.
Now, many games that are coming out want to have MTs from launch, GW2 will have them, Planetside 2, Neverwinter, End of Nations, Mechwarrior online. They want their main source of revenue to be Commodities and Cosmetic Items. I hope that EA/Bioware release MTs soon in this game and are not just derping around, besides, developing cosmetic items will not hold back new features and content, because they mostly use art assets, and it doesnt take much programing to implement
As far as I know all those new games are F2P (not sure about Mechwarrior) so MTs is their main profit souce, not subs.
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Player housing is a good idea. But, player housing as it was executed in SWG, and the Player City System, was awful. Let me explain why I think so. There's nothing Star Wars about a great realm of player houses, like some giant subdivision, ringing every city on Tatooine. Aside from the headache of having to wait for every single item in every single house I pass to spawn and the horrible lag that caused, the sheer volume of player houses ruined areas like Dantooine, or Tatooine. Mos Eisley had no suburbs, except in SWG.
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Very bad PC and/or network you had if you experienced such lag. My computer was not a top one of those times and my network connection was a 56Kb dial-up and I never experienced such lag. The only places I had problems was starports, but almost everybody had problems at starports. Other than that the game ran pretty smooth for my rig (if my memory doesn't lie to me was an AMD K7 333MHz with 512MB RAM and a Nvidia GeForce TI-4200 128MB).
Considering the size of world maps the housing in SWG worked pretty well. We can argue if for some planets the number of player structures allowed should be less or not, but the fact is that what people remember with a deep nostalgic feeling is how wonderfull was housing in SWG. For me was a deeply inmersive element that made me feel a galaxy citizen. I played SWG from beta times 'till NGE release and in the months before the patch that introduced housing the game, for me, was rather lifeless since there was nothing between NPC cities, just a void landscape with some critters and mobs here and there.
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Day/night in every planet. Moons with phases. Changing weather in every planet. Crowded player cities. Crowdwd NPC cities (Theed, Coronet, Mos Eisley. Anchorhead, Moenia, etc.) in all planets. Really barren and lifeless... lolim not asking for swg again. That game was barren and lifeless. I'm asking for more ...sandboxy options to this game in the future really That's the point -
I read the OP and I couldn't help think that what OP is asking for is SWG pre-CU 2.
With all it's flaws SWG was for me way moe inmersive than SW:TOR with all its voice acting and storylines.
You were free to do anything you wanted and that freedom was what really made you feel a true SW universe galaxy citizen. There was no need of a storyline.
And there was always something to do beside combat. I spent almost more time dancing and playin music in cantinas with my Twi'lek entertainer than fighting. Even I was a slave dancer in Jabba's palace
What can be more inmersive than be a slave dancer in Jabba's palace? Oh, wait!, to be a Tie fighter pilot chasing an YT-1300. Or engage in a battle against a team of imperials with a couple of AT-ST. Or go to Tatooie to kill a Kryat dragon. Or just go hunt Rancors in Dathomir. Or just spend hours setting up your tatooine's house furniture. Or....However, lack of inmersion is something we all knew that was going to happen when BW/EA decided make SW:TOR a themepark and its space content just a 20th century rail shooter.
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Everything in the game belongs to EA. You own nothing. You can not sell your account. You want to sell the software? Go right ahead but the characters associated to the account do not belong to you and they can be seized, frozen, or erased at EA's discretion.
You're wrong. The client is yours. You paid for it, you downloaded it or got a hard copy of it, even you got extra items with special hard copy editions like Collector's one for which you paid more thus those items are yours not BW's/EA's property.
What is BW's/EA's property is the server side softwar. But, to access to the server side softwer create an account is required so the account is also BW's/EA's property. That's why EULA states clearly that you cannot sell your account but if you want to sell your client you can because it is yours.
It's a puzzle of 3 pieces the client, the account and the server software. You owns one: the client; the company owns the other 2.
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We've came from "average" to "esrimated relative average".
I haven't laugh so much in my life reading a post.
lol
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You do realize that any game with a story is on rails, right? This includes FPS's, single player RPG's, RTS's. If games didn't have a backing story most players would quit because they'd have no clue what to do, hence why Eve has it's niche playerbase, your basic MMO'ers can't handle a game that wide open.
