Story-based themepark MMO can only fail

[Swampfot]

If you are going to compare the content in WoW when it came out and TOR now, then you need to take into account the speed players go through the content as well.

 

When WoW came out I had never heard of macros, bossmods, damagemeters, ui for healers etc etc. I had no idea that I needed to do 5-mans to get better gear to do harder content. I had no clue which zone I needed to head for. There were very few sites that told you which boss dropped what gear, or how you got attuned to an instance.

 

Nowadays people are experts in finding that stuff even before they reached level 10 and left the starter zone. In TOR that doesn't really matter since the game holds your hand with the class quests. In WoW I spent hours upon hours running from zone to zone just to explore. Running through the continent when you don't know the way isn't easy, and takes time. But the scenery in WoW was soo nice it was worth it. I doubt I would say the same about TOR with the dull depressing stuff that almost every planet consists of.

[Crashloop]

The thing is, WOW dripfeeds you skills in a way that teaches you how to play their game. By the time you're finished the first planet, you've got most of the skills you're ever going to use in TOR, certainly all the ones that actually fit on your toolbar.

 

By the end of the second, you've even got a ship. The game should take the leash off then and just let players go where they want. With a level-less system, the Galaxy could be your oyster. Exploring on Illum. Prospecting on Tattooine. Bounty Hunting on Nar Shadda. All of the above, with friends, forever.

 

But they just can't bring themselves to disengage the levelling treadmill because they don't know how to create content that rewards in and of itself, rather than offering an in-game reward.

 

What's really needed is a way to empower the players to create the universe.

 

SWG had all of the things needed for the players to go out and explore the galaxy, you created your character, choosed the starting city and was given a very basic set of gear. Where you went or what you did from there was 100% up to you as a player. You could do quests from the terminals, you could take your rifle and explore Tattoine and shoot ata few womp rats at the same time. As you grew stronger you went to different planets as you wanted harder resistance and different stuff to do. Nothing was handed to you on a silverplate, no one held your hand and told you were to go, what to shoot at. You were basicly free to explore the world as you wanted too, and not only free but you had to do it your way as no one would tell you to go to this planet next.

 

In theme park MMO's the rewards are given to the players and players expect to get a reward for doing this and that. In sandbox MMO's and specially in games like DFO the reward from a Chaos chest can be either small or quite large. Due to the nature of the game you can loose the reward quite quick, so it gives a whole new meaning to exploring and trying to get resources. You can spend hours on hours chopping wood or mining stone, and never loose it. other times you can win a PvP match and get your hands on some really nice armor pieces just to realize that you loose it 10 minutes later by someone beating you. The risk vs reward concept is in many ways more satisfying then anything else, as some days you loose all your stuff, and other days you can get your hands on the most valuble stuff existing in the game.

 

The only way to get players to explore is to "force"them into going and looking. In a game where they can level to a certain level before being sent to next area you never really learn to appreciate the value exploring can have. In SWG 1/3 of the exploring was to find places to go for you to quest, 1/3 was to go for specific resources or mobs to fight and the last 1/3 was to simply discover locations you had heard about. Places like the sarlacc pit and other places on various planets was things you actually wanted to find after hearing and seeing other players finding it. In the beginning these wasn't listed on your datapad either so finding them was seen as a bit of an achivement. They didn't give you any bonuses, but they added value to your character in the form of you as a player actually finding it. However this simply doesn't work very well in a theme park MMO as majority of the players expect that the game tells them where to go and what to do. In a sandbox MMO the feeling is usually changed as the game from the start tells you quite harshly that you are on your own and need to figure out of things yourself. And this triggers the urge to explore the urge to actually go out and find the places you want and need before others find it.

[MadSquabbles]

I played KOTOR three times, and KOTOR 2 nine times, I'm sure I can play this game a dozen times playing different characters for the next couple of years with out them even adding in new content.

 

i could, but not at $15 per month.

[xguild]

It fails on a fundamental level because meaningful story cannot be generated by developers faster than users consume it.

