archifikoss Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I don't think i'll make it to the 1st expansion of SWTOR if they don't open it up more. Just because it's a "story" doesn't mean i need my hand held while trying to get from point A to point B. Bioware games have always been this way, with the game world being quite restrictive... It's one of the things I don't like about them (and is present to a lesser extent in TOR). However I generally find their games strong points good enough to keep me playing, despite the restrictive worlds. But, different tastes I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StealthLightning Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I don't think i'll make it to the 1st expansion of SWTOR if they don't open it up more. Just because it's a "story" doesn't mean i need my hand held while trying to get from point A to point B. I agree. Often times in order for me to get from one area of the map to another, I have to go through one narrow pass(and it may take several minutes of traveling through this narrow pass). It makes the world feel small. I mean, did I really defeat all of the Republic forces on the planet in this tiny patch of land? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SloatHunter Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 SWToR pretty much feels like playing Hellgate; London with one giant waystation than several. ....And a subscription, ability lag, I even thought the voice acting was better in HG;L, although thoes two dimentional cut scene charactors aint got NOTHING on the arm flapping and hand waving SWToR's have! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddballEasyEight Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I agree. Often times in order for me to get from one area of the map to another, I have to go through one narrow pass(and it may take several minutes of traveling through this narrow pass). It makes the world feel small. I mean, did I really defeat all of the Republic forces on the planet in this tiny patch of land? Ah, balmorra. just go to tatooine next and you'll be fine... its much more open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ansultares Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Soooo... someone is on the first few planets and under level 20... Play a little bit OP, you'll see what I'm saying I don't know what you're talking about. It only seemed to get worse after Dromund Kass. I see someone saying that Voss is good. I haven't reached that yet, but it would be the first good planet I've come across in a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fardreamer Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I don't know what you're talking about. It only seemed to get worse after Dromund Kass. I see someone saying that Voss is good. I haven't reached that yet, but it would be the first good planet I've come across in a long time. So you're saying Tat, Hoth, Balmorra, Quesh, etc are all worse than Nar Shaddaa? Um, ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xugos Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 No it's not. Stephejohnp has spoken. All controversy can now be ended. The verdict is that the gameworld is NOT like a corridor! /sarcasm The game is very linear, part of the reason why I cancelled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawtubb Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 This is exactly how i felt while on any of the various planets. There is an illusion of an expansive open world but really there is nothing more than a series corridors you are forced to go through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CommieKras Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Every zone can be summarized as follows: Travel to planet Use Holoterminal Receive planet questline on Orbital Station Collect quests around the first town / meet up with planet questline (has to be a general or high ranking administrator) / meet up with class questline contact Do quests in beginning zone. Hey, thanks for the help! They need your help in zone b! Do quests in zone b. Finish up questlines in zone c, Return to spaceport area to receive reward. Use ship's holoterminal. On to the next planet (that is if you're lucky enough to be spared the chore of returning to Dromund Kaas, running to the Citadel, being told to go to Korriban even though I have a damn holoterminal). No deviation whatsoever. You know you're going to end up in zone C when you land on the planet. You know all questlines are going to be resolved in zone C and tied up with a neat little ribbon there. The only difference is if you're going to be seeing sand, snow, industry, or mountains. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noth Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I agree. Often times in order for me to get from one area of the map to another, I have to go through one narrow pass(and it may take several minutes of traveling through this narrow pass). It makes the world feel small. I mean, did I really defeat all of the Republic forces on the planet in this tiny patch of land? You do realize even WoW had these narrow passes. Only with Cata did that change. Further world in real life have natural barriers, bottlenecks, narrowed paths, areas with only a few safe paths. Then there are world like Belsavis that was designed as a prison, it makes sense that you have only limited paths through a prison, yet it is still extremely open. Some planets are linear and corridor style. To say all planets are that way is false. Further the planets that feel like corridors fit the feel of the planets. Korriban takes place in the valley of the dark lord, a