Sobrik is Free: Bioware's Lack of Ambition is Disturbing [SPOILERS]

[Cavadus]

I'm not the hugest fan of the bulk of the design decisions made in this game. I find the combat system to be archaic and stale, the lack of mechanized combat in a Star Wars game bugs me, the space combat is so embarrassingly bad that I've only ever done one mission and will never touch it again, the character creator is laughable, the gear itemization's linear level based progression makes me cringe, and even the cinematics get really boring due to the fact that all of the camera POVs are 100% static (cameras don't pan, follow, move at all, et cetera) which makes for really lame cut-scenes after forty levels.

 

All that aside, I was still appreciating the story to an extent. Every once in awhile something outside of my class storyline would really grab me like the Czerka quest chain on Tatooine.

 

I'm on Balmorra now and there's a large city under Imperial control called Sobrik. A few missions ago I successfully sabotaged and destroyed this giant shield generator that floats above the city making it impervious to conventional Republican and resistance attacks.

 

After that I then went on to Sobrik's spaceport and killed all of the Imperial leadership.

 

When I walked out of the spaceport after mission complete I looked up and saw the shield generator I had previously destroyed in perfect operating condition just humming away.

 

I looked around and nothing had changed. All of the Imperial banners strewn across the buildings remained, all of the Imperial troops still patrolled the city, and there wasn't a Republican or resistance soldier to be found anywhere.

 

It finally hit me that this game doesn't even story-tell well. Sobrik will never be controlled by Republican/resistance forces. It will always be exactly as it is: 100% static.

 

Once this finally hit me and sunk in I realized what little interest I had left in the story-telling. I realized the total lack of environmental change destroys everything. I realized that Star Wars: The Old Republic is the least ambitious MMO ever made and the few elements of the game that actually had a shot at innovation or even smelled of ambition were all ****-canned in beta (every item being moddable, unify to chest, et cetera).

 

Bioware, what happened? I know your products have never been known for their gameplay and that in previous titles the gameplay was often the worst aspect of the title (Mass Effect 1 comes to mind here and so does KOTOR) but are you actually comfortable with your product? Are you just lorded over by EA's bean-counters? Did LAE force you to just plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize after their experiences with SOE and SWG?

 

Surely this isn't it, is it?

Edited January 6, 2012 by Cavadus

[mpen]

So... wait. Let me get this straight.

 

You completed the story for a certain planet. And you want your outcome to be permanent forever. What if someone else wants to complete that mission line?

 

Are you saying missions need to be first come, first served? So If I level faster than everyone else, on my Jedi Knight, and beat the last boss of the Jedi Knight story, he should be dead for everyone because I killed him?

 

This isn't a single-player game. If you want to play a game where one person can change the entire game world for the rest of the game population, go play EVE or something. It's fun, and your actions make a difference. One big sandbox.

 

But the nature of an MMO like this, where everyone has the chance to go through the same storylines... you can't do that. It doesn't work. Everyone needs a chance to play the same content and achieve their own results.

[Scrimpton]

never heard of phasing?

 

much older games than swtor have pulled it off.

 

Lack of ambition is spot on

[Demonix]

remember those seagulls in Finding Nemo, mine mine mine mine...

 

Edit: ok, let me get this straight, some people are complaining about instancing/sharding and you are asking for more!?

Edited January 6, 2012 by Demonix

[Cavadus]

Stuff.

 

LOL, it's called phasing. Guild Wars does this to great affect. I'm not going to explain it to you.

 

And that's only one possible solution.

[Scrimpton]

remember those seagulls in Finding Nemo, mine mine mine mine...

 

Edit: ok, let me get this straight, some people are complaining about instancing/sharding and you are asking for more!?

 

 

No, you're wrong still.

 

Phasing != instancing.

 

nice try though!

[HoosierDuke]

So... wait. Let me get this straight.

 

You completed the story for a certain planet. And you want your outcome to be permanent forever. What if someone else wants to complete that mission line?

 

Actually, WOW does this all the time with their "phasing" technology ... it affects no one else but you.

