I don't blame WoW, just MMOs in general.

[ChrisMun]

I'll try to keep this short and to the point. But after leveling two characters to 50 in SWTOR and looking over what I did in a weeks time in the game, I found myself doing the same routine of things as I would in other MMOs I've played. I feel like I've made myself out to be a drone to the game. It was this way with WoW, Rift, Aion, etc. Raid, farm mats, PvP, etc etc etc.

 

Honestly, the thing that kept me going was the people I met and interacted with MMOs. SWTOR has these instanced areas that, to me, kept me from meeting new folk and the likes. I know plenty of other people who go through this slump. They take time off then come back, etc. But you fall right back into the same patterns and you lose interest in the game. I really enjoyed SWTOR, as I did with other MMOs, but it's time they start to evolve. When that will happen I'm not sure. There's heavy talk with GW2 in this regard but I remain a skeptic because it being "too good to be true".

 

I love my BioWare products and the next big one I'll be purchasing is Mass Effect 3. Wish you guys didn't force the game through Origin only. Meh. In any event, I hope the SWTOR community would open their minds to the idea that the MMO state of gaming has grown stale and boring. We have our few gems where things are done differently but at the end of the day, it's the same stale activity we go through. Don't blame WoW. Don't blame other MMOs. Blame the MMO itself.

[HalusW]

Very true, but as WoW is the biggest it gets the biggest share of the blame. I'm not confident that anyone would invest time/money in a new MMO that didn't try to emulate WoW. This just isn't an mmo thing, how many companies are innovating any kind of product? Apple and Bose come to mind but one had a CEO for life and the other isnt publically traded. Why should a CEO care what happens to their company 2 years from now when his bonus is tied to this years stock price?

 

Door is wide open for some Indy developer to clean up on the mmo market...but that said, maybe it's just the end of an era.

[gjozefi]

The whole concept of MMOs is an illusion. The role playing through an avatar in another open ended universe with limitless possibilities and always having something to do and new places to discover, eventually reaches its limit. There will come a point where the player will catch up with developers content roll out and 'beat' the game.

 

At this point in time, developers still don't have enough resources and technological tools for them to roll out new content fast enough to keep the customers satisfied and make MMO's truly what they were meant to be, a true virtual reality...without the lag and bugs and server stability issues.

[StrikeOfLight]

I blame the developers/EA.

 

For wasting 200 MILLION dollars on what we are currently paying to test for them!

[FenraelWolfmien]

Out of curiosity, what would you consider forward progress?

 

I thought Bioware took an interesting step forward with how they handled story arc content and NPC sidekicks. I'm sure a lot of people might see that as detracting from the multiplayer component but people have almost always raced to cap anyway, and the NPC system is a nice balance for solo'ing. I don't think I've really seen those done in another MMO.

 

As for Apple, they have never innovated anything. Their marketing abilities are impressive, though.

[Dirtybomb]

I blame the developers/EA.

 

For wasting 200 MILLION dollars on what we are currently paying to test for them!

 

I blame us, for continuing to pay for the game that we come to the forums and whine about. Vote with your wallets.

[Jswizzle]

MMOs have been boring for years.

 

The Old Republic is just different enough to keep me entertained.

[Andryah]

Out of curiosity, what would you consider forward progress?

 

I thought Bioware took an interesting step forward with how they handled story arc content and NPC sidekicks. I'm sure a lot of people might see that as detracting from the multiplayer component but people have almost always raced to cap anyway, and the NPC system is a nice balance for solo'ing. I don't think I've really seen those done in another MMO.

 

As for Apple, they have never innovated anything. Their marketing abilities are impressive, though.

 

/Agree.

[mallize]

Sandbox games like SWG with a great community. That's progress. The problem is that it requires removing the "I WIN" stats. People tend to want to make any number in an MMO bigger: level, valor rating, armor stats, credits.. etc etc. MMOs used to be/should be about living in a virtual world.

 

In the original SWG there were no levels. You had no idea if someone had a maxed BH tree or half of BH and half of Rifleman. So everyone felt unique. Some people crafted ONLY. That's all they did. They had beautiful shops where they could sell their wares. Their shop, and sometimes their inventory, could be totally unique. Crafting itself was almost an entire game.

