Ghostcrawler offers some food for thought....

[Zakua]

Btw, just to provide a bit of "balance" to the discussion, Massively has just published an article detailing an interview they had with James Ohlen in the last day or so:

 

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/03/13/epic-in-scope-swtors-james-ohlen-explains-plans-for-the-future/

 

For all his little "faux pas" prior to launch, I actually enjoy hearing Jame's words. And he offers a bit of honesty in this article:

 

 

 

It's good to hear that James can openly admit where he feels Bioware went wrong.

 

Of course, that shouldn't automatically let Bioware "off the hook" so to speak, in regards to past, present and future issues. But nevertheless, his words offer a tiny bit of hope in regards to the future of SWTOR.

 

Interesting, I read the interview and I like to see they are paying attention.

 

At the same time I'm a little put off and scared at some of his remarks.

I dont want E-sports in SWTOR...that means more off world combat instanced pvp..furthering my detachment form the SW enviroment.

 

War Zones are fine, add more. We play them because Ilum crate circle gets old fast. I mean sure they are fun with some level of entertainment but Huttball is not my idea of how I want to spend my fantasy SW alt life yet I'm in HB matches 80% of the time.

 

Some of this revovles around the fact that Pubs are out numbered. We had some good fights on Ilum and it was waaay funner then the other pvp options. The long inbetweens that relegated us lvl 50s to a crate fest pushed us away. Get in, get ur crates, get out (and hope that there may be some combat).

 

I understand the Group Finder thing, not my cup of tea so I wont comment on it. I dont mean it in that I dont like other players lol...I just dont PVE much and GF seems to cater to that more.

 

They dont need to spoon feed us more...Get us out of fleet and checking all these planets out, give us a reason to go get in a fight or find that rare drop in some dark spot of Voss.

 

Anyways, good stuff guys I am enjoying this thread alot, keep it coming.

[Incendergel]

The BW news bit is rather funny.

 

They didn't expect or anticipate PvP to be as popular. Mistake #1. Even in WoW it was popular. The second mistake is that they say it is widely popular becuase the gear is easy to obtain and has zero intro cost. Somewhat true but in regards to gear it wasn't originally deisgned to be easy. You guys patched it and made it so.

 

So we now are at the crossroads. On one hand PvP is too popular and wasn't anticipated. On the other hand we have all this PvE content but no one is using it because the cost to enter is too high... Anyone else see a problem here?

 

PvP wasn't originally easy. You patched it in so that now anyone and everyone can be a battlemaster. Furthermore, you made the gear obtainable because everyone was crying about fresh 50's getting insta-gibbed due to the dispairity between someone just reaching 50 vs those who have been for over a month!!!!

 

Here is the kicker. To get gear in PvP you had to do warzones, you had to do dailies. Both added valor. You play at your pace, you gain gear. Enough said.

 

PvE you had to do dailies. You had to build your gear set. You had to run said instances to learn the fights. To do the next level of the enounter you had to use the gear from the previous one to increase your healing or pvp output...boss dead.

 

Time and education in. Reward out.

 

LFG is a good idea and it will help that side of the game out. But to be perfectly Frank there is a large subset of the player base who actually want to engage in a form of PvP which isn't confined to a small box/map. Also, don't blame the interest in PvP because it is easier to start than that of PvE encounters. Both have the same startup cost. The only difference now is that you made PvP too easy and left the PvE side alone.

 

PvP astonishment - please. You knew it was going to be popular. What subscriber playing this game doesn't want to wield a freaking LIGHTSABER and murder people!!!!!!

[DaMongrel]

Ghostcrawler and his ruining of the game was my single biggest reason for totally abandoning WoW after 6 years of play,and ill never return to the game while he still functions there.IMHO he is nearly single handedly responsible for the downward spiral that game has encountered over the last few years and i dont see his influence doing anything better for the game in the future.Let him continue to ruin WoW,lets just hope his ****-eyed ideas and philosophies stay away from this game so we can move foward.