Exactly. Lame you didn't catch the irony in my words.
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Star Wars The Old Republic is a different type of mmo
It's the type of mmos built for the people who love story. For the people who love choices that affect them and their decision making processes. For the people that like to get immersed in a universe that is Star Wars. For the people that just want to adventure.
It's the type of game that you must like story in your games to enjoy and....get. You must like story and get immersed in the story line and think of everything going on in your head at every moment. You must really think and get into it to enjoy it. Every time you start a new adventure, even though it's the same amount of choices each time, you get immersed in it. I do anyway, and know a lot of people that do also. Everytime it's different, not just because you can choose different choices each time to see the people's responses, but because you can immerse yourself in different ways throughout the story. You get attached to your character via your choices and dark/light alignment. Pertaining to what you have just chosen.
Just like Knights of the Old Republic. That's what the replayability is with BioWare's game. The story and responses. The type of responses you get from people depending on what you choose. The type of ways you can manipulate people or help them that you didn't before. I think it's even better knowing the story and say to yourself "hey..I didn't help this guy before, I'm going to help him now with the power stations" then you decide to help him and later on he sends some guy to someone else and you meet up with his dad or something on another planet. That's the cool thing about this game. Choice
BioWare has set a new standard I believe for ...this type of mmos. It's not the same mmo as wow, aion, rift or anything like that. BioWare came out with THEIR OWN type of mmo. Yes, the interface and tools are the same as those games because that's the type of UI and stuff people are used to and like a lot. Just the more customizable, the better. Every mmo has their own types of things in it that innovates in areas. TOR innovated in story, voice acting, decisions and companions. It was advertised as a story based mmorpg with voice acting set in the Star Wars universe. That's EXACTLY what we got.
All other things were just built on hype by the people. Yes, BioWare made themselves look better in some areas, but what company doesn't try to sell it?
People wanted something different but...not TOO different. That is what I believe this game is. It is being it's OWN thing. Yes, it has things based off World of Warcraft but also other mmos because that's what mmos do. Build off the previous things that were successful and put their own spin on them to make them unique in their own way. It is then up to the players to decide whether they like them or not. It doesn't matter how subscriptions a game has. It matters the quality of the player base, the quality of the content, the quality of the customer service along with the quality of replayability along with the loyalty of the fan base and the IP.BioWare, I believe is on the right track now. They don't seem to be slipping anymore because all these things that people want are coming to TOR in a good amount of time. The LFG tool which A LOT want..is going to be well done in 1.3 I think and be more defined in it's image than in other mmos. The game is just going get update after update after update and just keep growing and getting everything people want. We can only look to the future. It looks as though BioWare is delivering on a great many things.
I can't wait to see what the next months and years brings for this game. I can't wait to see guild ship battles. Standing on my ship and looking out the window at another who is close and choose whether to hail them and fire, or settle it peacefully. I can see it just how it happens like the Black Talon or Esseles. Standing looking at the enemy ship firing at you and the guild can board your ship and you board theirs. First one to destroy the other ship wins. Or you can run. That would be COOL. I believe that is all coming along with open space pvp . There will many planets in this game in the future with smuggling paths that smugglers can actually smuggle and being able to put bounties on people's heads. THAT would be fun. I think everyone would play a Bounty Hunter then
I know I would. Make it like the EVE system! just...more refined. Just keep taking your time BioWare. Lots of us have patience. Those who are playing this game know it's not a rush to level cap game to get a bunch of gear and do raid after raid after raid after raid to get...more gear. This is a game of story, immersion, no matter HOW LONG it takes to reach level cap, don't worry about it. I know it's hard because every mmo before this has been a rush to level cap to prove to everyone how awesome you are. You even like proving to yourself "ahhh..made it to level cap, this is cool" instead of just doing that say to yourself, "i wonder how I can change this up" or anything like that in the moment, in your story
