On the Two Fundamental Issues of SWTOR's Success

[kalexkhan]

i stopped reading there... i really do not understand why SWTOR and WOW must be in the SAME sentence seriously.

 

and btw why everyone is so eager for SWTOR success or not ? are you shareholders ?

 

answer only to this question looking in a mirror

 

" DOES SWTOR DESERVE MY $15 ? "

 

this is the only question you must do, all the others are for the studio the publisher and their shareholders.

 

Because discussions with yourself only go so far, thats why we come here to answer each other questions and participate in fruitful interaction with humans.

 

Bioware, has openly, and obviously gone on record for suggesting they want their product to be competative with the highest echelon of MMO gaming in this century.

 

Wurm Online, doesn't get compared to WoW much at all, and its playerbase would laugh at you for bothering to do so because its a tiny little unique project with a totally different niche audience. Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic has made it very clear who their audience is by its feature set, and that's mainstream MMO players.

 

You can't enter into the mainstream MMO arena anymore and not have WoW in the same sentence.

 

And for the record, it was worth the 60 bucks, but not 15 more each monthly.

 

Thanks,

 

May the force be with you.

Edited January 4, 2012 by kalexkhan

[GraunKrynn]

Great post OP. You brought up some great topics for discussion. I'm curious to see how this game will evolve and develop over time. Thanks for the great read.

[magnuskn]

A very well written post. I applaud you.

 

I am unsuscribing for RL reasons, but it was made quite easier by some of the things you wrote about and other problems with the game, all of which can not just be fixed easily. There are big issues with crafting, companions, the lack of comfort options and a general antiquated design goal of "keeping the player logged in as long as possible". The latter one is especially egregious, because there are just so many damn time-wasters in this game, where you are essentially just doing nothing but running from place a.) to place b.) and have to jump through lots of hoops to do it. Just traveling from one planet to another becomes a chore, because of the several stations you must pass and the including loading screens.

 

But the conflict of an MMO with making the player character central to the story is a factor which may have played a big subconcious role in my growing disenchantment with the game.

Edited January 4, 2012 by magnuskn

[GalacticKegger]

so your biggest complaint is that the game stays within the norms of its genre and has the same feel as its predessor kotor... Did you really expect anything different? It's an mmo game set in the knights of the old republic universe... What a shock that it would play exactly like what it is.

 

All mmos have a basic set of similarities just like fps and rpg games always have the same underlying elements. That's what makes them what they are. It's not just a "wow" clone, a lot of the staples of wow were in place in mmos before wow even came around. If you don't like the "wow-like" elements then maybe mmos just aren't for you. And if you don't like the similarities to kotor then maybe a game set in that universe also just isn't for you.

 

Personally, the fact that they kept the kotor spirit in tact in this game is one of the things i love most about it.

+10 for this . . . Edited January 4, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[truxcer]

Best post on these boards ever. Sadly i'm more sceptical about BWs ability to improve game design at this point or even acknowledge its flaws. I was hoping for big release day patch like in other recent projects, but patches they rolled out so far really lackluster.

[Shaede]

Best post on these boards ever. Sadly i'm more sceptical about BWs ability to improve game design at this point or even acknowledge its flaws. I was hoping for big release day patch like in other recent projects, but patches they rolled out so far really lackluster.

 

Well, don't expect anything revolutionary for at least a month. There's a lot of bugs and other issues to deal with before turning attention to more holistic challenges.

[Shaede]

Bumping it up 12 pages! Let's see how many seconds it stays there!

[Paksis]

That was wonderful! I'm thankful to see someone taking a neutral and factual approach to things, with evidence to support it.

 

And I agree with the OP 100%

 

He's not bashing SWTOR, but rather pointing out the obstacles they're going to have to overcome to become a unique and successful game.

 

I'm currently playing out my free time, but don't plan to subscribe beyond that until the game starts to feel more smooth and open. It's a complicated situation for everyone. I certainly wish Bioware the best of luck!

[Shaede]

That was wonderful! I'm thankful to see someone taking a neutral and factual approach to things, with evidence to support it.