[Sirsri]

 

They dont need to spoon feed us more...Get us out of fleet and checking all these planets out, give us a reason to go get in a fight or find that rare drop in some dark spot of Voss.

 

As other games learned, that causes no end of problems. If it's rare there's a fight over who gets it, when. If it's not rare (instanced) it has to be hard to get, or everyone just has it, and you have to design your content around people having it.

 

The rated PVP system ticked a lot of people off in wow. I can't imagine it working out any better here, but then it's no fun to go into PVP against the same premades over and over, and lose over and over because they have a sensible group comp with VOIP and your group doesn't even have healers. I don't really have a good answer on this one other than just prevent premades or queue premades separately.

 

My biggest gripe is that to do a lot of things waste a huge amount of my time just getting there, and then waiting on people on loading screens. It really doesn't matter if 90% of people have 15 second load screens and one person has 4 minute ones. I still have to wait 4 minutes because we can't do 8 person content with 7 people. That and showstopping bugs that they don't seem to fix, or fixes that aren't actually fixes are enormously frustrating.

[Sivenom]

I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

 

Are you suggesting that the various 3rd party resources that have developed over the game's extensive life somehow impact exploration within the game?

 

Have you actually been to Dor'Danil Barrow Den? Have you tried climbing the statue at the Shrine of Aessina? PvP'd in Maestra's Outpost? Or checked out the site of Grom Hellscream's death (from WC3) in Demon Fall Canyon? Fought the hydra on that unmarked island, maybe?

 

I'm sorry if this point was made sometime in the many pages, but this irks me....

Yes, but what did you get for it?

How many stat-changing datacrons have you gotten? Have you evne went to the tatooine ghost operative outpost NOT as an agent? Did you see all the fricking geonosians as emprie? Did you get yourself a magent crystal? how about the recipies? Did you find the taris round-about world boss? The tatooine one? How about spent an hour and a half on a balloon to get a 'cron that wasn't even visible because you had virtually no reason to go there? Or maybe you had a nice long walkabout on hoth to do who know what kind of gymnastics to get the datacron up on the abandoned ship? Or did find that neat-o thranta you can ride on in Alderaan? No?

 

And for the record a lot of those places in WoW were removed in cata simply because no one went there; or if not, the cool stuff associated with it. The boss demons? I can't find them. I miss Azuregos and Maws. The Twilight Boughs really serve no purpose. Demon-fall canyon isn't all that.... neat. And forget even forking about in Zul'Gurub. It's a ghost town, and with no reason to be. To be honest, I wonder what Captain Cuervo is doing now that his map is lost for good? "wut do u mean 'who has mallet', godzilla iz rite thar!" Also. I AM NEAR! I AM HERE!!!! <3

 

I'm just saying there's every bit a reason to explore, if not more. Yes, questing is linear and disjointed but.... it FITS with what is being portrayed. It could be done a little smoother... I would love a fleet-wide channel... you know, with EVERYONE. It could go through those fricking holos our chars seem to magically summon when a guy calls us up (how do they get our NUMBERS?!!)

 

What Douchecrawler-I-Hate-Paladins-And-Druids-And-HAHA-Mages,please-*eyeroll* was saying about a jointed system is right though. They did AWEFUL in cata what with hyjal being over there and thrall telling us to go jump into a hole and then some nice hilly area needed help because there were dwarves and orcs and dragons and then indiana jones and did I mention the bottom of the sea? that was neat and OHMYGOD lets kill that shark what's the sea snake there for wait why did we-HOLY**** THATS A KRAKEN and then. Yes. That. Happened. And it was awful. Each one of them was successful.... as their own entity. Put them together and you get a mess of ***. THAT'S what Ghostcrawler was referring to.

 

NOT that you are a space-going jedi/sith/space pirating swashbuckler that decided to **** **** up all over space because **** it IM SAVING YOUR ASSES WHETHER YOU WANT IT OR NOT. As much as people want to argue about it, you HAVE to lay down the truth. There is not and never supposed to be one unifying story between the planets.