 

Space was amazing. Your ship was as customizable as your player. You could go anywhere. You could PvP, PvE, MINE or just sight see. It was sweet having guild meetings on a Sorosub with the black hole in Kessel as the back drop.

 

Player housing and player ran cities were brilliant ideas. I think they needed a better way to handle abandoned structures but over all this made SWG feel more immersive than any game I've ever played.

 

So... add raids and battle grounds to the original SWG and THAT would be my dream game.

[Meldwyn]

Agreed!

 

The MMO genre might be done for me. Unfortunately, I bought three months of SW game play and now find myself wondering how I can find something of interest to keep me logging in (so as not to waste my money more than I have already). But alas, its probably just MMO burnout.

 

GW2? Palease!! I believe that will be a disappointment to a great many players.

 

Oh, and story is great for a while... but once you hit 50 your story stops, along with all companion interaction. It becomes just another end game grind. Ungood.

 

Rolling another character class is interesting at first, but then it seems to fall in to the same patterns as any other story in the game. On my lvl 30 SI, I now space bar almost everything (I didn't space bar one conversation on my lvl 50 JKG, but he sits in moth balls now).

Edited February 1, 2012 by Meldwyn

[uziforyou]

The whole concept of MMOs is an illusion. The role playing through an avatar in another open ended universe with limitless possibilities and always having something to do and new places to discover, eventually reaches its limit. There will come a point where the player will catch up with developers content roll out and 'beat' the game.

 

At this point in time, developers still don't have enough resources and technological tools for them to roll out new content fast enough to keep the customers satisfied and make MMO's truly what they were meant to be, a true virtual reality...without the lag and bugs and server stability issues.

 

Maybe it's just our expectations? The 'what have you done for me lately?' mentality.

 

Or maybe it's because we live in a computer simulation ourselves a'la 'The Matrix' so MMO's hold no surprises........................true story.

 

Edit: Rather I should have said we're part of a computer simulation that is our 'universe'.

Strange idea, yes. But just look how the quantum world works and you start to see the parallels with computer simulations.

 

Am I a nut case for thinking that? Perhaps.

Edited February 1, 2012 by uziforyou

[Stinkdroid]

I blame the developers/EA.

 

For wasting 200 MILLION dollars on what we are currently paying to test for them!

 

..and this is how you cry on the interweb.

[Kabloosh]

Out of curiosity, what would you consider forward progress?

 

I thought Bioware took an interesting step forward with how they handled story arc content and NPC sidekicks. I'm sure a lot of people might see that as detracting from the multiplayer component but people have almost always raced to cap anyway, and the NPC system is a nice balance for solo'ing. I don't think I've really seen those done in another MMO.

 

As for Apple, they have never innovated anything. Their marketing abilities are impressive, though.

 

A change to the leveling/progression system in the game. Adding more unique events within the game. More investment in player ran content. Virtual reality. New combat system, preferably one that may mimic action/fighting games.

 

There are a lot of technological hurdles here though. For one computers probably can't handle most of these things such as an virtual reality world. It might still be awhile before we got something connecting to our brains similar to "The World" in the dothack series.

 

Costs gotta be through the roof too especially for unique events. This means more content and quality may take a hit for the sake of having more stuff to do which can be just as bad as having too little content.

 

A more action game based combat system, something you may see in street fighter or zelda may not work so well because of technology as well. This is where people with a great internet connection can end up with an huge advantage over those who don't which can ruin the experience for a lot. Even now that advantage exists.

 

The one thing I think MMOs should invest more in though is more player ran content. This helps get over the issue of not having enough content and not having enough to do. This is why games like Minecraft are still appealing. You can hop from server to server and be apart of something different all the time. You could also possibly hire GMs to manage events or such things as well. This is seriously an aspect of MMOs that NEEDS to be tapped into.

 

Technology has advanced a lot in 15 years. It will be interesting to see how it advances in another 15 years.

[Pengatron]

But after leveling two characters to 50 in SWTOR

 

That's half the problem with many players.

Burning through the game rapidly, then complaining there is nothing left to do.

 

This game is just over a month old and you already have two 50's?