 

And I agree with the OP 100%

 

He's not bashing SWTOR, but rather pointing out the obstacles they're going to have to overcome to become a unique and successful game.

 

I'm currently playing out my free time, but don't plan to subscribe beyond that until the game starts to feel more smooth and open. It's a complicated situation for everyone. I certainly wish Bioware the best of luck!

 

Thanks for taking the time to make that explicit. I've had a few complaints for "bashing" SWTOR when, as far as I can tell, I never did. As you said, I'm merely pointing out the challenges it'll have to address to become a successful game.

 

I think a lot of people are holding off their subscription to see how Bioware moved forward with the game before locking themselves into it. Though this is a good move, it does mean that SWTOR will have less resources to work with to get those very updates. At the same time, there's no reason to expect the consumer to throw money at a company in the hopes that a product will come of it that they like. So, as you say, it's a complicated situation for everyone.

[rodianhutt]

The bottom line is are you having fun playing this game?

 

If Bioware can maximize the answer to this question, then SWTOR will be successful.

 

If not, it won't.

[Picardie]

Shaede, do you have blog or have you written anything else on gaming in general? Would be interested to read more of what you write about this or other related topics. Excellent read and good insight. Thanks for posting.

[Shaede]

Shaede, do you have blog or have you written anything else on gaming in general? Would be interested to read more of what you write about this or other related topics. Excellent read and good insight. Thanks for posting.

 

I don't, but maybe I should!

 

I'm usually very active in beta communities. I'm a fan of giving comprehensive feedback to developers before a game's released, but as I said earlier, I didn't get around to it until post-release with SWTOR. So, I posted the thoughts I had here that didn't overlap too much with what others have already been saying.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm surprised at all the positive feedback I've gotten! It just goes to show us that there's not as much negativity on these forums as people keep saying (either that, or not many of those kinds of people can't make it through a long post like I made). =)

Edited January 6, 2012 by Shaede

[Aitun]

The only fundamental issue as to why SWTOR will do well is because they clone WOW really well, while adding in a whole lot more immersion in the process.

 

Now it's just a matter of the company having a long term investment towards further developing the game.

 

If so, it will continue to be great. Perhaps even bigger than WOW in the long run.

 

I'm sure they have a lot of developers scrambling right now, including those in the upcoming Titan.

 

In the end, it will make MMO's better, and some competition is sorely needed.

[Shaede]

The only fundamental issue as to why SWTOR will do well is because they clone WOW really well, while adding in a whole lot more immersion in the process.

 

...didn't read the thread, eh?

[Shaede]

Bumping it up 24 pages!

[Aetla]

Just posting to rate/

 

5 Stars!

 

Well written, calm, makes sense... Instead plain rant i see the reason and grey matter there.

[ddecay]

"Let's forget about Dragon age 2 for now"

 

 

I wish!

[Shaede]

"Let's forget about Dragon age 2 for now"

 

 

I wish!

 

I know. We can only take solace in the fact that the Dragon Age team is separate from both the Mass Effect and the SWTOR teams.

[Slightlycampana]

And now look at what they managed to accomplish. Imagine what BioWare needs to do down the road to match the quality of the original release as new expansions are developed.

 

I think this is the worrying bit. We all want the experience we have while levelling to extend once we reach the max level. We're expecting expansions with new storylines. But it's a fantastic amount of work - can Bioware really create content fast enough to keep players happy?

 

The problems is that it's all developer-created content, which is very resource-heavy.

 

I don't play WoW, but from what I hear it's all about grinding different kinds of points, and the developers try to dress the grind up in cosmetic fluff to make it seem desirable or interesting.

 

That's a lot easier than writing masses of RPG story, scripting it, employing voice actors and animating CGI scenes to make things interesting.

 

The players are not central key figures. They are bit players. The central key figures are people like Darth Malgus, the Dark Council, Satele Shan, and so on. We are the Wedge Antilles with our own personal involving story whilst the big events happen around us.