 

You get your class quest that takes you places (and it's pretty damn coherent, damn you) and the planet quest, which don't and aren't supposed to be one big mashup of this is what's going on now. WoW specifically has you fighting one unified battle against the expansion's villain. which works, because it's one big world. Star Wars isn't one big world.

 

Star Wars is one big galaxy, and thus plays the part. Class quest (your personal role in the shaping of the universe) + planet quest (what is going on in the world that you just happened to plop yourself right into).

 

Think of SWTOR not as "these quests make sense because I'm on the SWTOR franchise-planet-Azeroth" but more like "These quests make sense because I landed in the middle of a *********** battlezone and need to help these guys while tracking down my bounty. Oh ****, he escaped, guess I have to finish up here and then go to where he is now. Oh christ, this planet is in the midst of a civil uprising, guess I have to put those bastards down. Now where is my contact?" and so forth.

 

EDIT: I'm sorry if you think I'm flaming or something like that. I am just offering hyperbole as example to what I am saying. Essentially, I mean to compare apples with oranges in that they both have skin, they both are fruit, they both grow on trees, but their natures and content are two 100% different experiences. It's true, you shouldn't treat apples(WoW) and oranges(SWTOR)with radiation, but you can't say they are the same thing. An apple has a whole and unified flesh(that it, it's a singular world of Azeroth). An orange is segmented (it has an overall theme of "citric fruit" but it have parts inside that can easily be separated.

I am sorry for a misunderstanding that may have caused... but this is the internet, have a little fun. Don't take it personal alright?

 

PS. I hate Ghostcrawler. I am sure bears, pallies, and mages would unanimously agree.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Sivenom

[souloferdrick]

To some degree, I agree with you. WoW's formula isn't totally of it's own making. Blizzard borrowed the concept from previously launched titles. However, one cannot ignore the fact that it did add certain levels to the gameplay that many titles at that time did not have: for instance, the sheer amount of "quests".

 

Unfortunatley for the industry, a lot of investors and devs look at WoW and can only see the dollar signs, convinced that if that formula worked for WoW, then it can work again for them. But they seem to forget that WoW popularised it because no other had gone to those same lengths before. In other words, it was in a unique situation to exploit a "niche". However, that cannot be said for the newer competition, a lot of which flopped because they weren't in the same position as WoW was / is.

 

That happens when you go mainstream and pit yourself up against a psuedo monopoly.

 

I don't blame them, Star Wars is a huge brand, but you still have to do it right it. Everyone, as your quote shows, thinks WoW set the bar for the genre. Pretty sad if you ask me.

[Drobu]

I really do wish the planets were smaller with more variety to the landscape. Smaller planets mean that you have a greater chance of running across people and make the world seem more alive. Go to Belsavis with 50 people, and chances are you won't see hardly anyone there.

Plus too much of the same scenery to me, gets old. Mix it up.

[Tarka]

I really do wish the planets were smaller with more variety to the landscape. Smaller planets mean that you have a greater chance of running across people and make the world seem more alive. Go to Belsavis with 50 people, and chances are you won't see hardly anyone there.

Plus too much of the same scenery to me, gets old. Mix it up.

 

I don't think "smaller" planets is the answer, whilst that may indeed server the purpose of being able to see other people by concentrating them in a smaller area, those same people still disappear from that particular planet within a small range of levels.

 

Wouldn't it be better if:

• BOTH factions inhabited the same planet at the same time. Thus doubling the chance of seeing people.
  
• The planets catered for a wider variety of levels. Perhaps a wide variation in levels of mobs and the "rewards" they are guarding.
  
• There were more reasons for players to inhabit the planets.
  

To me, that would be a better option.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Tarka

[Kindara]

I don't think "smaller" planets is the answer, whilst that may indeed server the purpose of being able to see other people by concentrating them in a smaller area, those same people still disappear from that particular planet within a small range of levels.