 

And the OP is correct, it should be an expected feature of any current/new MMO.

[Cabe]

LOL, it's called phasing. Guild Wars does this to great affect. I'm not going to explain it to you.

 

And that's only one possible solution.

 

Yes but that phasing means that you can not be in the same phase as people who have not completed that quest line yet. So you want to splinter the population between different phases on whether they completed that quest chain or not. What about Empire and Republic then not interacting at all between the two sides? Since one side would have that area under Empire control and the other side would be Republic.

[mpen]

LOL, it's called phasing. Guild Wars does this to great affect. I'm not going to explain it to you.

 

I know what phasing is. This game is full of it. But BioWare made an effort to keep phases small, and to keep the biggest open areas public. I haven't been to the planet you're talking about, but I'm assuming this is something that this is some large feature of the environment that you blew up or turned off or whatever. Unless you want to walk around in your own private instance, they can't make drastic changes to the environment like that.

 

Even if they CAN. And let's say they could. This game has only been out for two weeks. I think your rage is a little premature. Give them a chance to fix BUGS and EXPLOITS and things that break the game before dealing with your damaged ego on account of your dead thing not staying dead.

[Scrimpton]

You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Please refrain.

[Laeris]

I like people who spend all their time on a new MMO wishing it was like the one they left.

[Meleoffs]

No, you're wrong still.

 

Phasing != instancing.

 

nice try though!

 

phasing is still essentially instancing as unless someone is on the EXACT level of progression through the planet you are, you won't be able to see them, nor they you. Icecrown suffered deeply because of this as it made extreme use of phasing to the point where the summoning stone outside was useless.

[J-Sheridan]

The game is extremely static to the point your actions literally have no impact on the world. Makes sense in other games but TOR claims to be trying to make an interactive story... well here we have the story breaking because your actions arent doing anything.

 

Champions Online got around this by having a few major events occur in major instances, the outcome of those instances were fixed and when you left you entered the 'new' world.

 

Translation:

 

Balmora Pre-Story Sobrik is Empire Controlled

Complete gated instance

Players go to Republic controlled Sobrik

 

Two different worlds which requires a gate to get to the next. Once done you cant go back to the previous world.

 

Lord of the Rings did this as well with the lead up to the Mines of Moria expansion.

Sadly I doubt this is going to be done in TOR and if it is, only in major expansions for new areas.

 

The alternative solution is to make clientside changes. Once someone completes the Sobrik quest line the game will automatically flag all Imperials as 'Friendly' and cosmetically change the environment to look like the Republic took over.

[borghe]

phasing is honestly the only true design decision bioware made that left me shaking my head. in a game where they want your decisions to carry impact, where the weight of your choices is supposed to carry through for the rest of the game, in a day and age where phasing is not only common, but used in abundance in every AAA tier game... it stuns me that they opted against it.

 

Here's to hoping for open world phasing in the expansion...

[Meleoffs]

The game is extremely static to the point your actions literally have no impact on the world. Makes sense in other games but TOR claims to be trying to make an interactive story... well here we have the story breaking because your actions arent doing anything.

 

Champions Online got around this by having a few major events occur in major instances, the outcome of those instances were fixed and when you left you entered the 'new' world.

 

Translation:

 

Balmora Pre-Story Sobrik is Empire Controlled

Complete gated instance

Players go to Republic controlled Sobrik

 

Two different worlds which requires a gate to get to the next. Once done you cant go back to the previous world.

 

Lord of the Rings did this as well with the lead up to the Mines of Moria expansion.

Sadly I doubt this is going to be done in TOR and if it is, only in major expansions for new areas.

 

The alternative solution is to make clientside changes. Once someone completes the Sobrik quest line the game will automatically flag all Imperials as 'Friendly' and cosmetically change the environment to look like the Republic took over.

 

But, you know, balmorra is supposed to be contested area. You know. That completely destroys the point of balmorra being a world pvp area.. you know..

[Demonix]

No, you're wrong still.

 

Phasing != instancing.

 

nice try though!

 

Well atleast I'm right about the seagulls hey!?

 

Mine mine mine mine, me myself and I, hey buddy.

