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Swtor's Secret Space Project Speculation


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Before I actually played the game, I would have been hoping that that little hint meant they were essentially going to port JtL over from SWG and use TOR graphics, because I was a huge fan of the X-Wing and TIE games as a kid. However, after actually giving the space gameplay a go myself, I hope they don't, because putting aside the on-rails aspect, it's reminded me heavily of another space game I really enjoyed; Freelancer.

 

If Bioware could give me an online Star Wars version of Freelancer, I would be subbed to this game until the servers die.

 

I loved Freelancer too. I don't know how they could tie something like that into the planet based part of the game, but if they did it would be gold.

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My guess is multiplayer Space combat but still restricted with rails. Each player has to complete certain 'goals' so that the overall mission succeeds. It could be one player has to nuke a certain target while his teammates protect his ***. You could have multiple players on different 'Rails' around a big base trying to kill it. Things like that.

 

That's not what I want to see, but its what I think we will see.

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Hey Forum,

 

Firstly let me direct your attention to this link.

 

http://www.swtor.com/blog/what%E2%80%99s-next-old-republic

 

"We also have a special project going on right now that will expand space gameplay in a significant way..."

 

What do you guys think this 'Special Project' will turn out to be?...personally i think it might be some sort of pvp based OFF RAILS space combat.

 

Please understand that this thread is for pure speculation and nothing here will be confirmed unless posted by a developer.

 

Let the speculation begin...

 

Personally, I'd rather not decide what I *want* something to be and then somehow turn that into deciding what I *think* it should be. What we desire, and what is likely, are rarely the same thing... in all aspects of life.

 

I strongly doubt they've got an off-rails shooter engine just sitting around, ready to drop in on a moment's notice. It's much more likely they've got something like greater ship customization (visual changes to weapon/armor/color), as this IS something which was mentioned in some early interviews and presentations, and thus, is likely to be a partially-complete system they can get to a ready state in the near future.

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The natural pessimist in me assumes it will all be cosmetic; skins, logo's, maybe ability to change the internals slightly.

 

I can't see Bioware EVER investing the neccessary dev time to make any kind of unconstrained spaceflight available.

 

Most of it will be swallowed up by new FP's, Operations, quest hubs, cut scenes and eventually level cap raises, new planets, PvP rebalancing, full expansions.

 

Shame really, as by its very core Star Wars is about Epic space opera.

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I loved Freelancer too. I don't know how they could tie something like that into the planet based part of the game, but if they did it would be gold.

 

Well they don't really have too.

 

The current ones are only in the loosest sense (in fact it might be level based?).

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In terms of a space combat related PVP gamemode, i think they should just rip Battlefront 2's space combat RIGHT out and plonk it into a PVP match.

 

  • Start off on faction ship (Either Republic or Empire obviously) and get in a ship and start dogfighting in OFF RAILS combat.
  • Head toward enemy ship and land in docking bay, jumping out and heading to the ship's defences (Shields etc)
  • After depleting enemy shields you work with your team to sabotage the hyperspace engine.
  • After the objective above has been completed you can place charges on the main engine and blow the ship sky high.

 

Bare in mind that this kind of gamemode would need around 30-40 player PVP game.

 

This would be so epic if they ever put this in as a Warzone or something.

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IMO one of the biggest factors that kept SWG alive for so long was JTL. If they were to add some thing like it to ToR it would give ppl a whole other "end game". "Twiched" based as it was in SWG they would include the space sim and fps market to ToR. If Bio was able to get the figures from LA/Sony on how many ppl were in space as opposed to the ground game the last two- three years of SWG you can bet we will see it in Tor.
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IMO one of the biggest factors that kept SWG alive for so long was JTL. If they were to add some thing like it to ToR it would give ppl a whole other "end game". "Twiched" based as it was in SWG they would include the space sim and fps market to ToR. If Bio was able to get the figures from LA/Sony on how many ppl were in space as opposed to the ground game the last two- three years of SWG you can bet we will see it in Tor.

 

Yeah, I admit JtLS was what retained me in SWG for the most of my playtime.

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Multiplayer starship battles !

 

Best idea about space combat if you ask me...

 

Is this what you genuinely believe they're working on, or just what you WISH they were working on?

 

"Speculation" means "drawing a conclusion based on insufficient data". It doesn't mean "Making **** up out of nothing".

 

"Insufficient data" doesn't mean "No data".

 

Can anyone point me to anything that indicates there's any kind of off-rails engine just lying around at Bioware, waiting to be trivially plugged into SWTOR in the next 6 months? The "rails shooter" aspect of gameplay has been public knowledge for over a year; it wasn't a last-minute patch on an almost-ready off-rails engine, it's been the stated design for a long time now.

 

Thus, expecting it to magically go away -- and getting your hopes up by being unable to distinguish between your desires and what's actually likely to occur -- will just make you bitter and angry, and, somehow, in your minds, you'll decide, based on nothing, that Bioware "promised" you the game feature you made up, and that they "lied" because you didn't get it.

 

As I, and others, have said -- we're more likely to see customization of our ships, or more ship types, or other variants/expansions on the rails shooter, than any kind of off-rails/free flight system, at least in the short (<6 months) term.

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i had a ideal about space combat. using your ships where you can have up to 4 players controlling one ship. A pilot, one player for each canon and a nav/shields operator

the shield operator is like the healer rerouting power from forward shields / rear shields, engines, canons inc

 

and thank of PvP 8 vs 8 ships or more

Edited by xXcronicXx
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i had a ideal about space combat. using your ships where you can have up to 4 players controlling one ship. A pilot, one player for each canon and a nav/shields operator

the shield operator is like...

 

Thats exactly how multi player ships in SWG were.