 

Yes, in general, the MMO offerings have less player to player interactions then they did in the past. Most are built to allow solo play all the way to the max level, even though you will be missing some of the "group required" content. But that just means one should "slow down" a bit and enjoy the journey and not treat it like a "race to max level".

[Mezla]

Dunno. This is the best Bioware game I've ever played.

 

P.S. I consider BG/BG2 to be Black Isle games.

[FenraelWolfmien]

Sandbox games like SWG with a great community. That's progress. The problem is that it requires removing the "I WIN" stats. People tend to want to make any number in an MMO bigger: level, valor rating, armor stats, credits.. etc etc. MMOs used to be/should be about living in a virtual world.

 

In the original SWG there were no levels. You had no idea if someone had a maxed BH tree or half of BH and half of Rifleman. So everyone felt unique. Some people crafted ONLY. That's all they did. They had beautiful shops where they could sell their wares. Their shop, and sometimes their inventory, could be totally unique. Crafting itself was almost an entire game.

 

Space was amazing. Your ship was as customizable as your player. You could go anywhere. You could PvP, PvE, MINE or just sight see. It was sweet having guild meetings on a Sorosub with the black hole in Kessel as the back drop.

 

Player housing and player ran cities were brilliant ideas. I think they needed a better way to handle abandoned structures but over all this made SWG feel more immersive than any game I've ever played.

 

So... add raids and battle grounds to the original SWG and THAT would be my dream game.

 

You're kidding right?

 

SWG had no content. It didn't work right for the first year or so. For the first several months critical parts of the game were just not there. Ask cooks and combat medics about the recipes they could only look at because the comps just weren't in the game.

 

It had monsters standing around mindlessly or milling around aimlessly and mission terminals that sent you off to shoot at them and get credits so you could buy a gun from some guys stall in the vast, endless, empty desert of the nearest player city that three months into the game you could go knocking door to door to see if any of them were open for business, because the auction house was a sad wreck. So you could go shoot more mindless monsters milling around aimlessly.

 

Alternatively you could exploit bugs or reroll an entire class after they took away 1-shot Mind damage or your rancors or AT-ST thug squad, or watch as your Dark Troopers got mauled to death by a whomp rat as the server chugged along and shut down.

 

 

With the exception of building a house next to another house and turning an enture planet into the tidy version of a post-apoc ghost town sans burning garbage cans, I can't really think of anything you could do in SWG that you can't in TOR. Maybe building a camp outside Anchorage and having a few beers to chat with random strangers before toggling your flag on and firebombing the player run strip joint with a half dozen trapdancers.

 

 

I loved the game at the time, for what it was, but if you're going to point to a game without levels SWG would be the last one I'd look at. IMO SWG is the reason that whole concept was wrapped up and thrown in the trash. AC is still going, AFAIK.

[Lord_of_Stone]

I blame the developers/EA.

 

For wasting 200 MILLION dollars on what we are currently paying to test for them!

 

I blame MMO players, for criticizing games for:

-Not being like WoW

-Being like WoW

-Too much gearscore

-Not enough Endgame at launch

-Too many bugs

-Wasting money on "gimmicks" like voice acting

-WoWclone

-Not being able to invest 8+ hours a day on a single character doing absolutely no farming or grinding and have new content out every week

 

What I want to see:

-Players researching games before buying them

-Players understanding the term "genre" and what it implies about games found within them.

-Players appreciating story along side, and not under, gameplay

-Players understanding, sympathizing, and supporting developers in their endevour to rid their product of bugs

 

Who do I blame?

 

The traditional MMO player.

[Lord_of_Stone]

That's half the problem with many players.

Burning through the game rapidly, then complaining there is nothing left to do.

 

This game is just over a month old and you already have two 50's?

 

Yes, in general, the MMO offerings have less player to player interactions then they did in the past. Most are built to allow solo play all the way to the max level, even though you will be missing some of the "group required" content. But that just means one should "slow down" a bit and enjoy the journey and not treat it like a "race to max level".

 

I have a 50 IA and a 50 JC. IMO, theres just enough stuff to do. What people need to understand is that endgame in SWTOR is built kinda to be on the sideline. I honestly dont see myself enjoying this game by playing one single character 4+ hours a day between content updates.

