A Response to James Ohlen

[Lordlok]

That last sentence is just a !@#$ing lie. This game in no way represents "years and years" of lessons that have been developed in the genre, unless those years were 1995 to 2000, which is when this game may have been acceptable.

 

amen

 

but golly, if we wait just 2 MORE MONTHS.. we get the legacy system.. which is their way of encouraging us to play alts because they have no new content to provide.

 

I'm just giddy with anticipation.

[StonedAssassin]

swtor, a single player rpg game with multi player elements such as coop and a 8v8 arena. Please keep paying a monthly sub for our single player rpg, thanks!

[Asquinol]

Ok, I only read about half of the pages but from what i can see there sure are a lot of folks that seem to think they could make a better game.

 

Please, go get a job at a game studio, or open one up and make a game. Make sure you let us know who you are so when we come to your forums we can all laugh at you and your fail.

 

Seriously people. Stop whining about the way BW is making this game. Don't like it? don't play.

 

If you think you have better ideas and can make a better game, then... do it. Stop 'telling' everyone how smart you are and prove it.

 

Put your money where your mouth is.

[Crohadan]

Ok, I only read about half of the pages but from what i can see there sure are a lot of folks that seem to think they could make a better game.

 

Please, go get a job at a game studio, or open one up and make a game. Make sure you let us know who you are so when we come to your forums we can all laugh at you and your fail.

 

Seriously people. Stop whining about the way BW is making this game. Don't like it? don't play.

 

If you think you have better ideas and can make a better game, then... do it. Stop 'telling' everyone how smart you are and prove it.

 

Put your money where your mouth is.

 

because getting a job at a place like bw where you are programming modules and structure for ANY game is just stupid easy.

 

bw is a big boy, JO is a big boy, GZ is a big boy. they can all handle the criticisms of the game by the community. however it seems that the people who cant handle the criticism are right here in these forums.

[CharagonIGN]

Ok, I only read about half of the pages but from what i can see there sure are a lot of folks that seem to think they could make a better game.

 

Please, go get a job at a game studio, or open one up and make a game. Make sure you let us know who you are so when we come to your forums we can all laugh at you and your fail.

 

Seriously people. Stop whining about the way BW is making this game. Don't like it? don't play.

 

If you think you have better ideas and can make a better game, then... do it. Stop 'telling' everyone how smart you are and prove it.

 

Put your money where your mouth is.

 

I don't think I can make a better game... but do you know who does?

 

 

And we wanted to take the lessons that have been developed in that genre over years and years and years and basically refine them

This guy, right here. He thinks he can make a better game.

 

 

He hasn't.

Edited January 20, 2012 by CharagonIGN

[Tiam]

This guy should just take out the "creative" word out of his title. He's just a typical clueless project manager.

 

I agree, what a joke and he seems so arrogant.

[marine_turtle]

What really worries me and the rest of the community is this stupid TORtanic stuff that losers keep on saying.

 

I have researched this with the comunity and we feel it has to stop. OP has been reported.

[ZlupZlup]

Personally I'd like to know where the $300 million was spent, because I sure ain't seeing it.

 

Office booze and all them game testing things they did all over the world, hotel bills, car hire, flying, eating total $299.80 actual game money spent $0.20 lol.

[StonedAssassin]

What really worries me and the rest of the community is this stupid TORtanic stuff that losers keep on saying.

 

I have researched this with the comunity and we feel it has to stop. OP has been reported.

 

We the hive-mind of fan boys, we are legion.

[Phenyr]

Ok, I only read about half of the pages but from what i can see there sure are a lot of folks that seem to think they could make a better game.

 

Please, go get a job at a game studio, or open one up and make a game. Make sure you let us know who you are so when we come to your forums we can all laugh at you and your fail.

 

Seriously people. Stop whining about the way BW is making this game. Don't like it? don't play.

 

If you think you have better ideas and can make a better game, then... do it. Stop 'telling' everyone how smart you are and prove it.

 

Put your money where your mouth is.

 

Most of the people they coming from other mmo's which already have implemented these mmo 'basic' features and they expect to see them in each mmo they migrate. The game that does not have those at the moment they play is simply fail mmo, no matter if in the future those are gonna be as well implemented.

 

Dont bother to reason there is no reason.

 

I can agree with idea 'My money so I choose where to spend them' but main issue with this is that every one is pulling the game in thousands direction...is like 100 peeps are pulling one thinking their demands are more important than others, not going to work that way.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Phenyr

[Sylune]

Allow me to TL;DR this thread:

 

To be worth the time of most of these posters, all brand new MMORPGs must have all the features at launch that a mature, highly-iterated upon MMORPG has after nearly a decade of live game enhancements. Additionally, if those features are not as polished and as robust as the mature game's feature, then the new game is terrible.

 

The sense of entitlement is thick with these people.

 

This thread is dumb. If you like the game, play. If you don't, leave. If you're a mouthbreathing fatbeard who must win irrelevant arguments on the internet, post.

