Story diversity is a lie

[failr]

So get me this straight i have a bounty hunter and Imperial agent and a sith inquisitor, and a jedi consular... all class stories seem pretty diferent to me... You must be joking. I think you mean the planet quests? off course those are the same. Anyway if you dont see the beneficts of re roll, then dont, i think ppl who are most used to bioware games, or rpgs, would have more satisfaction on re roll then those that arent used to. I replayed mass effect 1/2 several times as well dragon age origins. The Kotors i replay them alot of times too. for me i dont find a issue replay with other characters, and on top of that each of them having a diferent story. yes they are diferent maybe you dont pay attention to it, taht is your fault.

 

what the imperial agent story have to do with sith inquisitor? nothing.

 

Other than you need to kill a darth of some sort in both stories and that in both stories you essentially start from slave/nobody and turn into a hero/most important person. Don't both stories revolve around sith council being a pain in the *** as well?

 

I did IA story and wasn't impressed by it, other than the homosexual turn(where your arch-enemy dude turned out to be a chick and confessed his/her whatever love to you before dying) at the end everything was very predictable.

[Harower]

I'm kind of dubious of your claim of 4 L50's having reached with only 2-3 hours a day play, unless you can provide screenshots of your 4 chars with the time /played. I know grouping can provide an XP bonus but not that much.

 

Because let's be honest, 2-3 hrs a day since launch is like 30*3=90 hours, is less than 25 hours per character that you required to reach L50.

L50 in 20-25 hours, per character.

 

Scrap what I said before, such a statement is completely ridiculous and sounds like you're bull********, making the rest suspicious too.

 

As for the class quest diversity, from what I've seen and experienced so far, the class stories are distinctive from eachother in flavor and atmosphere, but of course the same sort of quest mechanics will be used among them (kill that person, go there and fetch that, go there and talk to this person etc).

 

The fact you don't know the launch date makes what you say BS too?

 

I have 3 accounts, one for my son, one for my wife and one for me. My wife and I pre orderd first day we could, my son who I couldn't get into it has quit which is why I risk his account to the forums where anyone can get your account banned -_-

 

I didn't expect people to be so... insecure. (or is also that fanboy thing)

 

Edited OP statement for the insecure ppl to stay a bit more on topic.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Harower

[Anelitt]

I couldn't decide what class to play so I rolled a Sorc, Merc and Op and played all three to level 30 before deciding. That means I played the first 30 levels on three characters with a fairly small amount of time between them.

 

What I can say is this:

 

- The (non-class) quests for all three characters were virtually identical. Only the conversations were slightly different here and there ("My Lord" instead of "Sir" etc.)

 

- If there are any differences what so ever then they are so small that it doesn't make re-playing the game any less boring then re-rolling in any other MMO.

 

- The class quests are virtually identical just with a slightly different story-background. Each of my characters had to travel to planet X and infiltrate base Y to perform mission Z.

 

- All characters had to visit every single planet. There is no variation what so ever. If you've been to Tatooine once then you've been there a hundred times - nothing changes what so ever.

 

So after noticing this I thought "well, that's disappointing, guess the only reason to re-play the quests is so I can make different choices when it comes to karma - perhaps this will change the following quests". Sadly it turned out that all these "decisions" are totally irrelevant in every way. None of your actions have ANY consequences what so ever. So if I choose to betray my quest giver on my first character then I did not betray him on my second play-through. Sadly this made NO difference at all. Two lines of voice acting are slightly different but that's it. The following quests are not changed in any way, shape or form.

 

Any kind of "story diversity" (being good, being evil, selecting to betray this person or not) have no influence what so ever.

 

This is not only true for non-class quests. Even the "key" events in your class quest have absolutely NO influence on the rest of the quest. You can be a total bastard and betray everyone or be the kindest person ever - the next quest will be exactly the same.

 

So basically the only change between play-throughs are very very minor and in no way motivate you to continue listening to all the voice acting. You end up simply space-barring because it gets so *********** boring after the second play-through.

