SWTOR: Theme-park MMO design. End of the road?

[GalacticKegger]

Sandbox MMO's dominated the market until WoW.. UO and EQ were very sandboxy, each in their own ways. Then SWG came along - sandboxy in an entirely different and great way.

 

Then WOW came along and brought all the casuals into the MMO-verse. These "casuals" just want to be able to log on for 30-60 minutes at a time, see a lot of progress in their level bar, never die, not have to deal with any in-depth crafting, and be able to solo everything so they don't have to waste any of their precious time looking for a group or talking to anybody.

CASUAL [kazh-oo-uhl] adjective: seeming or tending to be indifferent to what is happening. Not serious.

 

Some "casual" players (possibly even many) are ex-hardcores who burned out on the click-n-go loot piñata race for item level supremacy being a 2nd full-time job. No more grinding 20+ dailies and heroics. No more farming 2 nights a week to support raids. No more 4 hour wipe nights 3 times a week with multiple back-to-back 6 hour boss grinds on the weekends.

 

Casuals. They still have viable skills and can hold their own in a fair fight. They excel in team environments and have zero tolerance for attitudes. Their perfectionist edge is gone because they chose to let it go. They bask in the heat of battle but have no desire to fight an entire war. They play to win - just not at all costs. When they pat you on the back, you can add it to your resumé. And when they drink, they drink Dos Equis. Stay thirsty my friends . . .

 

I can say this because I am one of them. I'm a recovered hardcore. I'm a casual and I'm proud of it:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWH1jEgiO0w

Edited February 17, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[JeremyDale]

CASUAL [kazh-oo-uhl] adjective: seeming or tending to be indifferent to what is happening. Not serious.

 

Some "casual" players (possibly even many) are ex-hardcores who burned out on the click-n-go loot piñata race for item level supremacy being a 2nd full-time job. No more grinding 20+ dailies and heroics. No more farming 2 nights a week to support raids. No more 4 hour wipe nights 3 times a week with multiple back-to-back 6 hour boss grinds on the weekends.

 

Casuals. They still have viable skills and can hold their own in a fair fight. They excel in team environments and have zero tolerance for attitudes. Their perfectionist edge is gone because they chose to let it go. They bask in the heat of battle but have no desire to fight an entire war. They play to win - just not at all costs. When they pat you on the back, you can add it to your resumé. And when they drink, they drink Dos Equis. Stay thirsty my friends . . .

 

I can say this because I am one of them. I'm a recovered hardcore. I'm a casual and I'm proud of it:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWH1j...30801732670E76

 

Reading these forums has taught me at least one thing Galactic. And that is that everyone has their own ideas about what Casual and Hardcore gamer actaully means.

 

Until there is an official gaming dictionary introduced and a single defintion is agreed upon - it's just semantics 101. Why I don't even use the terms anymore. It's jsut pointless, and you may as well be speaking in chineese.

[daddymoofle]

...Some "casual" players (possibly even many) are ex-hardcores who burned out on the click-n-go loot piñata race for item level supremacy being a 2nd full-time job. No more grinding 20+ dailies and heroics. No more farming 2 nights a week to support raids. No more 4 hour wipe nights 3 times a week with multiple back-to-back 6 hour boss grinds on the weekends...

 

I really like that description - that's how I usually describe my gaming as well.

[GalacticKegger]

Reading these forums has taught me at least one thing Galactic. And that is that everyone has their own ideas about what Casual and Hardcore gamer actaully means.

 

Until there is an official gaming dictionary introduced and a single defintion is agreed upon - it's just semantics 101. Why I don't even use the terms anymore. It's jsut pointless, and you may as well be speaking in chineese.

There was no point. It was a single person's casual opinion and one I hoped some might find entertaining. Edited February 17, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[JeremyDale]

There was no point. It was a single person's casual opinion and one I hoped some might find entertaining.

 

Fair enough ^^

[GalacticKegger]

Fair enough ^^

What a great idea for a new thread ... Thank you for the inspiration!

[JeremyDale]

What a great idea for a new thread ... Thank you for the inspiration!

 

lol

 

I made a thread about this over a month ago and it debased into a warzone between both factions, so I hope you have better luck.

[MithurElb]

I miss Ultima ONLINE

 

 

There were no levels, instead you leveled skills. You got to choose 7 skills and each skill capped at 100

 

When my skills were all 100 I was

 

1. A Real Estate Agent for the entire server

2. Was an interior designer for people's homes

3. Was a treasure hunter

4. Was a bounty hunter

5. Was a miner

6. Ran my own vendor mall

7. Dungon Crawled

8. Was a house flipper

9. Was a custom hiome builder

10. Was a fisherman

11. Made the best armor in the game and sold it at my vendor mall

12. Was a rare item collector and ran a museum

13. Was a daily, weekly, monthly, rare item camper

14. Was a player killer ((I had two characters))

15. Was a house decay camper

16. Was a gardener and grew plants and sold them, some rare plants made a ton of money

17. Was an artifact collector when they were added in.

18. Was a Tamer that tamed dragons and bests and sold them to other tamers

 

 

 

 

 

In SWTOR I

 

1. Raids/flashpoints ((The same as dungon crawl))

2. PVP ((The same as being a bounty hunter))

 

Now you tell me what is wrong with this picture. Crafting is pointless in this game by the way.