 

Actually, whether you liked the game or not, Rift had almost all the features people are asking for here right out of the gate, and it had an incredibly smooth launch. Plus in one year they have added more content than most mmo's expansions. I didn't love the stories in Rift but the game was done well and for less money and time.

 

If a small company on a limited budget can get it basically right, why couldn't EA Bioware?

[Dezzi]

If a small company on a limited budget can get it basically right, why couldn't EA Bioware?

 

Precisely because BioWare is a large company with a large budget.

[Tiam]

Or you dont watch or read the update. We are getting all of this very soon.

 

The stuff we are getting soon, is the same stuff 9 months ago people were complaining about that needed to be in the game for release in beta testing.

BW trying to pretend that NOW they're listening to players is laughable, they knew players would want this in a 2011-2012 released game because we told them we would in general beta.

[DarthKhaos]

Most of the people they coming from other mmo's which already have implemented these mmo 'basic' features and they expect to see them in each mmo they migrate. The game that does not have those at the moment they play is simply fail mmo, no matter if in the future those are gonna be as well implemented.

 

Dont bother to reason there is no reason.

 

I can agree with idea 'My money so I choose where to spend them' but main issue with this is that every one is pulling the game in thousands direction...is like 100 peeps are pulling one thinking their demands are more important than others, not going to work that way.

Ahhh but what IS basic features? The answer varies and where one person would say X another would say X is not a basic feature. The problem is people want it all yet do not wish to wait for it. Did we see mass pre-order cancellation after beta? Nope. They prefer to buy the game and complain and try their best to make the game seem way worse than it really is.

 

I'm in no way, shape or form saying the game is the holy grail but its fun in my OPINION. I interact with other players daily, I like my alts, I like huttball, I like the voice acting, and my list continues. I am willing to offer CONSTRUCTIVE feedback and suggestions and give them time to see the best way to implement it. I actually had an in game chat with a GM and we touched on some of this stuff and he suggested I mail the support staff with my thoughts cause he liked them.

 

I don't expect anything to happen by tomorrow or even next month. If it does cool but coding takes time, testing takes time and some mistakes will be made along the way because we're human.

 

On a side note. The reason why I think EA/ BioWare is so tight lipped about stuff is because game communities like to pick apart everything a spokes person says and act like it's the word of God. I'd be reluctant to tell you stuff also if I was them.

[Bregah]

Look, while I'm far from defending the many faults this game launch had, the big one being that IT WASN'T FINISHED, I actually believe that it's innovative.

 

The game handles group questing flawlessly. They really figured out how to meld single player RPG story with an MMO world. The game engine itself might be a poorly optimized terror, but the phasing and grouping technology is superb.

 

They have set the bar for phased storytelling in a permanent MMO world. They pushed the envelope, and that's innovation.

 

It may handle group questing flawlessly (which it does), but it sure as hell makes forming a group a royal PITA.

 

For everything that TOR has improved on, there's 3 or 4 things that have taken major steps backwards compared to other MMOs, and I think that's the heart of most people's complaints.

 

To take group questing as an example - it IS smooth as hell doing group quests in a group, with group cutscenes. But the LFG tool is subpar in comparision to EQ 2's LFG tool when that game launched (in late 2004), not to mention the myriad of improvements in all MMOs since then (and yes, I DO consider the LFD tool in WoW and Rift an improvement to things - the amount of ******s I encountered in hundreds and hundreds of queues was less than 20, easily - and "community" should not = spamming /general LF1M heals (or tank) for x dungeon).

 

So, while group questing is improved in TOR vs other games, grouping as a whole is quite a bit worse than those same games.

 

Or take PvP - the addition of Huttball (a same-faction warzone) is great - as it allows instanced PvP even with faction imbalances. But the copy of a pvp stat (expertise is resilience) showed no innovation at all, and the complete RNG aspect of getting PvP gear is amazingly outdated (and I really don't want to go into Ilum both pre and post 1.1). Add in that the engine apparantly has major issues for many people in PvP (or the zone designs cause whatever FPS drop so many have), and PvP, as a whole, is worse than other games, even though it does have a big improvement.

 

So many things like that in this game, and then you read Ohlen's quotes, and I wonder how much of what he says he actually believes.

[Rhinoplat]

We were building essentially a classic MMO with BioWare storytelling set in the Star Wars universe.

 

WoW is not classic. UO, EQ, DaoC, Asheron's Call, Shadowbane - those are classic.

 

Age of Conan, Vanguard, WoW, Rift - those are not classic.

 

So stop building a game to compete with WoW, just build a cool Star Wars PvP game that people would play.

[marine_turtle]

The only thing the community and one cares about is putting stop to this TORtanic filth that ideots keep on saying!

 

It makes one and my friends (I have 6) so angry.

[CODChimera]

The funny thing is Battlefield, Call of Duty, Gears of War and Half-Life are all pretty different. GoW isn't even an fps, Battlefield has the superior MP and vehicle combat, CoD is something and HL has the amazing SP.

