Galbatorrix Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Also, am I the only person that started in games like Dragon Realms? That game was text based and you couldn't even see the world around you! In that game, anyone could kill anyone else at any given time and players would constantly pick pocket you when you were outside of cities. You'd go to check your wallet and bam! No more gold! The funny thing is, people still play that game today and it still costs $15 a month to play! I played it for about a year until EQ first came out back in the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technohic Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 What specifically is stopping you from living and existing in SWTOR? I don't worry about the loot grind or the level grind or the theme park. I go off the beaten path often. I've made my own stories that don't include having the biggest numbers on my hat. Yes, this game doesn't have all the sandbox features of SWG. But the only one keeping you from enjoying the world is you. This pretty much sums it up for me. You can play all the story and raids and quests and bleed the content out of this game, but from there; what stops you from just making the most of what you have on your own just as if it were a sandbox? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealDestian Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I'm hoping Tera's political system will give us SOMETHING toward feeling as though we have some kind of meaningful influence on the game world. That's what's missing from SWTOR at endgame: anything even loosely resembling a meaningful impact upon the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWImara Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) Also, am I the only person that started in games like Dragon Realms? That game was text based and you couldn't even see the world around you! In that game, anyone could kill anyone else at any given time and players would constantly pick pocket you when you were outside of cities. You'd go to check your wallet and bam! No more gold! The funny thing is, people still play that game today and it still costs $15 a month to play! I played it for about a year until EQ first came out back in the day. Gemstone III > Dragon Realms but yeah I played the heck out of that for a while I have to admit, it was surprising to me to find that people still play those old games but on the other hand it makes some sense. Those games offered a great deal that no modern MMO I've played to date has. They were a solid avenue for RPing, were really challenging, basically they were the precursor to games like Everquest (rather than UO) you could play them practically forever and still have challenges ahead. As for the 15$ a month thing, honestly I think its only board warriors who get all in an uproar about this. To pretty much any US adult 15$ is an inconsequential amount of money. How much does one spend monthly on a cell phone or cable, or any actual bills? People flipping out about their 15$ a month spent on MMOs has puzzled me since I was like 22 (almost a decade ago now). When people post "demanding" their 15$ back I honestly feel compelled to ask. Do you never go to the movies..? Or to a restaurant..? Or a gym..? Or buy lunch at work now and then..? I suspect your month's worth of enjoyment from any of these activities is probably lower than your month's worth of enjoyment from even a bad mmo, why not rant about the cost of a movie these days or troll restaurant forums demanding your 20$ back for dinner, or worse yet the 10$ for a beer you could have gotten in a six pack for 1/8 the price? I'm hoping Tera's political system will give us SOMETHING toward feeling as though we have some kind of meaningful influence on the game world. That's what's missing from SWTOR at endgame: anything even loosely resembling a meaningful impact upon the world. Something like this would be great, no argument from me. Edited January 31, 2012 by SWImara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakknafien Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 No power levelling, no grind, no gear tier, no concept of a content end or reaching reward limits. It was about living and existing in a world with others... Even pretty recent games like SWG, I had a friend who created her own prefession. She was an interior designer. You gave her the keys to your new pad, some credits and came back in a week to a palace. Every room kitted out to perfection... MMO's used to stimulate so much more than horizonal, linear, reward based mentalities.. yeah i remeber them whats your point they are stale and old now . if your waxxing nostalgic you can still play Ultima online both subscription and free or maybe read a book it doesnt have reward systems just an open imagination world that you crave so badly for the rest of us there is swtor god these threads are useless btw your friend didnt invent interrior designer ...ok they where everywhere she was in no way unique at all in fact it was an arbitrary reward system for cash in game wich u just got done saying you didnt like now if u want sandbox go play the swgemu or better yet go play ultima online it was the only good sandbox and guewss what they had interior desingers ! in like 1991 so u should really enjoy it just dont stay outside your house to long people like me would kill you over and over for fun openworld pvp and take all your gear :< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crashloop Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 What specifically is stopping you from living and existing in SWTOR? I don't worry about the loot grind or the level grind or the theme park. I go off the beaten path often. I've made my own stories that don't include having the biggest numbers on my hat. Yes, this game doesn't have all the sandbox features of SWG. But the only one keeping you from enjoying the world is you. What stops me from fully enjoying the world is the mechanics of the game. PvP in old days were world PvP, these days it's warzones and battlegrounds. Yes you will have maybe 1-2 other that are around, but mostly it will be low levels and they simply do not bring a challenge to the table hence making