 

Wouldn't it be better if:

• BOTH factions inhabited the same planet at the same time. Thus doubling the chance of seeing people.
  
• The planets catered for a wider variety of levels. Perhaps a wide variation in levels of mobs and the "rewards" they are guarding.
  
• There were more reasons for players to inhabit the planets.
  

To me, that would be a better option.

 

Because of the way the game currently works it'd be impossible to do that with the Current Planet areas, but new areas or planets could and hopefully will work this way. Just hopefully not all areas it'd be really boring to match the progression of planets 1 : 1 instead of a bit of a mix with a few shared.

 

As it stands Tatoonie and Illum are the only two planets that the two share in a way where they can actually see & interact with each other. On those two planets they co exist at the same time in their progression time and start at different areas on the content. Most other planets this is not the case though. Alderaan might be a shared planet as well I'm just not all together sure yet.

 

Take Taris. When you go there as the Republic its daylight but all the areas and facilities you go to are the same except you start in a different area. Republic also gets to go there 30 levels earlier than the Empire. We use the same areas right down to the datacron positions in most cases but we simply exist at a different "time" or rather its from a different view point than the Empire. You can't merge the two together since the areas including the instanced parts would be ridiculously over lapped not to mention there'd be no way to merge the level of mobs properly.

 

I agree though it would be nicer if MORE planets and areas on planets in the future were shared at the same time in the progression but it makes it more interesting to see them at different times and in a different order than the opposing side. Its like two sides of a coin. They exist in the same space but face out differently.

 

If this was all just happening on one planet with maybe a moon like WoW more arguments to how things could match that crappy game could be made and won. I'm glad its a space game; it needs some travel improvements for sure though. But lets be honest...how often do you run into large groups of others or the enemy in WoW in the areas that are pre max level? Not many. You spend most of your time leveling 1 - 80/85 all by yourself unless you dungeon or pvp.

 

BTW pure linear progression like you are asking for..Sucks. If i wanted A -> B -> C i'd go play wow or Everquest 2. Sure you can choose landscape version 1 2 3 but..its still pretty much the same.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Kindara

[illumineart]

I played WOW since launch..

 

There is no exploration in the game. Never has been.

 

The continents, as we understand or see them as, are all basically ONE very large zone that is broken up into several sub-zones.

There is no exploration in any of these zones at all.

Here is map of ashenvale http://wow.gamepressure.com/map.asp?ID=30

This is a zone where you can access any part of the zone at your leisure. There is nothing within ashenvale (along with all the other zones within WOW) that are "TECHNICALLY" explore able.

 

All zone in WOW can be walked around in and there are no boarders that prevent you from seeing all the quest areas within a a zone.

 

That is 100% not true... Go look up some of the amazing exploration movies that have been done over it's lifespan.

[Sivenom]

The BW news bit is rather funny.

 

They didn't expect or anticipate PvP to be as popular. Mistake #1. Even in WoW it was popular. The second mistake is that they say it is widely popular becuase the gear is easy to obtain and has zero intro cost. Somewhat true but in regards to gear it wasn't originally deisgned to be easy. You guys patched it and made it so.

 

So we now are at the crossroads. On one hand PvP is too popular and wasn't anticipated. On the other hand we have all this PvE content but no one is using it because the cost to enter is too high... Anyone else see a problem here?

 

PvP wasn't originally easy. You patched it in so that now anyone and everyone can be a battlemaster. Furthermore, you made the gear obtainable because everyone was crying about fresh 50's getting insta-gibbed due to the dispairity between someone just reaching 50 vs those who have been for over a month!!!!

 

Here is the kicker. To get gear in PvP you had to do warzones, you had to do dailies. Both added valor. You play at your pace, you gain gear. Enough said.

 

PvE you had to do dailies. You had to build your gear set. You had to run said instances to learn the fights. To do the next level of the enounter you had to use the gear from the previous one to increase your healing or pvp output...boss dead.