 

I think Swotor has made some step forward but it's still a lot like WoW, especially for the most important aspect (Combat) and saying it's more innovative than the above games is pretty laughable.

[Scopian]

"So, I don't know, it's just the way it is, but I don't see us as not being innovative. We're actually a lot more innovative within the MMO space than comparable games in other spaces like the first-person genre, the action genre - games like that."

Let that quote sink in for a moment, folks. That is the director of the game telling the paying audience just how low they set the bar for this game.

 

BW took a look at TBC during the development of TOR and then STOPPED LOOKING at MMOs at all. They stopped looking at what 'innovations' were now considered to be industry standards.

 

I half expect that if I meet a BW employee in real life they will be carrying around cell phones that still have antennas you pull out the top before answering the call.

[EATtheDEAD]

Let that quote sink in for a moment, folks. That is the director of the game telling the paying audience just how low they set the bar for this game.

 

BW took a look at TBC during the development of TOR and then STOPPED LOOKING at MMOs at all. They stopped looking at what 'innovations' were now considered to be industry standards.

 

I half expect that if I meet a BW employee in real life they will be carrying around cell phones that still have antennas you pull out the top before answering the call.

 

 

HAHAHAH i bet you are right

[nerdcav]

If not having a combat log so you can wave DPS meters in peoples faces, or macros so you can spam one button, or a LFG tool so you don't have to socialize or worry about your reputation causes you so much grief that you can't play, then go play something else.

 

I agree completely. I'm running 4 characters simultaneously and playing with a friend for most of the Heroics/FPs and I'm still excited every night when I log on. I just let my WoW sub time out and actually traded 2 time cards I had for TOR cards.

 

I haven't heard so much whining and pontificating since I was a Philosophy student in college. It's a game! Is it fun or isn't it? If it isn't, go play something else. If it is, I'm on Ven Zallow if you want to run some quests together - (Austeror/Thrasymachus on Emp, Glaucon/Gragori on Rep).

 

Props to OP in any case - well written commentary even if I don't agree with it.

Edited January 20, 2012 by nerdcav

[Scopian]

I agree completely. I'm running 4 characters simultaneously and playing with a friend for most of the Heroics/FPs and I'm still excited every night when I log on. I just let my WoW sub time out and actually traded 2 time cards I had for TOR cards.

 

I haven't heard so much whining and pontificating since I was a Philosophy student in college. It's a game! Is it fun or isn't it? If it isn't, go play something else. If it is, I'm on Ven Zallow if you want to run some quests together - (Austeror/Thrasymachus on Emp, Glaucon/Gragori on Rep).

 

Props to OP in any case - well written commentary even if I don't agree with it.

 

You are right, but the problem is that for most people, it is worth having their cautionary tale noted so that others with the same expectations don't end up wasting their money on something they aren't going to enjoy. There is a lot of BS on the forums, but Bioware's hype machine is just as faulted on their side as the worst trolls are theirs.

[audioedge]

the users rating the game 10 on metacritic are sooooo obviously swtor devs its unbelievable. really go read some of them, they could be straight from the marketing department.... one such quote "pvp is finely balanced and plays really well" - hahaha, classic...

[Deewe]

**snip** but Bioware's hype machine is just as faulted on their side as the worst trolls are theirs.

Quite so, I still remember the fiasco with the space unveil at E3 and the very poor following lack of acknowledgment, nor more concrete infos.

[RubberKal]

I agree with the original poster "in order to raise the bar, you must reach the first" (possibly para-phrased).

 

Most notable, a Group Finding facility that is completely inadequate/non-existent is horrific.

 

The story telling is great, and is a new addition to the genre. The phasing is a clever way to tell the story in an MMO (Having a story anyone bothers with in an MMO is a new innovation in itself!).

 

The cooldown system is very typical, and I was most disappointed to see it re-appear in SWTOR, because it makes you take your eyes off the the action/animations, and watch the cooldown bar .. that's just boring and repetitive nonsense, and has been done in most MMOs I've played.

 

The travel system wastes a lot of time that it is meant to save (have already posted on this topic elsewhere in this forum so I will not repeat myself here) but is just a WoW flightpath clone -no innovation here.

 

The galaxy map is 2 dimensional .. even Spore did that better ... perhaps its source is the same as the conversation mechanism ..

 

The graphics aren't anything to write home about (to me gameplay wins over graphics anyway, so not a dealbreaker for me).

 

The world is almost completely static with very few NPCs actually conducting a life of their own .. I built something like that from NWN1 !! I was stunned when I realised how static everything is - even grazing animals dont move around! The only signs of life are the odd guard patrol!

 

So where are all the innovations? You can see the cloned bits far outweight the originallity of features?

 

Sorry James, but can I ask where you get your delusions? I'd like to take some before I go to work tomorrow ...

 

RubberKal