 

Rather, I am working on 8 different characters, concentrating on one at a time, while logging in to my level 50s to do a HM FP, some pvp, or the occassional operation. Thats how endgame should be played in SWTOR. You should be spending the vast majority of your time playing characters 1-49, and if you arent you will be bored soon. Not everyone will enjoy that though. A lot of MMO players thrive on endgame. They are the ones disappointed.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Lord_of_Stone

[FenraelWolfmien]

A change to the leveling/progression system in the game. Adding more unique events within the game. More investment in player ran content. Virtual reality. New combat system, preferably one that may mimic action/fighting games.

 

I'm down with more unique events but not sure what you mean by change to progression. Do you mean pacing, or a change to the actual mechanics? In either case while I won't argue possibilities for improvement I don't see how that qualifies as forward progress in the general MMO theme since there has been a large variety in everything you've said in various games.

 

 

There are a lot of technological hurdles here though. For one computers probably can't handle most of these things such as an virtual reality world. It might still be awhile before we got something connecting to our brains similar to "The World" in the dothack series.

 

Costs gotta be through the roof too especially for unique events. This means more content and quality may take a hit for the sake of having more stuff to do which can be just as bad as having too little content.

 

It depends on what you're asking about here. It sounds like what you want constitutes true or near-true AI, which is flat out not available. We have yet (to my knowledge) to teach computers how to identify and derive concepts symbolically by adaptive reasoning. Anyway, I remember a game somewhere back when that had really smart mobs and everybody hated it because the mob healer would constantly use LOS interrupts to keep ranged DPS from killing it while it healed its buddy mobs, and that never made it out of beta. Was it AC2? I forget.

 

 

 

A more action game based combat system, something you may see in street fighter or zelda may not work so well because of technology as well. This is where people with a great internet connection can end up with an huge advantage over those who don't which can ruin the experience for a lot. Even now that advantage exists.

 

The one thing I think MMOs should invest more in though is more player ran content. This helps get over the issue of not having enough content and not having enough to do. This is why games like Minecraft are still appealing. You can hop from server to server and be apart of something different all the time. You could also possibly hire GMs to manage events or such things as well. This is seriously an aspect of MMOs that NEEDS to be tapped into.

 

Technology has advanced a lot in 15 years. It will be interesting to see how it advances in another 15 years.

 

Well, again, these things have been done. They have not attracted a very large audience. It may be a part of the evolutionary process and they can be improved on but it's not forward progress unless they take what's already been done and move forward with it.

[Lord_of_Stone]

A change to the leveling/progression system in the game. Adding more unique events within the game. More investment in player ran content. Virtual reality. New combat system, preferably one that may mimic action/fighting games.

 

There are a lot of technological hurdles here though. For one computers probably can't handle most of these things such as an virtual reality world. It might still be awhile before we got something connecting to our brains similar to "The World" in the dothack series.

 

Costs gotta be through the roof too especially for unique events. This means more content and quality may take a hit for the sake of having more stuff to do which can be just as bad as having too little content.

 

A more action game based combat system, something you may see in street fighter or zelda may not work so well because of technology as well. This is where people with a great internet connection can end up with an huge advantage over those who don't which can ruin the experience for a lot. Even now that advantage exists.

 

The one thing I think MMOs should invest more in though is more player ran content. This helps get over the issue of not having enough content and not having enough to do. This is why games like Minecraft are still appealing. You can hop from server to server and be apart of something different all the time. You could also possibly hire GMs to manage events or such things as well. This is seriously an aspect of MMOs that NEEDS to be tapped into.

 

Technology has advanced a lot in 15 years. It will be interesting to see how it advances in another 15 years.

 

You want a completely different game.

 

Let me guess, your just here wating for GW2?

[supertouch]

blame game designers who base the mmo standard on wow's popularity.

[HavenAE]

Out of curiosity, what would you consider forward progress?

 

I thought Bioware took an interesting step forward with how they handled story arc content and NPC sidekicks. I'm sure a lot of people might see that as detracting from the multiplayer component but people have almost always raced to cap anyway, and the NPC system is a nice balance for solo'ing. I don't think I've really seen those done in another MMO.

 

As for Apple, they have never innovated anything. Their marketing abilities are impressive, though.