 

Time and education in. Reward out.

 

LFG is a good idea and it will help that side of the game out. But to be perfectly Frank there is a large subset of the player base who actually want to engage in a form of PvP which isn't confined to a small box/map. Also, don't blame the interest in PvP because it is easier to start than that of PvE encounters. Both have the same startup cost. The only difference now is that you made PvP too easy and left the PvE side alone.

 

PvP astonishment - please. You knew it was going to be popular. What subscriber playing this game doesn't want to wield a freaking LIGHTSABER and murder people!!!!!!

 

I colored three sections to make a point... overall I agree with you though.

 

Green: The mistake was thinking it was too easy to enter... I TOTALLY AGREE. That was a mistake. The reason PvP is so popular in SWTOR I think is that... it's engaging. You have to pay attention a little more than "charge stun stun stun bleed dead YAY POINTS" or "heal heal heal heal heal run behind pillar heal heal YAY POINTS". I think the medal system is intuitive. I wish the "based on merit" tagline would have originally been implemented but overall I enjoyed it. And this is coming from someone who only ever BG'd to bear-carry the flag for children's week or tree-guarded mines for hallow's end. I actually want to pvp now; not hardcore or anything, but it's fun.

 

Yellow:Cost for Entry in PvE isn't as high as you're thinking. I can walk in with 48 oranges for the most part and breeze through most of the HM FP's (d7 and FE I reserve judgement on. And kaon is easy if you drag the stupid droid). I haven't done an op yet, but the problem is I can't find anyone to do it with. That's enough of a bar to entry as you're going to get. And do-before-kill boss strategies are tried and true. You dont get a dungeon journal and there's no tankspot. I'm grateful, because now we can actually pay attention to the encounter instead of click a button count to five sidestep, click, 5 sidestep.... It's more a battle than a cosplay ballroom dance. Now with more HK!

 

Blue: Essentially, yellow. There are certain click points (like healers and tank specifically hindered by gear checkpoints) but there's no real bar right now. You go in, you see willpower drop for your BH, strength for your agent, cunning for your inq, and aim for your warr, then you leave. That's just about it.

[Lethality]

I'm sorry if this point was made sometime in the many pages, but this irks me....

Yes, but what did you get for it?

 

Players like you will never get it. Never.

 

Exploration is the reward for players that want it.

 

Becoming closer with the lore, or finding an area that feels like no one has ever found before. That's the reward.

 

It does not have to be implicitly rewarded. Yes, WoW has an achievement for "filling in" all of the maps, but that isn't exploration.

 

What the poster you quoted above, is. And Blizzard knows how to do it, whether it's a tombstone with an inscription that means something located in the middle of a field behind a tree, or a major lore site that happened in the past that until that point you've only read about.

 

You'll never get it.

[Tsaritsin]

Ghostcrawler is a waste of space,

 

That guy will tell you anything just to keep you happy, keep you paying the sub,

 

He knows the Truth,

 

All the best Dev's got moved to the Titan project,

 

WoW is just a MONEY farm now, paying all the bills,

 

Even the WoW addicts and fanboys dont listen to him anymore,

 

Ghostcrawler telling us Cata was Epic Fail, but hang in there lads cos MoP'S gonna be Epic Good, lol

 

And then if MoP's Epic Fail, he will tell you the same, hang in there lads, keep paying them subs, the next one will be Epic Good, lol

 

I seem to remember that Ghostcrawler responded to some criticism on a website (not the blizzard forums) by simply calling them a Troll, lol

 

So, Ghostcrawler, your a Troll.

[Sivenom]

Players like you will never get it. Never.

 

Exploration is the reward for players that want it.

 

Becoming closer with the lore, or finding an area that feels like no one has ever found before. That's the reward.

 

It does not have to be implicitly rewarded. Yes, WoW has an achievement for "filling in" all of the maps, but that isn't exploration.