world PvP pointless. Looking at the mechanics for PvP in SWTOR you have Ilum and you have warzones, when it comes instances most of those are accessible from the imperial or republic fleet so no reason to go out in the world unless you are looking for something specific. Old days all the stuff you wanted to do wasn't at your doorstep, these days it is. And that is what creates the feeling of a static non living world. majority of players will stay at the fleet doing instances or PvP as it has the easiest access to it. That was the beauty with the older games, even WoW had this that you had to travel to areas to enter raids and instances. It did make the world feel alive as you would see players around the world either on their way to a raid or a instance or simply moving from A to B. These days moving from A to B requires no effort in most MMO's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimG Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 This **** again? Seriously this isnt SWG2. LMAO, seriously. Same old moaning from people about "sandbox games". This game was never, ever, ever supposed to be, intended to be or going to be a sandbox game. People just need to get over it already. If that's what somebody wanted, they came to the wrong place. You can call this game a "themepark MMO" or whatever label you want...doesn't really matter, the game is what it is. It's not hard to figure out some of these threads about people being "disappointed" or what not when they are moaning about sandbox games and basically wanted the game to be something that is OBVIOUSLY was not going to be. You don't walk into a Chinese restaurant and get mad at THEM because they don't serve pizza. Frankly, all this theme-park moaning is overblown anyway. I don't know what game you're playing but with the bonus quests at the higher levels that have you returning to some planets, I have quests going on about 4 different planets right now and I can do flashpoints or space combat. So I have several different places I can go. It's not like I will log into the game right now and like a drone go to point A because the game makes me go to point A. It's a freaking story-driven game so obviously the class story has to be somewhat linear as that's pretty much a common feature of...well, basically any story. But this whole I can't go where I want drama is overblown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galbatorrix Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Gemstone III > Dragon Realms but yeah I played the heck out of that for a while I have to admit, it was surprising to me to find that people still play those old games but on the other hand it makes some sense. Those games offered a great deal that no modern MMO I've played to date has. They were a solid avenue for RPing, were really challenging, basically they were the precursor to games like Everquest (rather than UO) you could play them practically forever and still have challenges ahead. As for the 15$ a month thing, honestly I think its only board warriors who get all in an uproar about this. To pretty much any US adult 15$ is an inconsequential amount of money. How much does one spend monthly on a cell phone or cable, or any actual bills? People flipping out about their 15$ a month spent on MMOs has puzzled me since I was like 22 (almost a decade ago now). When people post "demanding" their 15$ back I honestly feel compelled to ask. Do you never go to the movies..? Or to a restaurant..? Or a gym..? Or buy lunch at work now and then..? I suspect your month's worth of enjoyment from any of these activities is probably lower than your month's worth of enjoyment from even a bad mmo, why not rant about the cost of a movie these days or troll restaurant forums demanding your 20$ back for dinner, or worse yet the 10$ for a beer you could have gotten in a six pack for 1/8 the price? Something like this would be great, no argument from me. Oh, I wasn't saying that $15 per month was a lot for an MMO in general. It just surprises me that a game that's 20 years old or so is still doing it where games like LOTR are free to play. It seems like they'd have been forced to lower it in order to keep people playing by now, that's all I meant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PjPablo Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I miss AC's live events that happened time to time. Or the patch where they completely destroyed Arwic. MMO devs don't seem to try that stuff anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amiracle Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I find it interesting that all the new MMO players keep saying that MMOs have evolved. Really? All the new MMOs go F2P with 2 years. You have EQ1 which is just going F2P. And yet the new MMOs have evolved.... Evolved into what? Devs figured out that they can charge a monthly sub for a single player RPG with coop and many are happy to pay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWImara Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) Oh, I wasn't saying that $15 per month was a lot for an MMO in general. It just surprises me that a game that's 20 years old or so is still doing it where games like LOTR are free to play. It seems like they'd have been forced to lower it in order to keep people playing by now, that's all I meant. Oh, I know you weren't complaining about it, its a standard MMOer complaint though. And yeah I hear ya, regarding how impressive it is that those games are still making $$. Personally I don't have as much against the F2P model as others do. Two of the games I play (LotRO and CO) went free to play after I bought lifetime subscriptions, on one hand it sucked, on the other I get monthy free points and the player base is bigger/better than it was in the past. I find it interesting that all the new MMO players keep saying that MMOs have evolved. Really? All the new MMOs go F2P with 2 years. You have EQ1 which is just going F2P. And yet the new MMOs have evolved.... Evolved into what? Devs figured out that they can charge a monthly sub for a single player RPG with coop and many are happy to pay. Games definitely have evolved, they've changed dramatically, in some ways for better, in other ways for