I love having my choices in mmos so I can choose to say something or not and have people like or hate me. Having IN MY HEAD a different set of decisions EACH TIME and have the story be different FOR ME each time. It is all in your head to everyone. Don't think of how many levels you just gained. Turn off your xp bar and just...enjoy the story. Now..I KNOW it's hard to not press the spacebar sometimes because ...something is there...just telling you PRESS ME!! DON'T. Trust me on this! You will thank me later. You will find the game MUCH MORE appealing than you ever did before. It is hard, but if you challenge yourself on this level. You will continue to want to challenge yourself on others within this game. (pst..why do you think they gave you the option to disable the xp bar in interface editor
) It is hard to for some, but just sit down, crack your knuckles, crank your sound up and just....let go. Don't think about anything else except TOR when you are in TOR. Just go with the flow. Zone out in the game. That is what SWTOR is. A game ...not for your average mmo player. I believe it's for a unique breed of people who enjoy well written stories who want to select what they can say to see other people's reactions. It is for people who love single player games but still want that...feeling...of meeting new people in an mmo world. It is for people who like BioWare games and ESPECIALLY kotor people. I can play this game for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours locked in a room and it be a different experience each time I start a different character. SWTOR is it's own game. Just like every other game is. Look past what this game has from others, and see what it offers for itself, and for the future.
I guess you are talking of illusion of choice, because the wheel decission doesn't have any effect on any character story or the world. Everyone has the same class story with the same series of quests despite their "decissions" which, in the best case, just triggers one dialog or another (the guy is dead the guy is not dead) and gives light/dark points for allignment that has no meaning at all except how beautiful or ugly looks the character.
The whole game is railed. It takes you through a predefined path and you have no other choice than follow that path because is what the designers want you to do. If something lacks this game is freedom.
You are right, they made a new standard: railed MMO.
And forget get a system like EVE. That means turn the game into a sandbox and that goes against this new standard.
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Just for fun, I did additionel tests. Here are the results:
Test 1: I'm on my lvl 46 Juggernaut inside the Belsavis Cantina (official population = 60, visible character limit = medium). I use my Emergency Fleet Pass to go back to the Imperial Fleet.
Loading time = 11 seconds.
Test2: I'm at the Select Character screen. I double click on my lvl 32 Vanguard. I appear on the Republic Fleet (official population = 227, visible character limit = medium) near the East Cargo Hold Accesses.
Loading time = 14 seconds.
Test3: I'm on my lvl 45 Jedi Guardian and I'm on the Republic Fleet (official population = 235, visible character limit = medium). I use the Group Finder to join either Colicoid War Game of The Red Reaper. As soon as I clicked on the Travel Now button, boom! I'm right at the beginning of the flashpoint.
Loading time = less than 1 second.
***Before we had the Group Finder and we had to go through those "purple walls", the loading was about 7-9 seconds.***
Test4: I'm still on my lvl 45 Jedi Guardian and I'm still on the Republic Fleet (similar parameters). I click on the Elevator to Jedi Knight Hangar.
Loading time = 4 seconds.
Test5: I'm still on my lvl 45 Jedi Guardian and I enter my personal ship.
Loading time = 8 seconds.
Test6: I'm still on my lvl 45 Jedi Guardian and I use my Ship Exit to end up in the Belsavis Republic Orbital Station.
Loading time = 34 seconds.
Test7: I'm still on my lvl 45 Jedi Guardian and I click on that ship and I end up on Belsavis near the NPCs who're shooting the fugitives.
Loading time = less than 1 second.
Sure, the loading time to travel to planet is insanely long (30-35 seconds usually for me) but I do it so rarely. So in average, it's really about 7 seconds... because most of the loading times for me are related to elevators, hangars and group instances.
P.S. No, I'm not "trying to insult your intelligence". Why would I do that? I'm only trying to share informations with other members of the community. That's all.
Why you keep trying to insult our intelligence?
Average is average, not just for what you want it to be. You can't take out of the equation planets to justify your hipothetic numbers, just because you stays all the time in your ship or in fleet taking elevators
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The loading times were, for many players, significantly reduced with Update 1.3. Some players even witnessed a 30-40s loading time reduction.