 

For a "story based MMO" that's supposedly oh so innovative this is a huge HUGE let-down.

 

The WOW storyline has 10 times more diversity because you can choose which regions to quest in and are not forced to head from one planet to the next without variation. Sure, there's no voice acting but what's the point if it's so *********** boring after a single play-through?

 

I'd give this game a replay-value of 1 out of 10.

 

Anyone who claims that the story is so diverse is either lying to you (BW employee in disguise) or never re-rolled a character before (or simply can't remember their previous play-through).

 

Really, really low BW.

 

 

I was gonna post something but you captured everything i had to say, good post sir.

 

Its somehow sad though that a game that excuses its endless amoutn of weaponts with "immersive questing" is in realty offering a much weaker questing experience then most other MMO's

[Thaed]

I can think of plenty of examples that do not involve killing or right clicking on something. It all boils down to ingame mechanics, which swtor is very limited in.

 

Lets see what I can come up with:

 

1) A quest where you need to set an ambush on a cliff for a speeder that is suppossed to fly by in a few minutes and a jump on it while it is flying by in order to capture it, then bring the speeder back to the quest giver. Would require a dynamic world events, such as npc speeders flying around which we do not have right now. Lets just label this platforming.

 

2) A quest where you are to capture an enemy base, you are given a number of troops for your assault that have different strengths, lets say 3 rocket troopers, 2 machine gunners and a jedi, your goal is to take over 3 objectives inside the base but you yourself can only go to one so you need to decide which combinations of troops will attack from each side. Lets label this strategy element quests.

 

3) Multiplayer oriented quests? Why not this is an MMO after all right? Why not have a quest where you need to lure another player into an ambush and he suffers from it, while you get a reward? Exploitable through friendlies, yes. Still interesting variation tho. Make the ambush spot random so people don't learn to avoid coming to it as well. Or a quest where you are given something that looks like a blue weapon for example, but has some defect in it, so your goal is to sell it to another player and rip em off essentially, without using auction house? Something requiring interaction with other players one way or another.

 

4) Puzzle based quests? A lot of rpgs have those, why not here?

 

5) Escort, defend a base type of quests? Most other MMOs have those, I ve seen one very short escort quest and no defense quests through lvling 1-50 on an operative.

 

I can keep going, do you want me to?

 

1) Wouldn't be possible due to the nature of the game. Setting up the ambush, sure (there's a quest in WoW where you set up an ambush), but jumping onto a moving speeder would proove to large of a roadblock for those with poor computers/latency issues.

 

2) Could see it happening. I'd lump that in with puzzle based quests though. Having true RTS quests would probably provide to large of a workload.

 

3) Wouldn't sit well with the playerbase and would be impossible to impliment without people abusing it (/whisper "hey, if you buy my blue defected saber I'll buy yours." There are plenty of multiplayer quests in this game that promote grouping up and working together. Also, you don't need a quest to ambush the enemy faction or scam people in trades (the latter is a jerk move, though).

 

4) Again, could see these happening (and there are a couple of very basic puzzles in-game right now, Bioware would do well to expand on that).

 

5) If I've learned one thing playing MMO's, it's that I despise escort quests. There are a coupld in TOR, too. (That one with the woman on Balmorra, one of the nar Shadaa bonus series quests).

 

Defend the base could definitely work as a quest, though we already have something similar in the form of the Voidstar.

 

__

 

So yeah, I agree with a couple. However, the mechanics used with the ones that could be implimented would be the same. If you were defending a base, you'd still be killing x amount of mobs and repairing y amount of objects by clicking on them. If there were an RTS/Puzzle quest, you'd still be clicking on things and telling them to kill other things. The difference would be in the way the quest is presented, not in the mechanics used to complete it.

 

Edit:

 

Bio-drone ran out of arguments?