 

True but the fact that so much focus is placed on story and companions severely limits their game. The solo heavy story arc kind of works against the multi-player aspect and while it's possible to play without companions it isn't efficient, and companions tend to take the role where other players could have.

 

More things that will limit this game in future development regarding story:

 

Voice acting. Now I agree voice acting is a very awesome way to present quests however, voices are class based not race based, as a result you won't see a whole lot of iconic Star Wars races added. At least not without some very extensive work. What you can expect to see in the future is basically only those races that can speak basic and don't have an accent or some kind of vocal difference in how they speak basic.

 

Content. All content has to be created months if not a year or more in advance (primarily because of voice overs), so any changes to the industry regarding content will always have a staleness on it. Now you may say that content doesn't really change all that much over a year. That is usually the case, but we could also see some huge revolution in how content is presented in the future, and if that happens Bioware will ALWAYS be behind the competition.

 

 

 

 

the OP has the long of it though. this is how MMOs work. There has to always be some kind of carrot on a stick. There has to always be a treadmill of some type. MMOs can only offer an experience in standard, they can't give you an epic adventure while not giving me one, otherwise why would I pay? While some things can be unique overall they are also always the same. Structure is necessary to create a uniform experience to all players, that is how MMOs work.

 

As for GW2, I love how people have put this upcoming game on a pedestal like it will be some amazingly different type of game where the normal rules of MMOs can't touch it. But the fact is, it will be exactly the same. There will be a carrot, there will be a hampster wheel and everything will be simultaneously unique and uniform. The only different thing GW2 might do, is put a different coat of paint on it and tell you it's something different when it's really just the same ole, but again what MMO doesn't try to do that, so again it's going to be just like every other MMO.

 

Innovation? Let me show you what innovation gets.

 

Rift's innovation was dynamic events, their Rifts and invasions. They were cool at first and had a unique feel to them. It was actually quite innovative, until you realize one thing. It's clockwork. Rifts appear in the same spot every time, sometimes they have different creatures pop out most of the time they don't. It got old quick.

 

Star Wars' innovation was story and voice overs. Now I'm not going to lie, I enjoy the story here, at least for the first 30 or so levels, and it's a nice change. I also can't remember how I stomached questing in games where the quest wasn't 100% voiced. Well I can remember but I remember I also didn't give a rats *** what the quest was about.

 

However it does get old. On my Assassin play through I loved the story until around level 30-35 then I realized exactly how it was going to end and there were no twists or turns in it. On my warrior same thing it was enjoyable up until a certain point and then it was just , "Bleeeeeh".

 

Tera Online's innovation, will be collision detection and aim based targeting. Well I can already tell you from Tera AND other games who have included aim based targeting that it isn't exactly the most functional or enjoyable thing to have to do in an MMO. I predict people will start off saying "Oh this is cool, I actually have to aim!" then an hour later mumble "This is *********** stupid, can't I just tab instead?"

 

WoW's innovation. It has none, nothing in WoW is an original idea, except for a few bad ones, like the LFD tool. WoW's real innovation was marketing and popular culture assimilation and that's really the only reason that game became as successful as it did. Trust me it started out like every other MMO before it and every other MMO after it, the difference is in how they forced the game upon pop culture.

 

Blade and Soul's innovation... I've played Blade and Soul too, albeit a hacked, private server version. It looked promising and it's innovation is actually advanced movement and combat systems. Well it falls short of it's mark ultimately. The advacned movement is very cumbersome and difficult to control while also managing abilities, and if you think TOR's combat is unresponsive wait until you get a try for Blade and Soul, it's like drying to dryhump a wet sock while wearing a straight jacket.

 

Now people will try blade and soul and they'll say "HEY! This is *********** awesome look at how I can move! Look at how I can fight." But it's too far fetched and not developed enough from traditional MMO combat that eventually it'll get bashed into oblivion as well.

 

 

You see a trend here?

 

What is innovation in an MMO?

 

Here's the answer, it's a gimmick. True lasting innovation in this industry isn't reinventing the wheel. It's improving the wheel. You don't need some brand new concept or dynamic to your game for it to be innovative and in fact those brand new never before seen dynamics to an MMO have proven time and time again that it's the one thing you probably shouldn't do. It's about improving the systems that are the foundation to the genre.