valley is a natural barrier and path. Nar shaddaa and Coruscant are literally planet cities where the planet can't even be seen under the city. Taris was once a city planet and was essentially totaled. City and rubble falling on to a planet will make barriers and confined paths. Corellia takes place in a single sprawling city thus will feel like a corridor. The planet design makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxelStorm Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 (edited) i agree. corsuscant is just a big **** block with fart pockets that you can't even dictate the smell of your own assbucket. i should be able to freely roam every planet like SWG. buy a speeder or car and fly through the mile high skyscrapers and weave in and out of traffic in coruscant.. (not saying every building is accessible) but this game is very driven byy the dev's. Edited January 16, 2012 by AxelStorm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CommieKras Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 You do realize even WoW had these narrow passes. Only with Cata did that change. Further world in real life have natural barriers, bottlenecks, narrowed paths, areas with only a few safe paths. Then there are world like Belsavis that was designed as a prison, it makes sense that you have only limited paths through a prison, yet it is still extremely open. Some planets are linear and corridor style. To say all planets are that way is false. Further the planets that feel like corridors fit the feel of the planets. Korriban takes place in the valley of the dark lord, a valley is a natural barrier and path. Nar shaddaa and Coruscant are literally planet cities where the planet can't even be seen under the city. Taris was once a city planet and was essentially totaled. City and rubble falling on to a planet will make barriers and confined paths. Corellia takes place in a single sprawling city thus will feel like a corridor. The planet design makes sense. It's also realistic (at least in the Star Wars universe) for a lightsaber to slice a person apart with a single hit. They didn't go that route because it would be a stupid design choice. There is a disconnect between realism and good gameplay. Sure having a few streets in a city makes a bit of sense, but it is an utterly horrendous design choice and a chore for the player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uteboy Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 (and don't forget it had swimming/underwater ecosystems at launch too!). Feel free to compare zones in wow to zones in tor as much as you like, but don't use the lack of swimming in tor as a downside. Theres something about the view/control scheme in these types of games that does not lend itself to actual open 3d movement. Underwater combat was excessively painful in wow. Guess which zone in cataclysm was the least quested in? Lack of swimming is A Good Thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wotts Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 It's even better when there are mobs in the middle of the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noth Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 It's also realistic (at least in the Star Wars universe) for a lightsaber to slice a person apart with a single hit. They didn't go that route because it would be a stupid design choice. There is a disconnect between realism and good gameplay. Sure having a few streets in a city makes a bit of sense, but it is an utterly horrendous design choice and a chore for the player. Nice straw man. Game balance and world design are fundamentally different. You expect a metropolis to have sprawling fields? Have you ever been to a big city? They are corridors. Heck coruscant looks and feels like all the pictures and video of it in the movies. Nar Shaadaa feels the same way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CommieKras Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Nice straw man. Game balance and world design are fundamentally different. You expect a metropolis to have sprawling fields? Have you ever been to a big city? They are corridors. Heck coruscant looks and feels like all the pictures and video of it in the movies. Nar Shaadaa feels the same way. What I'm saying is that it makes sense but what makes sense isn't always what is best. That's what I was trying to get at with my lightsaber analogy. I'd rather have dozens and dozens of alleys, buildings you can cut through, stairs, flying speeders, etc. if you want to keep that "city feel." But just going down one street flanked by tall buildings just makes me feel like a lab rat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fentz Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Hoth is about the size of 3 - 4 wow zones voss is about the size of 3 - 4 wow zones there are more planets in game are about the size of about 2 + wow zones ... Voss isn't 1 zone, you gotta fly betweene verytihng so there's 3 or is there 4 zones in voss? Hoth, yes, that's pretty much 1 big zone tatooine is 2 zones (atleast for empire) narshadda is 4/5 zones, you can't just say that a whole planet is as a zone when it's chopped up and you HAVE to use flight paths to get between them also, yes, maybe Hoth is bigger than WoW zones but WoW zones still has WAY WAY more content in them, like seriously, Hoth is like elwynn forest, content wise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noth Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 What I'm saying is that it makes sense but what makes sense isn't always what is best. That's what I was trying to get at with my lightsaber analogy. I'd rather have dozens