 

No, though it seems you had to let someone else make yours for you

Edited January 23, 2012 by Thaed

[ThePirateMD]

all I know is, my heart dropped and I lost a LOT of interest in thsi game, when I found out that playing a story as pure DS or LS had *NO EFFECT* at changing the story.

 

I MEAN REALLY?

 

People might say, "oh well KOTOR didnt really have the story change much" YEA WELL KOTOR is 10 years old. I would hope for some sort of advancement in story telling

 

[Spartanik]

Other than you need to kill a darth of some sort in both stories and that in both stories you essentially start from slave/nobody and turn into a hero/most important person. Don't both stories revolve around sith council being a pain in the *** as well?

 

I did IA story and wasn't impressed by it, other than the homosexual turn(where your arch-enemy dude turned out to be a chick and confessed his/her whatever love to you before dying) at the end everything was very predictable.

 

So but they are not the same... that is my point if you were or not impressed its irrelevant.

Others MMos doesnt even have story to speak off. Or it isnt the slighteast imersive.

[NoxiousAlby]

I see mirror image CLASS QUESTS all the time. For example on Alderaan I have to destroy the generator to drop the shield etc etc. I have seen the same class quest formats + quests done on every single character I level up.

 

All they do is slap a slightly different circumstance / story onto it.

 

But it is all the same even across factions and it is very disappointing it is all the same over various class quests.

 

Sorry then you & I must be playing a different game, i've leveled 4 characters between 20 - 45 (2 Republic & 2 Imperial) and all I can say is your doing it wrong. Class quests have been diverse and enjoyable, Sith Warrior has been my favorite to date.

Edited January 23, 2012 by NoxiousAlby

[failr]

1) Wouldn't be possible due to the nature of the game. Setting up the ambush, sure (there's a quest in WoW where you set up an ambush), but jumping onto a moving speeder would proove to large of a roadblock for those with poor computers/latency issues.

 

2) Could see it happening. I'd lump that in with puzzle based quests though. Having true RTS quests would probably provide to large of a workload.

 

3) Wouldn't sit well with the playerbase and would be impossible to impliment without people abusing it (/whisper "hey, if you buy my blue defected saber I'll buy yours." There are plenty of multiplayer quests in this game that promote grouping up and working together. Also, you don't need a quest to ambush the enemy faction or scam people in trades (the latter is a jerk move, though).

 

4) Again, could see these happening (and there are a couple of very basic puzzles in-game right now, Bioware would do well to expand on that).

 

5) If I've learned one thing playing MMO's, it's that I despise escort quests. There are a coupld in TOR, too. (That one with the woman on Balmorra, one of the nar Shadaa bonus series quests).

 

Defend the base could definitely work as a quest, though we already have something similar in the form of the Voidstar.

 

__

 

So yeah, I agree with a couple. However, the mechanics used with the ones that could be implimented would be the same. If you were defending a base, you'd still be killing x amount of mobs and repairing y amount of objects by clicking on them. If there were an RTS/Puzzle quest, you'd still be clicking on things and telling them to kill other things. The difference would be in the way the quest is presented, not in the mechanics used to complete it.

 

Edit:

 

 

 

No, though it seems you had to let someone else make yours for you

 

1) Depends on the size of the speeder and the speed of it doesn't it ? lol

 

2) Not if you could observer your choices in action or make immediate decisions via holocalls or whatever to reinforce this side or that side, then it wouldn't really be more of an RTS thing. There have been plenty of RTS such and one of the C&C series where you were playing an FPS inside an RTS.

 

3) Why I think scamming people for money would sit very well for a smuggler wouldn't it?

 

4) yea

 

5) Don't have to be too many of them, but some here and there for diversity sake wouldn't hurt

 

Regardless like I said some of them wouldn't work due to mechanics ingame not supporting them, but that is Bioware's fault not ours.

Edited January 23, 2012 by failr

[Bopper]

The fact you don't know the launch date makes what you say BS too?