[magnuskn]

Some phasing would have done the world a ton of good to appear less static, I agree.

 

That said, including phasing would have created other problems ( not being able to interact with players in the other phase, to just cite the most common one from WoW ). But the segregation of the world into instanced and non-instanced zones also is problematic.

 

Eh, it's difficult to find a good solution. Maybe include a dynamic event where imperial forces recapture the city every few hours?

[Meleoffs]

phasing is honestly the only true design decision bioware made that left me shaking my head. in a game where they want your decisions to carry impact, where the weight of your choices is supposed to carry through for the rest of the game, in a day and age where phasing is not only common, but used in abundance in every AAA tier game... it stuns me that they opted against it.

 

Here's to hoping for open world phasing in the expansion...

 

It's baffling how people can wish for open world phasing because they want their decisions to have weight when they don't even realize the implications of such a feature. Empire and Republic would be completely 100% segregated to the point that they should split the games into two different games, much like City of Heroes and City of Villains

[youwillburn]

phasing is still essentially instancing as unless someone is on the EXACT level of progression through the planet you are, you won't be able to see them, nor they you. Icecrown suffered deeply because of this as it made extreme use of phasing to the point where the summoning stone outside was useless.

 

Except the npc phasing in the major cities after the Battle for _ in WOTLK works fine.

[borghe]

Balmora Pre-Story Sobrik is Empire Controlled

Complete gated instance

Players go to Republic controlled Sobrik

 

yes, what you are describing is phasing, and WoW, Rift, Aion, LOTRO, Champions and STO all do it. Sadly it is not included in star wars (even though open world instancing is).

 

No game is a perfect 10.. this is one of the things that diminishes star wars from a 10.

[Darth_Gao_Gao]

you should play something like eve online if you want your actions to have a direct consequence on the world in which you play. if you went into the game thinking you would literally shape the galaxy, then you are in for a world of pain.

 

suffering is good for the darkside though, so maybe all not is lost.

[Yfelsung]

It's funny how you find combat archaic, while I find it refreshing.

 

You know, sometimes old combat systems are better, right?

 

Tribes 2 is a better shooter than any shooter released since, despite "innovations" in the genre.

 

SWTOR's combat system is exactly what I want from an MMO.

 

They took Warhammer's combat and stripped out the auto attack, hence it's now exactly what I've always wanted.

[blargness]

So... wait. Let me get this straight.

 

You completed the story for a certain planet. And you want your outcome to be permanent forever. What if someone else wants to complete that mission line?

 

Are you saying missions need to be first come, first served? So If I level faster than everyone else, on my Jedi Knight, and beat the last boss of the Jedi Knight story, he should be dead for everyone because I killed him?

 

This isn't a single-player game. If you want to play a game where one person can change the entire game world for the rest of the game population, go play EVE or something. It's fun, and your actions make a difference. One big sandbox.

 

But the nature of an MMO like this, where everyone has the chance to go through the same storylines... you can't do that. It doesn't work. Everyone needs a chance to play the same content and achieve their own results.

 

At the risk of being chided for it:

 

When wrath was released, Blizzard implemented quest-based phasing. For example, there is an encampment that is under siege and as you progress in the quest line you move forward through "persistent phases." After the first chain the encampment is secured (but other players who haven't done them yet still see it under siege) and as you go through quests you eventually get to a phase where you have several fortified positions, a small town, etc.

 

In the mean time people just coming into the zone still see it as it was when you started.

 

I actually expected something quite similar here (given that this game was released a couple years AFTER wrath) because of the strong focus of the storyline.

[Kamiosoup]

It's funny, they use phasing in all the wrong places.

 

Bioware MMO, hehe cute.

[ChampionChains]

I heard that when we won WWII, every Nazi banner in Germany instantaneously evaporated into thin air, all hostile Germans despawned and were replaced by cheering, grateful rosy cheeked civilians. The tanks and machines of war which once supported the enemy broke apart at an atomic level leaving no trace behind as if the entire war had been nothing more than a bad dream.

 

This isn't a single player game, remember you're not the only player on Balmora.