 

Everything listed on the ultima online list I did on ONE character except Player killed. I did that on my off time ((When I had any))

 

There was so much to do when my toon was complete that I never got bored. Looking at that list and then looking at SWTOR.........kinda seems a little one sided to me.

 

I said this in another sandbox thread here.

 

Not in Ultima Online, but in Ryzom (Witch I keep playing, and keep the suscription model), I really miss being an influence in the world.

 

In Ryzom I negociated with other guilds to switch sides in the middle of a outpost battle. I knew zones better than anyone and people seeks for me to find some zone bosses and some resources spots.

 

As I said, I feel pity for the gamers who never has know the feel of your actions impacting a whole server, with all their players.

 

Most people get now are sad simulations.I mean the real thing.

[Dyvid]

Okay we get it, you want a sandbox like MMO's of old but what does that even mean? What exactly do you want?! What kinda of element do you want to add to the game?

 

I've played SWG and all I remember was getting mission from a terminal, maybe hooking up with a group and the pvp raids on Thead. This makes be ask the question as to why you can't do that in SWTOR on a RP-PVP server?

Edited February 17, 2012 by Dyvid

[MithurElb]

And sand boxes don't? In EVE you spend more time farming ISK than you do anything else. PvP is an ISK sink. You either have to have an alt to spam lvl 4 missions or incursions or run anoms, all of which take way too much time. That takes way longer than grinding. I'm not fan of the grind system either, but sand box MMOs are infinitely worse at grinding.

 

There is a difference: In a sandbox you grind for what you want, and how you want.

 

you have many ways of grind. Keep changing it only is a big relieve. Also, you grind for you objective. Your chose, sometimes unique in your server.

 

In TP you grind the same that all people, for the same objectives in the same linear path.

 

If you can choose do or not do something, that makes that something a lot more fun.

Edited February 17, 2012 by MithurElb

[roberticvs]

Excellent post, ActionPrinny. Arguably one of the most intelligent criticisms I've seen leveled at TOR in recent weeks.

 

I happen to concur with you on the social aspect (lacking) in the game. I think a simple and immediate solution would be giving the players some social skills, and introducing certain elements into the cantinas, and thus give each planet a social hub. I've suggested it in another (and lengthy) thread of my own, that pazaak tables would be a good start.

[ActionPrinny]

Got that far, started to laugh and had to stop reading. The development team here at the office had a good chuckle, thanks for that...

 

Back to code I go.

 

I would ask you what you think was majorly flawed about my analysis, oh great veteran developer, but obviously you never read it. Thanks for your contribution to the thread. I'm sure you're a great asset to your team.

 

(Besides the EVE part at the end, I admit that is a pipedream that will most likely never happen)

[MithurElb]

I would ask you what you think was majorly flawed about my analysis, oh great veteran developer, but obviously you never read it. Thanks for your contribution to the thread. I'm sure you're a great asset to your team.

 

(Besides the EVE part at the end, I admit that is a pipedream that will most likely never happen)

 

Don't worry about that. Coders are the most narrow minded people I've ever know. And I know it, I lead a team of then.

[ActionPrinny]

On a more relevant note about how players consume MMOs nowadays:

 

People have this perception that if they aren't max level, or at the current raid tier, etc. that they are "behind" and "missing out" on things.

 

For example: In WoW, if people joined the game later in it's life, chances are they never even bothered to go back and experience any of the earlier raids. They may have started with Ulduar or something, and never went to see Black Temple, or AQ40, etc. Their reply is "well that's old" .... but they haven't even done it yet.

 

In EQ1's heyday you had guilds spread across a wide range of content. I quit during Gates of Discord expansion. But you still had some guilds running raiding content from Luclin (few expansions before Gates) while the bleeding edge guilds were in Plane of Time (last raid zone out of about 6-8 in Planes of Power expansion) and dabbling in the new Gates of Discord raids.

 

(Although they kinda messed with guilds at that point, because it took around 80 people to clear Plane of Time, and then Gates introduced instancing and hard player caps of like 35 people. So suddenly you had to split into two raid groups and leave some people out)

[DarthMaulUK]

MMO's for the first year are always LONG TERM plans... When WOW first came out they were advertising siege weapons, honor systems and more... It took them awhile to get the finished product out. It is one of the enjoyable attributes of the MMORPG games, they are constantly updating, changing and adding new content.