worse. I don't think the single player RPG comparison is reasonable, despite its popularity among online opinionators. MMOs would never be as popular as they are now if they'd kept to their old model. They are more accessible to people, and that is a good thing. Niche games are still out there. Edited January 31, 2012 by SWImara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWImara Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 What stops me from fully enjoying the world is the mechanics of the game. PvP in old days were world PvP, these days it's warzones and battlegrounds. Yes you will have maybe 1-2 other that are around, but mostly it will be low levels and they simply do not bring a challenge to the table hence making world PvP pointless. Looking at the mechanics for PvP in SWTOR you have Ilum and you have warzones, when it comes instances most of those are accessible from the imperial or republic fleet so no reason to go out in the world unless you are looking for something specific. Old days all the stuff you wanted to do wasn't at your doorstep, these days it is. And that is what creates the feeling of a static non living world. majority of players will stay at the fleet doing instances or PvP as it has the easiest access to it. That was the beauty with the older games, even WoW had this that you had to travel to areas to enter raids and instances. It did make the world feel alive as you would see players around the world either on their way to a raid or a instance or simply moving from A to B. These days moving from A to B requires no effort in most MMO's. Ilum is definitely something approaching open world PvP man, people do not like that. People now want their conflicts served up to them on even teams with 0 risk and lots of reward. What other people do really shouldn't be influencing with you do. Yes most people hang out in the fleet etc., back in the day most people hung out with their guildmates since wandering around solo was a good way to lose all of your gear. As for WoW, you're right, they did have that "feature" you had to travel around the world and it could take hours to organize your team. LotRO had this "feature" too and is just now addressing it, that really isn't enjoyable for people man. They hate it. Even in SWTOR people complain that it is too hard to organize a team of your friends and do things. I think in part what you might be unhappy about is the move to a more casual style of gaming. I can empathize with you to a degree, but basically if we were still in the old hardcore days some people just wouldn't be playing. TLDR; I think your problem with new MMOs is the players. The things you disdain are the things people ask for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NRieh Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 What I really don't understand is WHY not to combine both sandbox and story-support into one piece? How come that there only may exist one or another? If only ToR was more interactive and had more non-combat ways - it could really be next to perfect. What still encourages me here - I'ts not that hard to add features to content. Yet - it's next to impossible to add real content to the features. My first "mmos" were text-based MUDs and post-by-post forum\chat things. I've been with wow since 2005. As it is now - there's nothing left exept for pure features and mechanics. You dont have a single idea of class identity, yet you can customize stuff and get a group in no time. And also you need to buy books or read sidestories to somewhat understand the plot... Personnaly I'm a "hardcore sandbox-user". "Do it yourself" was my only option to get any fun of games. Always. I dont care for gear, I care only for my own fun. If game "hits" me - I go on playing, as long as I can keep that fun for myself, using games same way I useed to use offline RPGs and books - just as a setting for some story of mine. The more "immersion points" thing can give me - the better I find it for myself. Just why can't game have both immersion and freedom (ok, illusion of freedom - I know it) at once? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agamemnon- Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Greetings all. I will add my two cents and observations. First, I've never played SWG, so anything here mentioned about that game is based solely on reviews and other's gameplay descriptions. My only real experiences with MMO's are Air Warrior 3 and Star Trek Online. I will not hijack this thread or go off topic to describ them, but needless to a three faction, winner takes all format would seem a perfect thing for a major sci-fi based conflict. Having said that, and taking into acount the intellectual property (people in STO seem to forget, in the process of making their demands, that that game is based on an intellectual property and goverend by the owners and established lore of said property), SWG type gameplay wouldn't fit into this time period. We have a wealth of books based in that time period that greatly detail the days in the life of fairly normal people or the fairly normal people the main characters run into. I wouldn't be surprised to find an interior decorator going about his bussiness, not realy caring about the relatively small insurgency the Empire is trying to squash. It's like today, people going about normalcy while militaries are engaged in operations elesewhere. SWTOR is, for all intents in purposes, WWI/Inter-war/WWII/The Phoney War/Renewed Conquest/Cold War/WWIII in space, and has practically been advertised as such. Set during a time that has little written about it in the grand Star Wars lore, two Super Powers and their proxies trying to undermind or outright destroy the other at the expense of hundreds of worlds and billions of beings. I'm not sure if any developer is going to risk SWG type MMO in a setting like this. Honestly how many of the newer generation would create a Sith Empire interior decorator, or a Republic Bantha hearder? Ultimately, times change. Just like 40 years ago, you could get away with a G rated war movie, or a slow paced adventure flick, or a comedy film without slapstick, gamers change. Many consider SWG post CU/NGE a complete failure (although it did last a