Right now, my average loading time is about 7 seconds. I use a i5 2600k + 8 GB RAM. Plus, they'll keep optimizing the engine and the loading times.
Don't insult our intelligence.
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The Stagnation of MMO industry/genre and why
The MMO industry has been stagnant for many years ever since World of Warcraft became the breakout poster game for the genre. After that, year after year, new MMO games released are either clones of it or have many elements that copied it. No doubt there are games that tried to be different. However, either they do not have the backings of a popular IP or fat financial support (or both), or they chose to be a niche market, they could not flourish in a world where the masses demand the lowest common denominator and make an impact.
Totally agree.
2. TrinityTrinity refers to the "holy-trinity" of the tank, healer and damage dealer roles. The tank gets the attention of the boss and other mobs, the healer heals the tank and others and the damage dealers fires away at the boss and mobs.
The concept of trinity was grounded in the traditions of fantasy genre. You have the hero and the representatives of every race and class to fight the big bad in a dungeon. With the trinity design, you justify the need for different classes mixed into a gaming group. This was made popular by games like Everquest and solidified in diamond casing by WoW. Thereafter, every other games followed this design and
this has been infecting single player and even pen and paper games which DO NOT need such a design in the first place.
Let's use the quintessential fantasy as an example : The Chamber of Marzarbul fight in Lord of the Rings movie. When the orcs came in, do you see Boromir yelling at them so that the orcs only fight him and no one else? Do you see Gandalf or Frodo standing one side and "healing" the others? No. Everyone chips in and fights. They help one another. Even when the mini-boss the cave troll came in, they took turns to deal damage to it until it dies. Yes, Aragorn tried to be a tank but he got beaten. Then frodo became unintended tank and then got beaten as well. The rest enraged and dps the troll to death. No tank, no
healer, equally if not more fun.Then along the staircase, the orcs shot arrows. What happen next? Legolas and, to a certain extend, Aragorn became the "tanks" and damage dealers to tackle the archer orcs while the rest move on. And finally, you have the Balrog. This is a special case. Only Gandalf is high level enough to take on the Balrog. So the rest has to flee. Essentially, Gandalf "tanks" the Balrog although he was sort of defeated (at that point of view from the fellowship).
So from this example, you can see, even if you need a tank, it does not have to be a single specific player with a specific class and a specific build. Anyone should be able to "tank" as long as he has to hit points. As for healer, well, just have potions do what healing spells can do and everyone is a healer. So anyone can chip in to heal if necessary. Or better still. Don't have healer. What you have in terms of total hit points is all you have in that battle. This makes the battle more exciting as the danger is higher. Players may attempt to run away because they know they will be defeated if they don't OR this forces other players to "taunt" the boss or mobs off their allies if they want their allies to live. Or even better still, mix it up. Have a variety of encounters. Some encounters need all to be dps. Some encounters need rotation of "tanks" and so forther.
One last thing for people who still want to cling on to the idea of trinity is that they may ask : "If there are no roles, then why bother to have so many classes?" Well, having different classes means your PLAYSTYLE is different and you have CHOICES. Sure, we are all damage dealers but he did it by swinging that big axe while I did it by lobbing a fireball. The type and number of classes do not have to be related to the roles a class may take.
Think out of the box. Be creative.
Guild Wars 2.
All players in a team have a set of DPS, CC, and Heal (self and others) skills, so the idea is already put in practice. However, a deeper analisys of the professions and their gears makes clear that tank-dps-healer(supporter) model is underneath. But is a step in the right direction.
3. Factionalisation
WoW has horde and alliance. WAR has Order and Chaos. SWTOR has Empire and Republic. See the pattern?
Of course we see the pattern, but some sort of factionalization is required. If you want PvP you've got to give a porpouse to most players. Yes many will do it for the fun only, but many others (like me) needs feel that join a PvP fight has a meaning and that it'll have an impact in the "world". Otherwise I'm not interested in PvP just for fun, or a rank, or a title, or a cool reward.