 

..

 

That was fine - back in 2004. People can argue that WoW didnt have XXXX and introduced many new features. But its now 2012.

 

Right now SWTOR has just too many design flaws(not bugs) - the GTN, the UI, target tabbing, Companion mission bugs that take up half the screen during combat, so many limited planets - the list is endless.

 

Its like taking a giant step BACK. Hell, SWG had a great UI without the need to perform a 'Super combo' of left and right clicks to get your inventory up after it closes thanks to a mission pop up from your companion.

 

The 'light show' with the cooldown for me, was the final straw. A problem that Bioware themselves created. The cooldowns didnt need changing but they did and now had to work out a new idea, instead of working on either fixing the UI or making other improvements.

 

Others here are right. So much of Biowares plans are 'for the future' - but when? I simply will not pay £9 a month to wait for them to fix the UI. With so many MMOs out there, you'd think Bioware would have done their research but either they did and EA cut it all short or they didnt.

 

Such a shame because this game could and should have been a true great but for me, it doesnt have any kind of lasting appeal

[DarthKhaos]

That was fine - back in 2004. People can argue that WoW didnt have XXXX and introduced many new features. But its now 2012.

 

Right now SWTOR has just too many design flaws(not bugs) - the GTN, the UI, target tabbing, Companion mission bugs that take up half the screen during combat, so many limited planets - the list is endless.

 

Its like taking a giant step BACK. Hell, SWG had a great UI without the need to perform a 'Super combo' of left and right clicks to get your inventory up after it closes thanks to a mission pop up from your companion.

 

The 'light show' with the cooldown for me, was the final straw. A problem that Bioware themselves created. The cooldowns didnt need changing but they did and now had to work out a new idea, instead of working on either fixing the UI or making other improvements.

 

Others here are right. So much of Biowares plans are 'for the future' - but when? I simply will not pay £9 a month to wait for them to fix the UI. With so many MMOs out there, you'd think Bioware would have done their research but either they did and EA cut it all short or they didnt.

 

Such a shame because this game could and should have been a true great but for me, it doesnt have any kind of lasting appeal

Your first line is so much fail it's not even funny. This game had a whole lot less problems at launch than stuff that came out 2 years ago.

 

Design flaws sure, but that's a human choices. Someone thought it was good. YOU thought it was not. 1/2 the complaints about the UI is BS complaints because people are not used to the different placement of elements and either find it hard to adapt or just don't want to. Seriously by the time BioWare got player feedback about the UI they just didn't have enough time to make the changes.

 

The cooldown thing I laugh at. You got a problem with THAT? I haven't had a problem with it. Does that make me wrong because I disagree with you?

 

You ask when. They told you when. Hell it's month two. I wonder if you ever created something in your life fore less code something. Check it you don't want to spend your £9 a month while they deal with things don't. People love to complain about what they think BioWare did wrong and refuse to acknowledge the good. And since SW:G was the greatest of greatest if people had stuck around and gave them the info they needed to get their act together the game may of been so strong you'd see more sandbox games. Maybe not.

 

A post like yours does nothing to help. You offered absolutely no suggestions as to HOW to have a better design like where to shift a button or a better layout.

 

The guy that did http://i.imgur.com/GC5SR.jpg is someone who is trying to make the game better. YOU are just trying to make the game look bad.

[Goretzu]

That was fine - back in 2004. People can argue that WoW didnt have XXXX and introduced many new features. But its now 2012.

 

Right now SWTOR has just too many design flaws(not bugs) - the GTN, the UI, target tabbing, Companion mission bugs that take up half the screen during combat, so many limited planets - the list is endless.

 

Its like taking a giant step BACK. Hell, SWG had a great UI without the need to perform a 'Super combo' of left and right clicks to get your inventory up after it closes thanks to a mission pop up from your companion.

 

The 'light show' with the cooldown for me, was the final straw. A problem that Bioware themselves created. The cooldowns didnt need changing but they did and now had to work out a new idea, instead of working on either fixing the UI or making other improvements.

 

Others here are right. So much of Biowares plans are 'for the future' - but when? I simply will not pay £9 a month to wait for them to fix the UI. With so many MMOs out there, you'd think Bioware would have done their research but either they did and EA cut it all short or they didnt.

 

Such a shame because this game could and should have been a true great but for me, it doesnt have any kind of lasting appeal

 

 

This is a big issue.

 

If the develop at the rate Trion did for Rift, then there can't really be any complaints.

 

If they develop at the rate they (Bioware) did for Warhammer Online in the last 20 months when they controlled it, that's a different kettle of fish. Promises (and not very big ones) that took over 12 months to be implemented.