 

I have 3 accounts, one for my son, one for my wife and one for me. My wife and I pre orderd first day we could, my son who I couldn't get into it has quit which is why I risk his account to the forums where anyone can get your account banned -_-

 

I didn't expect people to be so... insecure. (or is also that fanboy thing)

 

Edited OP statement for the insecure ppl to stay a bit more on topic.

 

Harower, do not act all innocent with the fanboy thing. If you were as hardcore a player as you say you once were then you would have to know what a fanboy is......

 

You are not being as straight up as you are saying you are................

[Ghaiana]

Strange, those people that insist they played till 50 in 2 days and did not spacebar or PvP all the time. My main is level 41 and has more than 6 days /played. I'm sure 4-5 days /played would be doable, but where is your enjoyment if you rush through the game? And yes, I am getting datacrons, I am crafting, did space missions and the odd PvP, I did Heroics with friends, some even twice. There is so much to do, why hurry?

 

Another plus of not hurrying is that you will have forgotten most sidequests when you make a second character and maybe not spacebar all your alts.

[ThePirateMD]

do u guys agree with what I posted on pg 6?

[dyves]

I was gonna post something but you captured everything i had to say, good post sir.

 

Its somehow sad though that a game that excuses its endless amoutn of weaponts with "immersive questing" is in realty offering a much weaker questing experience then most other MMO's

 

To you, maybe. To others, the questing is a hell of a lot more fun than in those other MMO's. To me personally, I like SWTOR's questing more than the questing in other MMO's like LotrO, Rift and WoW, only since the last expansion CATA there have been a number of funny and interesting quests that were present.

It isn't for nothing that a lot of people state they just click away quest text in those games, even in new quests they hadn't done yet. To them, those quests are meaningless or boring and nothing but a task list for xp gain, no knowledge of the quest text needed.

 

B ut hey, if you don't like SWTOR's VO/cutscene story approach to questing, there are always other MMO's that have your favorite way of questing, the textbased kind.

[NoxiousAlby]

Instead of attacking how many chars thr OP has you might consider discussing his point: The fact that 90% of questing is exactly the same when playing another char and the remaining 10% is very similar.

 

It depends, if you play a Sith warrior and then play a Sith Inquisitor (as my daughter is) then yes they are similar but not identical. I've played a Republic Trooper a Sith Warrior and an Imperial Operative and none have had identical or even similar class quests. I would hazard to guess that my Bounty Hunter will also offer a refreshing and different storyline.

[failr]

To you, maybe. To others, the questing is a hell of a lot more fun than in those other MMO's. To me personally, I like SWTOR's questing more than the questing in other MMO's like LotrO, Rift and WoW, only since the last expansion CATA there have been a number of funny and interesting quests that were present.

It isn't for nothing that a lot of people state they just click away quest text in those games, even in new quests they hadn't done yet. To them, those quests are meaningless or boring and nothing but a task list for xp gain, no knowledge of the quest text needed.

 

B ut hey, if you don't like SWTOR's VO/cutscene story approach to questing, there are always other MMO's that have your favorite way of questing, the textbased kind.

 

What does textbased or voiceovered have to do with the quests being repetative?

 

What you just said was about the same as this:

 

"I like watching movies and prefer it to reading books, if you like reading books instead then SWTOR is not for you and I ridicule people who find books entertaining"

[Thaed]

1) Depends on the size of the speeder and the speed of it doesn't it ? lol

 

2) Not if you could observer your choices in action or make immediate decisions via holocalls or whatever to reinforce this side or that side, then it wouldn't really be more of an RTS thing. There have been plenty of RTS such and one of the C&C series where you were playing an FPS inside an RTS.

 

3) Why I think scamming people for money would sit very well for a smuggler wouldn't it?

 

4) yea

 

5) Don't have to be too many of them, but some here and there for diversity sake wouldn't hurt

 

Regardless like I said some of them wouldn't work due to mechanics ingame not supporting them, but that is Bioware's fault not ours.

 

1) If it was very slow, very large and came when you set the ambush, maybe.

