A Response to James Ohlen

[Asuka]

Uh, because any MMO should have those features at a minimum. Then you can innovate.

 

Bioware did neither.

 

There's nothing that can't wait and be added in later after far more important things are taken care of..

[Klondeikbar]

1. It's not an assumption, there were posts about this earlier today in General Discussion.

2. Sorry, the game works fine without these. Wants don't equate to needs.

3. Sorry, the game works fine without these. Wants don't equate to needs.

4. Sorry, the game works fine without these. Wants don't equate to needs.

5. Too slow. Type faster. They've already addressed this and are looking into it.

6. It does everything I need it to do. Maybe you're using it wrong?

7. But it works, and people are grouping often. Argument fails.

8. Never tried to run away from one of my targets, sorry, but good luck with your strategery. And machinima producers can cope in other ways, for instance, with creativity and an imagination.

 

I had to stop reading this thread to call you out. You will NEVER perform well in any endgame content and that is obvious. If you remain with this game, you're destined to a career of being carried or just flat out dropped from groups.

[Titus_Infernus]

Manufacturing a car without a transmission isn't innovative, it's stupid. Bioware made a car that doesn't have a transmission. If they had developed an innovative engine that was able to operate at different speeds efficiently, THAT would have been innovative. They did not.

[GalacticKegger]

Here you go on what needs changing to make this an MMO worth really sticking around for:

 

• Community
  
• More People - Stop the Sharding/Instancing
  
• Pets
  
• Animal Mounts
  
• Scalable UI
  
• Chat Bubbles
  
• Less Gated Gameplay
  
• True Open Worlds
  
• More mystical mysterious Gameplay. You know, like Star Wars
  
• Movable UI
  
• Player Housing - Non-Instanced - No there would not be a blight if they just added rent with limits on how much you could pre-pay
  
• More in-depth Meaningful Crafting
  
• More in-depth Meaningful Harvesting
  
• Remove the mountain Walls, regular walls. Stop making me run 5 miles in one direction to get to an obkective that is just on the other side of another wall
  
• More Immersion
  
• More Planets with no Level Range. All levels are there, low and high. Be Careful.
  
• Broker that works
  
• Guild Halls - Non-Instanced
  
• No Mobs on every single node and every single path. It's ridiculous.
  
• No Combat Delay
  
• Better Textures.
  
• Food
  
• Armor that has a base stat so that it is actually worth something more than appearance
  
• Open World PvP with actual rewards so that everyone isn't always in WZ's on PvP Servers.
  

So being spoon fed every single favorite feature from every game everyone's ever played right out of the gate is a realistic expectation? What's the weather like on your planet? Edited January 18, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[EternalFinality]

There's nothing that can't wait and be added in later after far more important things are taken care of..

 

Other MMOs that also had important things to be taken care of had these features at launch.

 

Bioware appears not to be waiting to implement them, but actively ignoring them. Like a functional combat log. Seriously, that's MMO 101 stuff right there.

[Kubernetic]

I had to stop reading this thread to call you out. You will NEVER perform well in any endgame content and that is obvious. If you remain with this game, you're destined to a career of being carried or just flat out dropped from groups.

 

This had me laughing for a few minutes. You must be so proud of yourself.

 

I do just fine in groups, and I don't need extra tools to help me keep my companions alive, or to kill the boss that's in front of me.

 

Anyone can learn to play the game (even endgame content) as well as or better than you do, kid. Don't sweat it so much.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Kubernetic

[Waypoc]

So being spoon fed every single favorite feature from every game everyone's ever played right out of the gate is a realistic expectation? What's the weather like on your planet?

 

Sunny all the time always!!

 

 

lol

Edited January 18, 2012 by Waypoc

[GalacticKegger]

sunny all the time always!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohohtehuypm

 

lol

lmao!

[Skorz]

No, this game isn't innovative because it used features older than those old features.

 

Good post OP. Nothing like paying for a product that went backwards in time.

 

Some people like it old school

[Madcatyoji]

Labelling Star Wars: The Old Republic competent but not innovative is "unfair", BioWare told Eurogamer - the MMO does more than today's FPS and action games to push its respective genre forward.

 

"It's been a little bit of an unfair characterisation," SWTOR game director James Ohlen remarked to Eurogamer. "Because if you look at other game genres, if you look at a Battlefield or a Call of Duty or a Gears of War or even a Half-Life - those games use the same tried and true interface and the same tried and true game mechanics of the first-person shooter genre that's been around for 20 years.

 

"If you look at real-time strategy games, they kept the same tried and true interface and the same tried and true mechanics that existed for 20 years. Same with adventure games, same with platformers, same with fighting games, sports games.