 

The whole "you are amazing" "you are destined for great things" BS is really annoying. I liked starting at the sith academy and being told I was a miserable unworthy slave who was bound to fail.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Slightlycampana

[VallorFleetfoot]

I agree with your original post, in fact I agree with most of it. My biggest issues with the game are the single player nature of the game and the fact that it feels SO old. This is especially poignant when you have games like Rift releasing that were able to actually compete with WoW on a feature by feature AND innovate (with Rifts) AND revive a terrific feature from Asheron's Call in releasing substancial monthly content updates. All of this despite its youth and more limited budget.

 

However, I feel I need to do a little fact correction:

 

WoW had the first open persistent online world that was not segmented by loading screens. The technology was absolutely revolutionary when it first appeared.

 

Actually seamlessness comes all the way from UO. If you're talking about 3D games Meridan 59 from the mid 90's was relatively seamless. In the modern age Dark Age of Camelot was the first MMO that was seamless. You could run all the way across Albion, Hybernia, or Midgard without zoning, including virtually all of their dungeons. The only zoning was when you went to another realm's RVR zones.

 

Actually, come to think of it, AO predated DAOC by a few months, but its been so long since I played that I can't remember if it had zones or not.

 

One area where vanilla WoW did (arguably) improve the genre was in instanced dungeons.

 

Before WoW nearly all content was available to all players. This lead to a great deal of contention between guilds in killing world bosses and the like on their spawn timers. I remember being part of a pager train with my EQ guild to make sure we could muster our forces quickly enough to clear the planes, or beat Trakanon all the way up to our cycle for beating the various gods in the Planes of Power expansion.

 

WoW is seen as a "template" for the whole genre, when in fact, it's always been innovating the genre with the typical Blizzard polish and resulting success.

 

In the beginning WoW's was pretty derivative with limited innovation. The accessiblity of the game and the fact that it "fixed" so many issues people had with other MMOs of the day and was based off a particularly good RTS series were the primary draw.

 

The innovation came with the first expansion... WoW had grown so large (from a western MMO perspective... eastern MMOs and some causal MMOs still soundly trounce WoW from a popularity and per-player revenue standpoint (Habbo Hotel, anyone? Runescape anyone?)) and eclipsed other western MMOs so greatly that there was no longer a benchmark for WoW to shoot for. They had to create new stuff which, in turn, became the benchmark for all newer MMOs to strive for.

 

Anyway, good post but please make sure you double check everything, if you give the ultra-supporters anything they can discredit they'll use it as ammo to dismiss EVERYTHING you say

[Shaede]

Anyway, good post but please make sure you double check everything, if you give the ultra-supporters anything they can discredit they'll use it as ammo to dismiss EVERYTHING you say

 

I appreciate the corrections. You do bring up some great points!

 

As to the seamless world of Azeroth, I do know it was the first of its kind to use new technology to load only what was immediately needed by the player. You are right, though, there were games that predate WoW which also ran seamlessly from the player's perspective. Perhaps it was a more technical triumph than it was a revolutionary mode of experiencing the game, similar to what phasing technology would be for WoW.

[cdstephen]

Great, insightful post. I was always wondering why they managed to make a good MMO from an RTS, but the theory concerning nameless heroes and "nobodies" is brilliant imo.

 

To me, this game is fun as it is, but has potential to be great and innovative. Perhaps this will come in the next 6 or so months. Or perhaps not, and I'll go back to playing SRPGs.

[dipstik]

good read... but why didnt bioware take anything from swg. is swg a wow clone or more like ultima online or something>? Edited January 6, 2012 by dipstik

[TheHeadCapper]

...didn't read the thread, eh?

 

Are you afraid of a different opinion?

[Shaede]

good read... but why didnt bioware take anything from swg. is swg a wow clone or more like ultima online or something>?

 

I didn't play SWG, so I can't say. One of my friends controlled the game's economy for a while, before all the patches, so maybe I'll ask him what he thought the next time I see him. He's a brilliant person.

 

Are you afraid of a different opinion?

 

Your opinion was addressed rather thoroughly in my post. Why do you think I was wrong? You didn't address anything I said, you merely spouted out your opinion.