 

2) Like I said, could see it happening. Would be nice.

 

3) Definately Smugglerish, but best confined to scamming NPC's in my opinion.

 

__

 

Yeah, sorry, kinda missed the first part of your post last time. You're right, it's on Bioware, but I don't fault them for it. I guess I don't really see a problem.

 

I think diversity would be great. I really do. And I think that the game needs improving in various areas. But, for now, I'm content.

 

There are definitely some good ideas out there, yours included, that would go a ways to make SW:TOR more fun. Hopefully Bioware listens and starts experimenting, I just don't think a complete revamp of mechanics (or any super innovative mechanics from the start) are necessary.

 

That's it for me for now, g'night.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Thaed

[dyves]

What does textbased or voiceovered have to do with the quests being repetative?

 

What you just said was about the same as this:

 

"I like watching movies and prefer it to reading books, if you like reading books instead then SWTOR is not for you and I ridicule people who find books entertaining"

 

The guy I was replying on was talking about SWTOR being a 'weaker quest experience' than other MMO's.

I disagree: VO/cutscenes and dialogue choices makes questing more immersive and entertaining than in other MMO's to a a lot of people. Traditional textbased questing makes the questing less entertaining, with a few exceptions, than where it is VO with cinematic cutscenes and dialogue choices.

That's why you also see VO/cinematic cutscenes and dialogue choices used in singleplayer games while doing missions and quests, not because they're the 'weaker experience' than doing it with text.

Edited January 23, 2012 by dyves

[Gabrandt]

Story diversity is a lie. There is only passion.

[failr]

The guy I was replying on was talking about SWTOR being a 'weaker quest experience' than other MMO's.

I disagree: VO/cutscenes and dialogue choices makes questing more immersive and entertaining than in other MMO's to a a lot of people. Traditional textbased questing makes the questing less entertaining, with a few exceptions, than where it is VO with cinematic cutscenes and dialogue choices.

That's why you also see VO/cinematic cutscenes and dialogue choices used in singleplayer games while doing missions and quests, not because they're the 'weaker experience' than doing it with text.

 

I disagree, I found some text based rpg stories very immersive and fun, take baldur's gate 2 for example.

 

I hate to mention wow, but even wow back in vanilla when there were no quest marks on the map to show you what to do and where to go, you had to either read the quest anyway or go to allakhazam and find out where you need to go, where former was faster in most cases so most people read them me included.

 

If it was for me I would definately exclude the map markers one way or another, you should have to actually listen to the quest in order to understand how it needs to be done in my opinion, quest text or voice overs, works for both.

 

I watched quite a few movies based on books which I ve read and I can say that in many cases I preferred the book to the movie, so can't be the same for everyone.

[Lakshri]

My problem is that you got 2 starting planets for each faction then you are pretty much doing same quest on every character with every 30 or so minutes you got few class quest lines ...

 

let's compare it to vanilla wow ... at lvl 10 you could choose between westfall darkshore or dwarf zone ... same with horde and at later at expansions another levelling zones such as ghostlands been added ...

 

and no you cannot argue that this is because story ... your story could split at some point letting you choose planet you want and not same over and over again

 

and I really dont think that legacy system will solve this

 

also quest helper and things like this pretty much ruined leveling experience you just go from point A to point B without any exploration ...

Edited January 23, 2012 by Lakshri

[Karson]

I have 4 characters between level 31 and 38 and enjoy their class storylines so far. I can tell you they are unique from my point of view.

 

When I play my trooper I do not feel like I'm playing my bounty hunter (same with sage/sorcerer). Those class quests feel very immersive to me. But that may be just me.

 

I intend to do all class storylines, even doing some twice to try different dark/light sides options and different companions developements.

 

I cannot see "boring" on the horizon so far.

And endgame is not an issue for me at the moment. I like to switch from characters to characters and have been doing this in every MMOs I've played so far.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Karson

[Safiir]

I disagree, I found some text based rpg stories very immersive and fun, take baldur's gate 2 for example.

