Why doesn't swtor utilize the entire planet???????

[KalTheo]

This is SWTOR, not SWG at release. They had vision, but they ruined it even before Sony could manage.

[Blackavaar]

Maybe they are saving those extra areas of the planets for new content later on. Maybe an expansion could expand on all of the worlds and add new starting areas to some of them for new classes and species. Maybe they already have plans for this.

 

[XOrionX]

Who says that BW doesn't have plans to implement other areas on these planets?

 

There is a space dock on each planet, it makes sense to me that this space dock will be a launch point to get to new areas on these planets as the content is added.

 

Just a thought. The game is 2 months old, I am pretty sure you aren't the first one to think of this idea. In fact, I would imagine that very idea has been sitting on the back burner at BW for a couple years now just waiting to be a hot topic again.

[DTuloJr]

BWA was admonished over their full theme park game style where every planet has the SAME style in one small locale, the moment the closed beta program started. They chose to ignore every single major critique and suggestion ever made by their testers. Why should they start listening, now, when it's too late?

[Holden_Dissent]

I'm sure they'll get expanded in an expansion

[Angel_of_Cain]

3. Because no matter what they did people wouldn't be happy.

 

You just answered about 99% of these forums.

[djsmileey]

Very nicely written post, I gather this isn't your first word bundle. 5/5*; albeit, unlikely anything will happen as a result.

[DarkhawkXY]

I agree with the OP, but having played Kotor 1+2, Mass Effect 1+2, I did not expect to have anything other than whats in game. They have a proven system that has done exceedingly well for them in Single Player games. My guess is over time we will start to see more sandbox style features, however I would doubt very much to see an entirely explorable planet.

[Weeebacca]

Planets shouldn't be locked to a single range of levels.

 

Instead, planets should have several zones each with a different level range. That would have allowed for stories to be more flexible because at it stands now, each class goes to the planets in the same order for each faction.

 

This would solve the OP's problem as well.

[Rabenschwinge]

I too feel that individual game worlds might have been somewhat larger and more diverse, I wouldn't go as far as the OP, though.

 

You're not the savior of the planets you walk to. You make a difference, but that's true for a lot of people. You're not a child of the fallen god of murder, not the Hero of Neverwinter, (Spoiler for KotOR)

you're not Darth Revan

, you're not the first human Spectre or the last Warden. You're just one of many, a great hero, but not the hero.

 

Thus it completely adequate of the stories around us are somewhat smaller than the things we're used to from Bioware. Your environment does not bend around you, because it is not intended to.

 

Yes, the pillar "exploration" falls a little short in SW:TOR; even though they are of course much larger than in Knights of the Old Republic, the component where you were just walking over Dantooine, experiencing a strangely peaceful, beautiful summer day atmosphere and walking over the rolling hills just to find out what might be there is kind of missing. It's more about completing a number of jobs the folks at the entrance gave you.

 

But it would be a little exaggerated to ask for entire planet being created.

[JohnQPerson]

So... what you're saying is... "I want to spend more time doing nothing, and paying for the privilege."

 

You're a very interesting type of customer, but I don't think you're in the majority.

...... ........ Those are the facts. Adam Smith pwns j00, n00b.

 

 

That's interesting but only addresses one mentioned idea to make the game feel more expansive. Like the OP said and I also mention. Having to travel around the globe to other zones to do some questing would not be hard. I know when playing this game I am not the only people thinking "where is the rest of the planet?".

 

I guess better is the enemy of good enough to get your money.

[Yukondoit]

I think the OP's point is that it would be nice if, for instance, the "world maps" as they are now were precisely that, maps of the world. And I think his suggestion is that when you want to travel from Anchorhead to the Dune Sea, you'd hop in a shuttle (or something) and click on the world map (which would actually depict the world) to scamper the hundreds of kilometers out to the Dune Sea.

 

I don't believe he actually wants the Devs to render a scaleable world. He just doesn't want the zones to feel so close together.