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A Pvp star wars battlefront type game mode would be the best bet. Basically it would be like queing for hutball or a warzone. I'm going to guess we won't be using our own ships. Something like 8 vs 8 republic in x wings and empire in tie fighters or whatever ships were used in the swtor time frame.
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They should add the Space Combat and Exploration like they did with Star Wars Galaxies, you can't tell me a Game that old that had it can't be put into this Game. If that's the case i would advice BioWare to stop making Multiplayer Games. Because People like myself that loves SWG where really offended by the garbage SpaceComabt you have given to us in this Game that feels nothing more then a 5$ App Game for my iPhone or iPad2.

 

I miss free flying like we did in SWG. For all the ones that put down SWG they had space flight, crafting and housing/towns/bases, and big open flowing planets you wanted to explore and could. Missing my SWG soooo much! Was a subscriber up to the end and would play it hands down over this linear game if it were still going.

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more likely that they are referring to guild capital ships.

 

as they have said in the past that it was something that they would like to do.

 

 

I really want them, but atm there wouldn't be much to do with them, except maybe have a guild vault.

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"Speculation" means "drawing a conclusion based on insufficient data". It doesn't mean "Making **** up out of nothing".

 

"Insufficient data" doesn't mean "No data".

 

Can anyone point me to anything that indicates there's any kind of off-rails engine just lying around at Bioware, waiting to be trivially plugged into SWTOR in the next 6 months?

 

I didn't take the off-rail speculation out of my bottom, if you cared to read page 2.

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Is this what you genuinely believe they're working on, or just what you WISH they were working on?

 

"Speculation" means "drawing a conclusion based on insufficient data". It doesn't mean "Making **** up out of nothing".

 

"Insufficient data" doesn't mean "No data".

 

Can anyone point me to anything that indicates there's any kind of off-rails engine just lying around at Bioware, waiting to be trivially plugged into SWTOR in the next 6 months? The "rails shooter" aspect of gameplay has been public knowledge for over a year; it wasn't a last-minute patch on an almost-ready off-rails engine, it's been the stated design for a long time now.

 

Thus, expecting it to magically go away -- and getting your hopes up by being unable to distinguish between your desires and what's actually likely to occur -- will just make you bitter and angry, and, somehow, in your minds, you'll decide, based on nothing, that Bioware "promised" you the game feature you made up, and that they "lied" because you didn't get it.

 

As I, and others, have said -- we're more likely to see customization of our ships, or more ship types, or other variants/expansions on the rails shooter, than any kind of off-rails/free flight system, at least in the short (<6 months) term.

 

I hope you're not implying Bioware would actually develop their own engine lol. Unreal Engine would work great, seen some very impressive free flight mods / TCs on it

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I really loved SWG's Jump To Lightspeed. That way would probably work here too.

 

Space was so much fun, people played it for the fun of it. Collecting different spaceships was fun, designing the interior was fun, PVP was mega fun, and the whole space game was outside the normal leveling. (space xp did not make you level up)

 

On another note, some missions on the ground required you to go into space! That was also great.

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I didn't take the off-rail speculation out of my bottom, if you cared to read page 2.

 

"There's an escape pod, and I don't know what it's for, so.... off rails space battles! Wheeee!"

 

Yes. Your argument convinced me. It's a clear and logical extrapolation from the evidence.

 

You might want to look up the "god of the gaps" argument, often used, inadvertently, by theists who think they're being clever. It boils down to: "No one knows why X happened; therefore, God did it!". It shows up in many forms:"This flying object is unidentified; therefore, aliens!", etc. It's a common problem with humans who cannot abide "It's unknown"; given any phenomenon which can't be instantly explained, they are much more comfortable with an answer they've made up than with accepting a state of temporary, or sometimes permanent, ignorance.

 

In your cases, you're saying "I don't know why there's an escape pod, therefore, it MUST be for what I want it to be!", rejecting all other explanations.

 

This is not a convincing line of debate. Try again.

 

(For one thing, it's hard to imagine that there'd be a space battle interface that required you to run from the pilot's seat to the escape pod before... uh.... what, exactly? You won't die when your ship explodes whether you have an escape pod or not. If the only thing to do when your ship is destroyed is run to the escape pod, why not just make it auto-launch? As others noted, the door is there in case you get stuck on a friend's ship.)

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I miss free flying like we did in SWG. For all the ones that put down SWG they had space flight, crafting and housing/towns/bases, and big open flowing planets you wanted to explore and could. Missing my SWG soooo much! Was a subscriber up to the end and would play it hands down over this linear game if it were still going.

 

It's worth noting that space battles, player cities, mounts, and vehicles were all added to SWG post-release. Thus, comparing SWTOR now to what SWG was after years of development is a mite unfair, don't you think?

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I hope you're not implying Bioware would actually develop their own engine lol. Unreal Engine would work great, seen some very impressive free flight mods / TCs on it

 

Irrelevant whether they buy the engine or not; you don't just write a line of code that says #include SpaceflightEngine. If they had a nearly-good implementation of an off-rails engine, we'd have been hearing about their free-form flight system for a long time, with a late announcement of a "rails" game "just for release". Instead, all we've heard about spaceflight is rails, with no hints of an off-rails engine, so it's unlikely (but not impossible -- few things are impossible) there's any short-term hope of a non-rails engine coming.

 

Look at other games: The tendency is to promise many features early, then strip them for launch. This tells us "Those features were partially developed but couldn't be finished in time, and might come soon." If a feature, especially a major one, isn't mentioned AT ALL prior to launch, it's very foolish to expect that it's just sitting there good to go once they get a programmer to dust it off. If so, it speaks of total failure on BioWare's marketing.

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