One of the games I PvPed most was Guild Wars, but I didn't joined PvP 'till they implemented the Legacy system for Guild Wars 2 and I had to aquire certain level in a PvP title to earn the Point for my character's legacy in Guild Wars 2. You can argue I PvPed for a reward, and is true, but is a meaningfull reward that will have an impact in my character in Guild Wars 2.
And another game I will surely PvP is Guild Wars 2. Why? Beacause they've gat a Server vs Server PvP arena called The Mist and is a meaningfull PvP since have control of the area gives global bonuses to the winning server. This is not a new feature though, I saw it already in Black Prophecy, though there the bonus goes to the winning faction.
4. Grinding and levelingI'm with you here too, but some sort of leveling is neccessary unless you makes everybody start maxed.
The only game I know that is not completely based on leveling is EVE Online. However, what you can or cannot do is determined by the skills earned through books and these books are hierarchicaly organized into levels, so, in the end, you have to progress trhough "grinding and leveling" too. But I admit that EVE Online skill books system is amazing and innovative (I haven't see it before neither after).
The industry is not completely stagnant as you can see by the examples I just pointed, but we are speaking of an Industry that looks for profit and quick results thus investors bets only for what has proven it works: WOW, and ran away from "experiments". That's why the industry advances slowly and looks stagnant, because only when a small company with guts enough to break the rules with its small budget MMO gets a success as big as WOW was/is, the industry will change to the new paradigm.
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It's a flaw in the engine, so speeds up load times means tweak the engine core and that won't happen anytime soon.
You can speed up a bit your load times in 2 ways:
1) The obvious: get an SSD and play the game from it.
2) You've got enouhg RAM to creat a RAMDISK and copy there the game's data files and mke the game acces those files instead of the hard drive copies.
The second is the cheapest but you've got to work on the setup (there are threads and articles in the net explaining how to do it).
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I have no Assassin tank but I'm with you because I'm PT tank and my armor is 8K+ and sure at some point in the future BW will nerf our armor too to make people play Assassins tanks again,
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No you're not alone. I'm PT and I hate that piece of crap, but is a minor issue. There are way more important issues in this game we have little hope to be addressed.
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I played an still play EQ2 for now over seven years,i have belonged to most of the top end raiding guilds through the years and yes even the current top one Revelations for a spell,i have no want for this game to become like EQ2 and 90% of my guildmates that played both WoW and EQ2 do not wish to repeat that again.
We enjoy SWTOR for it's general even handedness,you make decisions in PvP or PVE not grinding with the best gear and the best macro's with the best AA setup,here you have choices and this is what makes this MMo shine imo.
Honest question: What choices are those you talk about?
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I never had big expectations about SWTOR. I folowed it since it was announced its development, and it was clear from the beggining (it's my personal opinion) that was going to be a huge disappointmen to many, many, many people, specially those we quit SWG at NGE release, precisely because SWTOR it was going to be SWG-NGE 2, but worse because of rail space; at least SWG-NGE had free flight space content (old JTL) .
Why I bought it? Because, like you, I'm a Star Wars fan and I was waiting for a SW MMO since SOE killed SWG with its NGE, and I grew up with the movies and playing all SW games for PC, so I decided give the game a chance.
Why I still play it? because there's no MMO out there, yet, that interests me enough, and to support my guild which is small and we've got problems to assamble an 8 man team to do a weekly OP..
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The reason there is no Black hole offhand pistol for mercs is the same reason there is no black hole offhand saber for marauders. It would be too easy to buy 2, rip the mods on one and have both main and offhands with 61 level mods. There is a Campaign offhand pistol on the vendor.
I will admit, the fact that there is a Campaign offhand Generator confuses me, but the reason for no black hole pistol stands.
And you cannot buy a main hand gun/saber and rip off mofs and put them in an off hand gun/saber?
It makes no sense.
There's no reason to not have an off hand gun/saber in black hole vendor.