 

"I don't know why the MMORPG genre is not considered to be a genre," Ohlen shrugged. "It could be that World of Warcraft has dominated for so long that people just think of it as just a single game genre.

 

"But it is a genre, and we wanted to appeal to fans of that genre - we don't want to turn them away by making something that's radically different. And we wanted to take the lessons that have been developed in that genre over years and years and years and basically refine them, much like other companies do with other genres.

 

Let's start by putting that first snippet in context. Above are the parts of the article you conveniently didn't post. The part where he compares other genre's besides just FPS's. Looking at the title of your post and the title of the article it makes me think you just skimmed it for the points you needed to validate half baked idea's. Next time, please don't post things out of context, I'm not sure half the people on these forums are intelligent enough to click a link and read the whole thing for themselves.

[CharagonIGN]

Let's start by putting that first snippet in context. Above are the parts of the article you conveniently didn't post. The part where he compares other genre's besides just FPS's. Looking at the title of your post and the title of the article it makes me think you just skimmed it for the points you needed to validate half baked idea's. Next time, please don't post things out of context, I'm not sure half the people on these forums are intelligent enough to click a link and read the whole thing for themselves.

Yes... that's why I provided the link and put it at the very top of the post. It is literally the first thing you see in this thread. That wasn't an accident.

 

 

I could have responded to more (and did initially) but the post was getting rather long winded so I edited it down to basic point.

[EternalFinality]

Let's start by putting that first snippet in context. Above are the parts of the article you conveniently didn't post. The part where he compares other genre's besides just FPS's. Looking at the title of your post and the title of the article it makes me think you just skimmed it for the points you needed to validate half baked idea's. Next time, please don't post things out of context, I'm not sure half the people on these forums are intelligent enough to click a link and read the whole thing for themselves.

 

Yeah...the point is that even though they copied WoW they couldn't even include all the basic features WoW has.

 

Combat log

Macros

Mods

Responsive Combat

Server forums

Etc

 

Instead of innovating, they tried to copy WoW and couldn't even do that right.

Edited January 18, 2012 by EternalFinality

[Mashien]

Fanboys: Its fine

 

Customers: You did great things with questing but failed miserably in so many other aspects. Why couldn't you have learned from the other 10 MMO's over the past 10 years

 

Me: I enjoyed levelling but have found combat to be clunky and PvP to be unbalanced. I think the UI is buggy and ugly. I think if they were really trying to appeal to the casuals then a LFG tool would have been included.

 

I think making arguements like "how many other games have been released unpolished" is a way of saying "yeah they messed up, but hey so did all these other guys" its not an excuse.

 

One thing I don't get is the fanboys objecting so strongly to what the people asking for improvements are saying.

 

I saw in here somewhere someone talking about macros and addons being a crutch? If you don't need them don't use them? but the vast majority of the community understands that with addons comes a whole development team working for free on the game you play to make it better... yeah thats terrible...

 

Lastly....Really? you didnt even get the Graphics working properly before release.... Really?

 

I will keep playing as I do have hopes of improvements however I think its laughable to say it can not be improved on. It still needs to meet the WoW bar. Yes the WoW bar. I am afraid if you are going to release an MMO for the next 10 years WoW is your baseline. SWTOR is lucky as it has the Star Wars franchise holding it together, people will be loyal to that.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Mashien

[CharagonIGN]

So now we have to guess whether or not our abilities are off cooldown.

 

 

Really, BioWare?

[Crohadan]

This is as much an MMO as any other on the market. Either you are an MMO, or you are not. The fact I have 500+ members in my guild tell me it's an MMO.

 

 

does that makeshogun 2 an mmo? no

[darthdoll]

That's because they do feel entitled. They've gotten used to being the "big boys" and have allowed themselves to slack simply because "We're Bioware, they'll buy it no matter what!".

 

Another company with that attitude recently got a huge attitude adjustment from their customers. Square-Enix.

 

Do you even think about what you say before you say it?

[monjiay]

"We're very happy in the review scores; we've been getting basically 90s and 80s - the lowest score we have is an 80, on average we have a 90."

 

This guy is not very good with math. If the game is getting 80's and 90's, the average is not 90.

 

I'm really beginning to wonder about this character. Is he for real? He seems more like a con artist than a developer.

Edited January 19, 2012 by monjiay

[darthdoll]

does that makeshogun 2 an mmo? no

 

Lets see.

 

Does it have quests? Nope.

 

Auction House? Nope.

 

Raids? nope.

 

Flashpoints? Nope.

 

So no.

[darthdoll]

"We're very happy in the review scores; we've been getting basically 90s and 80s - the lowest score we have is an 80, on average we have a 90."

 

This guy is not very good with math. If the game is getting 80's and 90's, the average is not 90.