 

Innovation should be about expanding choices and options for things that already exist.

 

Like questing

Endgame

PvP

Combat (but not a total redesign)

Guild systems

class progression

alternate advancements

 

innovation lies in IMPROVING those things that already exist, not redesigning them or coming up with something 100% new. Because more often than not the new is going to gimmick out and be a joke a few months later.

 

 

 

 

As for Apple.

 

Apple is overpriced garbage. Or actually they just sell the same garbage as everyone else but put a higher price tag on it. then they tote how they have better security and system stability... But the only reason that is true is because Apple product don't matter. When Apple computers and gadgets start being used for real world stuff that matters i.e. banking, government and military uses, R&D, ect.. then we'll see how much more stable and secure their **** really is.

[el_pinko_grande]

You're kidding right?

 

SWG had no content. It didn't work right for the first year or so. For the first several months critical parts of the game were just not there. Ask cooks and combat medics about the recipes they could only look at because the comps just weren't in the game.

 

It had monsters standing around mindlessly or milling around aimlessly and mission terminals that sent you off to shoot at them and get credits so you could buy a gun from some guys stall in the vast, endless, empty desert of the nearest player city that three months into the game you could go knocking door to door to see if any of them were open for business, because the auction house was a sad wreck. So you could go shoot more mindless monsters milling around aimlessly.

 

Alternatively you could exploit bugs or reroll an entire class after they took away 1-shot Mind damage or your rancors or AT-ST thug squad, or watch as your Dark Troopers got mauled to death by a whomp rat as the server chugged along and shut down.

 

 

With the exception of building a house next to another house and turning an enture planet into the tidy version of a post-apoc ghost town sans burning garbage cans, I can't really think of anything you could do in SWG that you can't in TOR. Maybe building a camp outside Anchorage and having a few beers to chat with random strangers before toggling your flag on and firebombing the player run strip joint with a half dozen trapdancers.

 

 

I loved the game at the time, for what it was, but if you're going to point to a game without levels SWG would be the last one I'd look at. IMO SWG is the reason that whole concept was wrapped up and thrown in the trash. AC is still going, AFAIK.

 

Thank you. I loved SWG while I played it, but it was a hot mess at launch. My poor pikeman was forced to use crappy weapons for the first couple months of the game because the metal to craft the high-level ones didn't spawn on my server for a loooong time. Did they even have quests at the beginning of the game? Most of my memories are of randomly running around and killing whichever critters were dropping good hides and occasionally venturing onto the higher level planets with a big group just to check them out. And man, was that game unbalanced at launch. I remember staring enviously at my Taras Kasi friends as they tore through mobs I could barely touch.

[Mephismo]

I blame MMO players, for criticizing games for:

-Not being like WoW

-Being like WoW

-Too much gearscore

-Not enough Endgame at launch

-Too many bugs

-Wasting money on "gimmicks" like voice acting

-WoWclone

-Not being able to invest 8+ hours a day on a single character doing absolutely no farming or grinding and have new content out every week

 

What I want to see:

-Players researching games before buying them

-Players understanding the term "genre" and what it implies about games found within them.

-Players appreciating story along side, and not under, gameplay

-Players understanding, sympathizing, and supporting developers in their endevour to rid their product of bugs

 

Who do I blame?

 

The traditional MMO player.

 

It’s a big ask

The thing, is that players like the OP don’t understand the problem is the way they play the game and not the game itself .

[Lord_of_Stone]

 

What is innovation in an MMO?

 

Here's the answer, it's a gimmick. True lasting innovation in this industry isn't reinventing the wheel. It's improving the wheel. You don't need some brand new concept or dynamic to your game for it to be innovative and in fact those brand new never before seen dynamics to an MMO have proven time and time again that it's the one thing you probably shouldn't do. It's about improving the systems that are the foundation to the genre.

 

 

Kudos to you. I'm glad someone put this into words.

 

I disagree with some of your post I'll have to say, mostly about the focus on characters and story, and Biowares ability to produce content. 1.1 was a decently sized content update seen only a month after release. Also, story is the biggest reason that I play not only SWTOR, but almost every other videogame from any other genre. I even enjoy Halo because of its story.

 

Regardless, way to go for summing up innovation. Its something the traditional MMO player should read.