 

It's not a bad idea. And if that were to happen, it would be very easy to implement other good suggestions, such as adding new zones to existing planets for higher level players.

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Everyone wants a more alive and larger planet, but there are so many difficulties.

 

The planetary zones, particularly late game (Hoth, Belsavis, Correlia, etc.) are very, very large. Like, some of those could have practically been entire MMOs not too long ago. To render more 'full' planets would mean some really long travel times, and an an even more massive, massive budget that we would be paying for right now.

 

Have more travelling/spacing on planet? Ok, but that still doesn't address the travel question. Nobody wants to have to take a shuttle everytime they go anywhere on a planet.

[Oneirophrenia]

I'm of the opposite opinion here. In such a wide open world setup, travel time would then become a real concern. Of course this problem could be resolved by installing more rapid transit points such as the existing taxi/tram/speeders but they would have to go even faster to make up for the larger empty spaces between questable areas. Another even faster option would be instant transport hubs similar to the existing quick travel/shuttle pickups but regardless, in either of those set ups, the inbetween spaces would still be relegated to the status of backdrop/scenery so what's the point?

 

Besides, there are already two existing planets which is similar to what I described above, Correllia and Belsavis. Honestly, I really dislike both places. Sometimes I feel like I'm spending more time transiting between areas than actually questing, unless I'm hunting for those lousy green shards.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Oneirophrenia

[Ansultares]

I don't know if the OP mentioned this, but red shields.

 

Exploring sucks when so much is needlessly hidden behind red shields.

 

And codex entries are completionist content, not explorer content.

[LizardSF]

BWA was admonished over their full theme park game style where every planet has the SAME style in one small locale, the moment the closed beta program started. They chose to ignore every single major critique and suggestion ever made by their testers. Why should they start listening, now, when it's too late?

 

Well, this shows they know how to ignore testers that don't say anything worth paying attention to.

 

Could you imagine Blizzard taking a comment like this seriously, during their beta test phase?

 

"Dear Blizzard: Why is Stranglethorn Jungle all jungle? Why are the Badlands all rocky? Why is Un'goro all filled with dinosaurs?"

 

PLANET==ZONE.

 

Zones, to be cohesive, need a dominant theme/tone/setting. You have a lot of variety in a single zone -- both Tattooine and Hoth are good examples, while Taris is a good example of how to do it very, very, poorly -- but there has to be a degree of thematic cohesion, or you basically have one zone doing double duty, which tends to be bad; you're better off making two zones. (One reason for this is zone-wide effects such as weather, color palette shifts, loot tables, and so on.) Very rarely, you can achieve a lot of impact with a few small out-of-band regions in a zone, places that are very different from the surroundings, but a little of that goes a very long way. The tipping point between "Wow, cool, I never expected to see that here!" and "Did they just randomly generate this mess, or what?" is pretty small.

 

Some of SWTORs zones are well designed; some are not. We can debate that forever. However, saying that they're flawed because each has a strong style/tone/theme is missing the point entirely.

[Sunsoar]

Op wants more empty map space?

[LizardSF]

I don't know if the OP mentioned this, but red shields.

 

Exploring sucks when so much is needlessly hidden behind red shields.

 

And codex entries are completionist content, not explorer content.

 

 

"This game has no exploration!"

"Have you found every lore item?"

"Bah! Going everywhere in a zone and looking for things isn't exploration!"

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3517/3464488770_622e8e81d3.jpg

[Prolyfic]

exploring is what I miss most (and probably only) about swg (well except having rancor pets)

[Degarmo]

I really like this steak, but I would like to see the entire cow.

 

Sometimes you're better off enjoying what's in front of you.

[LizardSF]

exploring is what I miss most (and probably only) about swg (well except having rancor pets)

 

The problem with exploring in SWG was that there was nothing to find.

 

I circumnavigated Naboo once. It took my something like an hour, and my last 50 minutes were exactly like my first 10. That's the problem with pregenerated content; it all looks alike.