and dozens of alleys, buildings you can cut through, stairs, flying speeders, etc. if you want to keep that "city feel." But just going down one street flanked by tall buildings just makes me feel like a lab rat. Then you need to keep realistic expectations. What you describe would take massive amount of time to design and even more time to debug. there seems to be a huge problem of people having unrealistic expectations for games these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jswizzle Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Here is the thing about the differences from my perspective. An open ended environment isn't always good. Too much empty space. From a design perspective it's just too easy. It's been done before. Different level designers did different planets. Each could have a completely different style Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trigg Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 You can't look at places like corucent and na shaddaa and call the whole game linear. How about going to maybe tatooine and alderaan? Maybe then you'll see why it's completely the opposite. Those two planets are the first (at least empire side) that show you how uterly massive SWtor world is. hell, even dromund kaas is pretty open, i'd say for a retty small planet zone it's about the size of 2 possibly 3 wow zones. Alderaan and tatooine i'd say equal the size of 5-6 wow zones and i've only been through half the planets yet. Please don't take digs at a game you havn't fully explored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitharen Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Seriously why do they all have the same boring ecosystems - either sand, rock or grass and oak trees... who plays a space MMO to see oak trees!? That's what I expect from a Star Wars MMO. I want to run through the woods and raid some ancient ruins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elexier Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I have to disagree here with the so called narrowness of the game. Yes the game has a SET path for each class, and each area has a limit on how far you can go, You would all soon moan if the game requierd 16GB of ram to run and a 100+GB hard drive because they put the WHOLE planet in without limitations. And alot of you are forgetting that when WoW first came out the limitations were HUGE, (people getting banned/warnings for going Iron forge air port for example) All wow dungeons were one way rabbit warrens. I have played WoW/WAR/and STO and this, and this has had the most solid launch going without a doubt. Most bugs are minor and do not break the game, yes there might be a few balancing issues, Heck Blizzard still has not got balance anywhere near close after what 7 YEARS, you want a balanced PvP game, play sommin like MW3, Its balanced because everyone can have the same stuff. I reckon that this game's FIRST content patch will put the game upto what it SHOULD have been at release content wise. (Curse EA fatwigs for rushing Bioware) Besides its STORY DRIVEN, you want them to make 30-40 different outcomes for each story for each class, Just so you can run around a WHOLE planet. As for variety of planets what did we see in star wars movies. Jungle Snow City battle station space Ship interior (millenium falcon) space more snow space another battle station space a jungle with a swamp in it space another city And you guessed it MORE SPACE Yup LOTS of variation there. WoW had about as much variety as KFC does on there meat. Jungle Forest Desert Wasteland TBC Desert just colored red (Hellfire) Jungle/forest with brighter colors (terracar i think it was called) Another wasteland just added bones Area 51 zone was just a desert different color with different atmosphere effects. WRATH Snow more snow snow and a bit of ice AND MORE SNOW. Cata was pretty much the same, but I must admit Vash was nice. You have alot more choice in this game than any other mmo I have ever played aside from the main story arc. Do you help this person, do you get more money from them, do you kill this person ect ect. No other MMO has this sort of options, How many times in wow have you wanted to tell an NPC to GET STUFFED on a quest because the guy x wants you to speak to is RIGHT NEXT TO HIM. Well now you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embrosil Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 and get to voss / hoth and the other high lvl planets And what will he see? Oh wait, the same corridor leading to mission objectives and a vast empty space full of static standing mobs between. Yes, what an improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embrosil Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 So you're saying Tat, Hoth, Balmorra, Quesh, etc are all worse than Nar Shaddaa? Um, ok. No, they are the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scilent Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Stephejohnp has spoken. All controversy can now be ended. The verdict is that the gameworld is NOT like a corridor! /sarcasm The game is very linear, part of the reason why I cancelled. You want an amusement park, play swtor. What a sandbox, play EVE online. After a little while, with not much direction at all, EVE bored me. It's too open..... maybe I'm not too imaginative. In swtor, at least I get pointed in the direction of doing something new. As for the types of worlds... if swtor is based off the movies, etc, then I think they're doing well. There'll be time to explore new more "imaginative" environments in the expansions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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