 

Baldur's gate 2 is not a mmo game. Btw it is funny that you mention it. Although you could replay bg2 with a different class the story remains exactly the same. Every time. And yet people weren't complaining about diversity and replay value. The quests in bg2 weren't any more interesting than swtor. In fact I would say they were much more primitive. You reach a new map, you explore it and kill everything there. Sometimes you meet an npc and he tells you to go kill someone and take something. And that's all there was. Yes, the story was immersive but that's because it's a single-player game. It is designed solely for you and it funnels you through it without allowing you to do anything else. Not to mention you don't have to worry about balance or op skills and weapons. And you could save/reload at any point.

 

Bottom line is - there isn't an mmorpg that comes even close to swtor as far as story is concerned. Forget about voice over. In this game I care about my character. I think about the decisions I'm doing (as superficial as they actually are). In every other mmorpg I've played I've never thought about anything but what is the most efficient way to level my character and find the best possible gear. Which is why I've always preferred single-player games.

[Ermo]

Having now a 50 Jedi Guardian (with some 30 toons) and played a lot of MMO and other games, I'm experiencing the same feeling as the OP, but I do see parallels to other games.

 

The reasons are:

- Side quests are only taken as side tasks, not quests. Players don't live the quests but simply take them as other actions needed as long as they need to travel to a certain location. (Make better use of the travel time). This makes the side quest loose a lot of their feeling and let the player not enjoy each quest on its own.

 

- Massive time spent in the game. It's like everything. You're fascinated first, spend as much time on it as possible and loose interest after a while. If you play through a whole planet or even two in one constant session, you will feel the quest repetition massively. If you play only short-periods, you will feel less repetitive.

 

- Player Guides, Wikis, Skill/Class/Equipment list etc. All these are great for advanced and end-level players to achieve more. But they are the death of level-Games. In early times, MMOs lived from player explorations, discovering new thing and learning the game from guldies or self-exporing. With internet pages available telling you every trick and location, you will use it, but loose the joy of exploring it yourself.

The more you read, inform yourself about a game in the internet, the less interesting you'll find the game itself.

 

 

Honestly, these are the reasons why no other MMO will get the success of WOW again. WoW made MMOs available to a wider public. With it the information available about MMOs grew and also the expectations on them. The players got convenient and don't want to spend hours investigating and exploring the game. They simply want to consume it with as small effort as possible.

[dyves]

I disagree, I found some text based rpg stories very immersive and fun, take baldur's gate 2 for example.

 

I hate to mention wow, but even wow back in vanilla when there were no quest marks on the map to show you what to do and where to go, you had to either read the quest anyway or go to allakhazam and find out where you need to go, where former was faster in most cases so most people read them me included.

 

If it was for me I would definately exclude the map markers one way or another, you should have to actually listen to the quest in order to understand how it needs to be done in my opinion, quest text or voice overs, works for both.

 

I watched quite a few movies based on books which I ve read and I can say that in many cases I preferred the book to the movie, so can't be the same for everyone.

 

Books and movies are 2 very separate things, because they take place in 2 separate mediums, the obvious difference is that a movie is only 1.5-2 hours long, while the book they're based upon has a lot more material and reading hours in it than 1.5-2 hours.

Text based quests and VO/cutscene story quests with dialogue options take both place in the same medium, MMORPG's and games.

 

I enjoyed my quests in all MMO's I played since EQ and UO, but just like with single player games, VO/cinematic representation is overall the more immersive and entertaining way to deliver quests than textbased click-ok-or-cancel way of delivering them.

Edited January 23, 2012 by dyves

[grandmthethird]

the objective might be the same or variations of the same thing, but the story is different. i think that is the point

[Rinkitink]

Right, the OP is burnt out on MMORPGs for sure. Not Bioware's fault.

 

lol this argument is starting to crop up more and more every time someone legitimately complains. Fanboys are awesome.