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IMO:
SWG/JTL space expansion was ABSOLUTELY outstanding
•Fast 3D Action
•Fully customizable ships
•Ship management
•3D ship cockpits
•1st / 3rd person views
•native TrackIR support
•force feedback support and fully customizable Joystick / keyboard support
•fully decorable 3D ship interiors
•atmospheric flight just before they had to pull the plug for "another" star wars game
•PVE/PVP
•capital ships
•Shipwright profession to craft/reengineer ship equipment
•combined actions space/ground --> determined GCW actions
•etc etc etc
I forced myself to try at least 2 space missions, but i was so shocked be the space part they gave us (i knew it all the time, as I was a SWG player and NOT a SWTOR fanboy)...that i almost unsubbed immediately. But I want to give them a fair 2nd chance.
If they cannot/won't meet at least the above mentioned standards, I will leave SWTOR for good.
Sorry to say but --> SWG (8 years old) > SWTOR (8 month old)
Not feeding us with any information seems like...."sorry we have no "final" plan yet and therefore no footage...let me guess ...if we are lucky that space expension will be released ....hmmmm END OF 2013?
Forget it. Don't expect anything near like that. We will be lucky if they give us something near to Battlefront's space combat.
To be fair we all knew from start that SWTOR space was going to be rail. They never had plans to make it free flight. But the worse is that they also said they wanted it to be one of the major features of the game. What a fail!!!!
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You don't need remove the HDD, just make it hidden, and install Window 7. The installer will see only the SDD. Once you finish intallation unhide the HDD and boot from SSD (sure your BIOS will allow do that) and you'll see the HDD in Windows again. Then backup, copy, or do whatever you need to do and when you are done, reformat the HDD. Is that simple
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The problem with free flight is that requires a complete redesign of space content and that means make an important investment. I don't think that will happens and what we've have seen so far is the contrary, employees fired and smaller programming teams
The odds are against free flight
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If they've got a small team working on it then they should have a plan. Leak that the plan is free flight is already something, at least for me and, I'm sure, for thousands of Star Wars games fans like me. I'm not asking for details.
However you just gave me another reason to think there's not going to be free flight and just more of the same: they've got a small team working on it. So this project is of little importance for BW and they want it cheap, so they'll go the easy way: more rails.
Too bad, too sad
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If that "super secret project" would be free flight space combat be sure they would leak that for commercial reasons. Is what makes me think it's going to be more of the same we've already got with some additions like guild ships or any non significant feature or cosmetic.
I'd love to be wrong, honestly, I grew up playing X-Wing saga and my first multiplayer game was X-Wing vs Tie Fighter (and I still play solo Balance of Power campaign), but I've got little hopes seeing how badly is managed this game.
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There's a basic flaw in your logic that makes your whole premise false: AI is based on predictable rules coded in scripts, PvP is random and completely unpredictable since behind each charcter there's a real inteligence. Any approach to balance PvP from PvE leads to desaster because players doesn't follow any coded script. That's why PvP skills, if they're the same in PvE, must have different stats that shouldn't affect PvE when nerfed and viceversa.I wanted to quote this post in hopes to give it more exposure since it makes a lot of sense. This is really all I was asking the OP for since he literally had nothing constructive in his first post.I feel that PvE should be the easier of the 2 to balance. So this should be the baseline from the START. Then you can make tweaks based off PvP results and metrics to help things along(like with how they change the uber OP 60 second mez to 8 seconds).
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Swtor's Secret Space Project Speculation
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by Diktat
Said that, I must stress that free flight is the only thing worthy to be considered a significant gameplay change, not just space gameplay "expand". With huge staff reduction in development teams and all the issues with the game they must address, and considerering that ifree flight means rework the whole space up from the ground (no way to patch JTL code, or any other bizarre idea like that, into the game, forget that), I don't see BW rebuilding space in any way. Whatever they'll do will be worked on top (expand) of what already exists because is the easiest and cheapest path, thus will be rails.
Another reason why we won't see any significant change in rail space is because it was a strategic decission. They had time enough to implement free flight space but it was clear from early development stages of SWTOR that space wouldn't be free flight.
I'd love to see free flight in SWTOR. I'm sure would be a blast even if it is mouse contrlol flight (I love Freelancer). But I'm realistic and I don't have reasons to think that wie will have free flight not even in 2 years.