while). Many younger gamers (and even some older ones) play Star Wars to have lightsaber battles, dress as Stormtroopers, shoot lighting, do Jedi mind tricks etc. The type of game SWG was really is more of a niche market nowadays. Now, warzones and warfare like AW3 (or what those described in Dark DAoC), is perfect for a setting like this, and Bioware missed the mark with that, and will have to scramble to save Illum and maybe add other planets, maybe even revamp space combat and add space based warzones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkerus Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I prefer "directed" MMOs to "open world" MMOs. I don't have the time to be sit down and carve out my own section of the galaxy. If you prefer that type of MMO I hope you find something you like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anzel Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Remember when games were made for fun and not profit? LOL no... not really. When was that exactly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moneky Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I recall chopping wood and lighting them on fire in Runescape. Fun times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supertouch Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 everyone wants a game free of danger, challenge, excitement, and aggravation. i call these people "non-gamers" despite the fact that they play for several hours a day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TirGavin Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 OP, Did you just describe Second Life? "Second Life is not a competition. There are no winners or losers in Second Life." "Oooh, there are losers ..." The only line I remember from the Office, but absolutely true. Hated that "game." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IGsChevy Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 The last thing i'm going to say is the world. It isnt massive if i can click and instantly be within a 5 minute run of anywhere in the game. i remember having to run to Freeport (EQ again) from my starting city which took like 40 minutes. The thing is, most gamers these days don't have time to spend 40 minutes running from one city to another, or running back to your corpse after you die. Things like jobs, kids, and wife aggro makes that level of time investment practically impossible. Plenty of us might only have a couple hours to play after putting the kids to bed, which we don't want to spend running from place to place without accomplishing anything of note. Bioware/EA recognizes this and designed the game to be digestible in smaller chunks in order to maintain a larger subscriber base. Would adding some sandbox elements to the game satisfy those of you looking for SWG 2.0? If so, what would you like to see implemented? And please try to mention things that can be done without having to rework entire sections of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeragu Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 everyone wants a game free of danger, challenge, excitement, and aggravation. i call these people "non-gamers" despite the fact that they play for several hours a day. Not really sure what kind of danger there is to be had in a video game. Doubt I'd play something that would endanger me. Challenge & Excitement I like. I find this game to be both. Now aggravation I will agree with you on. No way I'm paying a subscription to be aggravated. Now if your the type that like to aggravate people then I can see you won't like this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kourathi Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 via leveling 2 toons i came to the sad realization that leveling is damned liner during early levels and it gets to the point where its just painful to trudge through corridored maps and 'heroic' areas which are just to frequent and I believe a cheap way of having to avvoid creating different mob types etc...i wont start on the self healing mobs either...yeesh I'm all for sandbox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goretzu Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 via leveling 2 toons i came to the sad realization that leveling is damned liner during early levels and it gets to the point where its just painful to trudge through corridored maps and 'heroic' areas which are just to frequent and I believe a cheap way of having to avvoid creating different mob types etc...i wont start on the self healing mobs either...yeesh I'm all for sandbox. Yeah, somethign that does become very apparent, very quickly with alts is there is only one path. Earlier games like EQ1, DAoC, even WoW gave you multiple levelling paths. SWTOR there is only one, you can just miss some of it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
talligan Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 via leveling 2 toons i came to the sad realization that leveling is damned liner during early levels and it gets to the point where its just painful to trudge through corridored maps and 'heroic' areas which are just to frequent and I believe a cheap way of having to avvoid creating different mob types etc...i wont start on the self healing mobs either...yeesh I'm all for sandbox. I did strike me last night while I was running through Nar Shaddaa that the all of the areas were brutally linear and very confined. Does this open up at all during the leveling process? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lagerale Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 ^^^ I recall twinking, power leveling, I remember killing mob after mob after mob for EXP day in and day out. I remember there were only a few quests (gnoll fangs, Crushbone belts, greater lightstones) that were the only things really worth turning in for quests, and those were the only quests people did until the Epic quest lines came out for your epic weapon. Other then those there were no quests. Ragefire? Cleric Epic.. what Ragefire is up? Noooooo! Make it stop!! Don't speak of EQ epic quests.. they shall not be mentioned again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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