 

I *did* stumble on the Emperor's hideaway on Naboo, which was cool... but there was nothing there to interact with, do, or really explore. It was just there. Same with that immense, but empty and pointless, palace in the capital. All that work designing it... for nothing.

[Saurakk]

"This game has no exploration!"

"Have you found every lore item?"

"Bah! Going everywhere in a zone and looking for things isn't exploration!"

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3517/3464488770_622e8e81d3.jpg

 

lol I thought the same thing.

 

If you need to explore to get the codex entries....it is exploration content with completionist motivation tied in.

[Vitellius]

The problem with exploring in SWG was that there was nothing to find.

 

I circumnavigated Naboo once. It took my something like an hour, and my last 50 minutes were exactly like my first 10. That's the problem with pregenerated content; it all looks alike.

 

I *did* stumble on the Emperor's hideaway on Naboo, which was cool... but there was nothing there to interact with, do, or really explore. It was just there. Same with that immense, but empty and pointless, palace in the capital. All that work designing it... for nothing.

 

And here in lies the dirty little secret. Is it REALLY sandbox/exploring/dynamic? No. Either you put nothing there, something there you see once and that's it, or some kind of quest hub....which people would complain about because that's what we have now.

 

There is no such thing as constant, dynamic, unique content that can just be randomly spawned and every time you go it's something completely different. You can create the illusion of that, but at the end of the day, content is made, experienced and repeated until new stuff is created. Once it's made, it's all over the web, in youtube vids, strat and game play-through guides. Unless you HAVE to go there or get some carrot for going, you can just read about it.

 

Gamers put 10 seconds of thought into things while developers plan for months and write volumes of analysis of what works and is feasible. Things are the way they are for a reason.

[LizardSF]

And here in lies the dirty little secret. Is it REALLY sandbox/exploring/dynamic? No. Either you put nothing there, something there you see once and that's it, or some kind of quest hub....which people would complain about because that's what we have now.

 

There is no such thing as constant, dynamic, unique content that can just be randomly spawned and every time you go it's something completely different. You can create the illusion of that, but at the end of the day, content is made, experienced and repeated until new stuff is created. Once it's made, it's all over the web, in youtube vids, strat and game play-through guides. Unless you HAVE to go there or get some carrot for going, you can just read about it.

 

Gamers put 10 seconds of thought into things while developers plan for months and write volumes of analysis of what works and is feasible. Things are the way they are for a reason.

 

It's also important to consider how gaming culture has changed.

 

I played Simutronics Dragonrealms for a while back in... lessee, I was with Stacy, so that would have been....1997? Seems about right. Anyway, at one point, I came on a door I couldn't open... there was a keyword puzzle I couldn't solve. I asked in chat about it. People refused to tell me, because there was a culture that said "The game is no fun unless you figure it out on your own." Then came the rise of graphical MMOs, which led quickly to sites like allakhazam, not to mention a culture of hint guides, cheat guides, spoilers, wikis, etc.

 

Trying to find all the lore items (or equivalent in other games) without asking for help, looking for clues, etc, is the only kind of "exploration" left; I mean, you can explore a procedurally generated world, but unless the developers have tossed easter eggs around, you're mostly going to see all there is to see very, very, quickly. I'd rather discover something awesomely cool that was put in a small, hand-coded world... but not necessarily given to me as a goal... than wander a large but ultimately meaningless world. When I found the Circle Of Dead Jawas on Tattooine, it felt like *finding* something, because no one had sent me there and I didn't know it was there to be found... and because it also did something, it wasn't just a random feature without purpose.

[Lethality]

I hop in the driver's seat of my shiny, brand new, intergalactic spaceship. It's an exhilarating sensation, the first time one jumps into light speed, and I'm rifling through my star charts, giving orders, and preparing to visit the city-moon of Nar Shadaa.

 

Wait until you get to Tatooine and try to run outside of your starter base