 

I'm really beginning to wonder about this character. Is he for real? He seems more like a con artist than a developer.

 

>.<???

[thasaint]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-01-12-bioware-swtor-post-mortem-its-more-innovative-than-an-fps

 

This interview is kind of astounding in how much the game director doesn't seem to "get it".

 

 

Okay, first of all... I'm not looking at other genres. I'm not looking at Battlefield or Call of Duty or Gears of War. Why would you even go there? Furthermore, saying you're more innovative than "Call of Duty: 2011 Update" isn't exactly setting a high standard. I've made rice krispy treats more innovative than the Call of Duty franchise.

 

Secondly... innovation is great, but not when it comes at the expense of the basics.

 

Yes, you've done some spectacular things for making an engaging leveling experience that appeals to a wide range of playstyles all while telling a very cinematic story.

 

But you don't have a combat log. You don't have a customizable UI. You don't have macros. You don't have add-on support. Your animation/GCD priority is backwards. Your auction house is a mess. Finding a group hasn't been this difficult since 2007. And you can't even keep your camera from auto-moving to your back.

 

 

Which "years and years and years" are you talking about because you seem to have missed most of the lessons on UI design.

 

When do we get this? Or are we operating on different definitions of "classic"?

 

That IS what you did. I sure as heck have never played an MMO without a combat log.

 

 

 

 

I just don't understand it. The bulk of the negative feedback I've seen both here and IRL has been that the game isn't enough like WoW, not that it's not different enough.

 

If you want to be recognized for "raising the bar," I suggest you first meet it.

 

Aircraft Designer: "Well gee boss, I mean cars haven't really changed in the past 60 years, 4 wheels, combustion engine..."

[Folgrin]

No, this game isn't innovative because it used features older than those old features.

 

Good post OP. Nothing like paying for a product that went backwards in time.

 

Well Im starting to loose faith I gotta say.

[monjiay]

>.<???

 

It's math. I don't have time to teach it to you tonight, you should be learning it next year.

[Hexasoul]

That's because they do feel entitled. They've gotten used to being the "big boys" and have allowed themselves to slack simply because "We're Bioware, they'll buy it no matter what!".

 

Another company with that attitude recently got a huge attitude adjustment from their customers. Square-Enix.

 

The sad part about that game was it had so much potential, the graphics and music were amazing, the class system was awesome. Play all combat and crafting classes on the same character by switching weapons/tools? YES. The problem was Tanaka, and then Yoshi, never listened to beta testers or customers. They went off on their tangents thinking players would worship the ground they walked on. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Then they decide to change all the mechanics in the game within a short time leaving players dazed and confused while announcing sub charges in the middle of the mess.

 

Yet I can see the same arrogance present in the suits overseeing SWTOR. Classic case of those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it's mistakes.

[gangbot]

I dont get where the innovation is? MMO's like this are all the same and have beent he same for years. If you think adding the good/bad choices and chat choices in the cut-scenes into a MMORPG is innotative then good on you.

[Azerack]

Quote:

"But it is a genre, and we wanted to appeal to fans of that genre - we don't want to turn them away by making something that's radically different. And we wanted to take the lessons that have been developed in that genre over years and years and years and basically refine them, much like other companies do with other genres.

 

Which "years and years and years" are you talking about because you seem to have missed most of the lessons on UI design.

 

Quote:

"The expectations on what the game was going to be for a lot of people was kind of different to what we were building. We were building essentially a classic MMO with BioWare storytelling set in the Star Wars universe.

 

When do we get this? Or are we operating on different definitions of "classic"?

 

The first quote you mention is exactly what I have been wondering since I started Beta...

However, it isn't just UI design, it's that Ohlen talks about the entire genre and forget about WoW (I know I do...), but how about all the other games that there are no distinguishable "nods" to? So much of this I heard in the original interviews before I even got into Beta and I just keep wondering what, exactly, did they try to refine, let alone make any better?

 

Sorry, porting a Single-player BW game into an MMO doesn't "refine" the MMO genre, in my book.

 

The second quote, well, if you compare that to what I was complaining about for the first quote well they definitely succeeded... This game is NOTHING like ANY idea of Star Wars I had, let alone a "refined" look at "years and years and years" of the genre...

 

Am I still playing? Of course...

Do I think there was a lot of BS talk to try and sell it? You bet...

Am I going to continue to play? Yeah, I still like the game...

Would I prefer BW stop touting themselves as innovative and refining until they make actual acknowledgements to the "good" parts of other MMO's? YES!

 

And I realize that now more than 50%, maybe? of the SWTOR community comes from WoW, but is that same group ONLY familiar with WoW?...

Then again, even in beta people were referring to SWTOR as WoW in Space, so... Maybe when I stop seeing obvious comparisons to it I might be happier, as well.