 

What goes into a good story? Plot. Memorable characters. Conflict. Change. Interesting environments. Realistic dialogue. I shudder to think of the army of people that it took to give us such 8 wonderful, moving class stories in SWTOR.

 

1-49 had all this. I loved it, every minute of it.

 

Level 50 has none of this. My companions won't interject dialogue anymore. My character doesn't grow anymore. When I log in these days, I wonder, "Why am I doing this?" And I don't want that answer to be, "because the best-in-slot gear is this way". That is the losing answer, because of this other game on the market that will provide more than the good people at Bioware ever can in that particular arena.

 

Your executive and design meetings should turn its efforts on turning SWTOR into a sandbox game. Let players write their own stories. You've shown me where my character comes from -- now give me the tools to play out the rest of his career.

 

And for heaven sakes, don't ask me to roll an alt. Your mission worked, Bioware. Your story connected me with my character. I made the choices that defined him. I want to play him, not some new random person who happens to share a last name. Don't make me turn him into some mindless raider or pvp commendation grinder.

 

Sun Tzu wrote, "You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended." Raiding bosses, dungeon finder, daily quests, commendation vendors, and all that jazz -- those are the enemy's heavily defended bastions. I beg you Bioware. Do not waste your resources assaulting those positions. You cannot hope to win.

 

I think you make an interesting point and its a very valid one. I think the basic principle of gaming applies here that a game has only so much entertainment value. Adding cinematics, voice acting, interesting scripted events and all that other stuff has simply made going from level 1 to 50 more interesting than other MMO's. People reached max level in days after release of every major MMO, the difference is that those days weren't spend watching interesting cut scenes and being personally involved in story's.. they where simply repetative texted scripts that had you chasing monsters around without any real attachments... just the progression of advancement.

 

So what they did was make those 50 levels more fun. The end game content issues in this game are no different than any other. WOW, Warhammer.. AION.. you name it.. they all have the same issues at launch and end game content is always something added later.

 

So Bioware hasn't really done anything bad here.. they simply made the trip more fun, but if your one of those players that shot to level 50 in a few days than you experianced what the game has to offer until this point and just like every other MMO at release their is not much in the way of end game content available ... yet. But their probobly will be and like the first 50 levels in this game, which in my opinion are better than every other MMO out their thanks to the cinematics, voice acting etc... the end game content when it comes will hopefully be just as good.

 

So they don't really have to keep up. They just have to make sure that the quality as they add new content is as good as the stuff they started with, so that when we do get new content its just as fun to play through.

 

My suggestion is roll a new character and explore the game.. get your 60+ hours of fun out of this game and when it runs its course cancel your subscription if its not entertaining enough. the game will be there waiting for you when new content comes out and you can always resubscribe.

[knightblaster]

SWG had all of the things needed for the players to go out and explore the galaxy, you created your character, choosed the starting city and was given a very basic set of gear. Where you went or what you did from there was 100% up to you as a player. You could do quests from the terminals, you could take your rifle and explore Tattoine and shoot ata few womp rats at the same time. As you grew stronger you went to different planets as you wanted harder resistance and different stuff to do. Nothing was handed to you on a silverplate, no one held your hand and told you were to go, what to shoot at. You were basicly free to explore the world as you wanted too, and not only free but you had to do it your way as no one would tell you to go to this planet next.

 

In theme park MMO's the rewards are given to the players and players expect to get a reward for doing this and that. In sandbox MMO's and specially in games like DFO the reward from a Chaos chest can be either small or quite large. Due to the nature of the game you can loose the reward quite quick, so it gives a whole new meaning to exploring and trying to get resources. You can spend hours on hours chopping wood or mining stone, and never loose it. other times you can win a PvP match and get your hands on some really nice armor pieces just to realize that you loose it 10 minutes later by someone beating you. The risk vs reward concept is in many ways more satisfying then anything else, as some days you loose all your stuff, and other days you can get your hands on the most valuble stuff existing in the game.

 

The only way to get players to explore is to "force"them into going and looking. In a game where they can level to a certain level before being sent to next area you never really learn to appreciate the value exploring can have. In SWG 1/3 of the exploring was to find places to go for you to quest, 1/3 was to go for specific resources or mobs to fight and the last 1/3 was to simply discover locations you had heard about. Places like the sarlacc pit and other places on various planets was things you actually wanted to find after hearing and seeing other players finding it. In the beginning these wasn't listed on your datapad either so finding them was seen as a bit of an achivement. They didn't give you any bonuses, but they added value to your character in the form of you as a player actually finding it. However this simply doesn't work very well in a theme park MMO as majority of the players expect that the game tells them where to go and what to do. In a sandbox MMO the feeling is usually changed as the game from the start tells you quite harshly that you are on your own and need to figure out of things yourself. And this triggers the urge to explore the urge to actually go out and find the places you want and need before others find it.

 

It's a market issue.

 

The market for sandbox style games is much smaller than the market for themepark style games. I think this is because sandbox games demand more of the player, on average, in terms of investment/engagement, whereas theme park games can easily be played for entertainment value for an hour or two in a more passive/following way. And the mass market of these games now is in entertainment mode rather than hobby/investment mode.

[xguild]

It's a market issue.

 

The market for sandbox style games is much smaller than the market for themepark style games. I think this is because sandbox games demand more of the player, on average, in terms of investment/engagement, whereas theme park games can easily be played for entertainment value for an hour or two in a more passive/following way. And the mass market of these games now is in entertainment mode rather than hobby/investment mode.

 

Its true.. Sandbox game simply don't do well at all. With the exception of the very rare game that comes along like Eve Online most games simply don't attract a large enough player base around which a developer can build a game. The poster mentioned SWG, but that "freedom" of play was ultimatly changed to a class/level based system because it simply didn't work well enough and the player base was far too small and while what we got as a result was the dreaded NGE that ultimatly turned out to be a big mistake it still proved the point that the marke simply isn't there.

 

I personally love sandbox MMO's and there are a few developers StarVaults Mortal Online for example that are trying, but the audiance is tiny... really tiny. You get more people logging into a single SWOTR server during off hours than the entire combined subscribers of Darkfall and Mortal Online combined. There just isn't any money in sandbox games unfortunatly.

[Tinasa]

+1 to the OP.

 

I also love the game and I also am at a loss to understand why companies seem to ignore the sandbox elements when so many mmo users are looking for the perfect balance. The first game to finally provide what Bioware has here in addition to the degree of sandbox that let's say SWG had, just as an example will change gaming.

 

I just hit 50 yesterday and though I'm subbed for the next six months, I am holding out hope Bioware will be adding more sandbox elements so this character and this incredible galaxy they have provided us, continues to feel alive.

[Zhiroc]

Honestly, the most fun I've ever had in a game was KotOR (even KoTOR 2, but not quite as much) and Mass Effect. Rails? Most definitely. Variability? Almost none (to the story). I know it's probably hard to accept, but these games sell for the same price as SWTOR, and hardcore gamers will probably clear it in a week or two. However, there is some variability with playthroughs as you try different classes, go LS/DS/Paragon/Renegade, etc.

 

And I say the above even as a vet of about 5 MMOs, most of which I found neither the leveling nor the endgame fun.

 

I don't PvP. Not fun to me. I do understand the draw of PvP to players who like it. What I don't understand is why an MMO, where inequalities like gear and level get in the way, is a platform of choice for PvP. Why not an FPS/TPS? Why require people to level at all to "endgame"? Just get in and play where it's just you and your skill (and your team's skill) vs. another?

 

I don't see the point of raiding. Just to prove you can? People described the experience on WoW about needing precision and a tight command structure etc. Eghn, I can't imagine volunteering to to that. I guess I can understand the challenge of saying you cleared it once (even if I personally find that play boring), but over and over again? That I can't understand.

 

Now, I could see the point about allowing more sandboxing, but I'd probably find that boring as well. What makes me like SWTOR is the fact that it is as close to KotOR and ME as any MMO has been able to do. I'm here only for the storytelling.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Zhiroc