 

What the poster you quoted above, is. And Blizzard knows how to do it, whether it's a tombstone with an inscription that means something located in the middle of a field behind a tree, or a major lore site that happened in the past that until that point you've only read about.

 

You'll never get it.

Then apparently, you're as blind as me. You'll never get it that.... THEY PAVED OVER IT TO MAKE CONTENT PRETTY AND BLAND.

 

Sweetheart, I've been to Ravenholme before my rogue friends knew what the hell I was talking to. I've been to all the exploited areas like air strip and the troll village. I've even found the Ghost stalker, I've seen all the many versions of Alcatraz they put it with no meaning. I have been decimated by the random ??? neutral "Demon" ranked enemies that walked around un'goro. I owned linken's sword, got a prairie chicken, did that stupid quest for a fey drake, and hell. I even got the black lion and the broken tooth cougar when they were best in game.

 

But what did you get from it.

Now that it's been paved over to make way for a shopping center.

For a straight quest.

 

I'll conceede there's the Demon hunter lore............ and that's it in the new zones. And what happened to that? Demon hunters haven't been mentioned since BC and now you're telling me that little bit was a gag reel? Ahuh.

 

No. You don't get it. Exploration is dead in world.2, which is exactly my implication. Also, you didn't read the rest of my post.

 

By the way, you ever clicked detect invisibility in UC? I don't think those ghosts are there anymore, what with that ability being removed. Do they even play the king's speech? Thank god that the temple of the moon still plays in the ghostlands!

[Lethality]

*Ravenholdt.

 

Regardless, you have to admit Blizzard did it the right way. Sure maybe it appears they abandon it from time to time, but they're well aware of the importance of that stuff. You might be surprised to learn the role that the Great Tree in Crystalsong Forest is about to play... they plant these seeds because it takes a while for players to really czare about them and reference them, even as innocuous as the Great Tree there was.

 

In TOR, I don't feel that exploration would let me learn anything about ancient things in the Star Wars universe, nor do I feel anything is strategically foreshadowing the coming events. Implicitly sometimes trumps explicitly.

 

You can sum all of this on the login screens of both games:

 

The Old Republic: "Play"

 

World of Warcraft: "Enter World"

 

 

Edit: re the Undercity stuff, absolutely... even if some things are taken out, the point is that layer IS there, where it never existed in TOR that I've seen. That's the essence of exploration.

 

Then apparently, you're as blind as me. You'll never get it that.... THEY PAVED OVER IT TO MAKE CONTENT PRETTY AND BLAND.

 

Sweetheart, I've been to Ravenholme before my rogue friends knew what the hell I was talking to. I've been to all the exploited areas like air strip and the troll village. I've even found the Ghost stalker, I've seen all the many versions of Alcatraz they put it with no meaning. I have been decimated by the random ??? neutral "Demon" ranked enemies that walked around un'goro. I owned linken's sword, got a prairie chicken, did that stupid quest for a fey drake, and hell. I even got the black lion and the broken tooth cougar when they were best in game.

 

But what did you get from it.

Now that it's been paved over to make way for a shopping center.

For a straight quest.

 

I'll conceede there's the Demon hunter lore............ and that's it in the new zones. And what happened to that? Demon hunters haven't been mentioned since BC and now you're telling me that little bit was a gag reel? Ahuh.

 

No. You don't get it. Exploration is dead in world.2, which is exactly my implication. Also, you didn't read the rest of my post.

 

By the way, you ever clicked detect invisibility in UC? I don't think those ghosts are there anymore, what with that ability being removed. Do they even play the king's speech? Thank god that the temple of the moon still plays in the ghostlands!

Edited March 13, 2012 by Lethality

[ZedFighter]

The game is old and the same old thing over, and over, and over agian. That is what they did wrong.

 

Sadly swtor isn't much different than WoW so in turn it is old too. After playing WoW for years then coming here it feels like I've done all this before... because i have

[Sivenom]

*Ravenholdt.

 

Regardless, you have to admit Blizzard did it the right way. Sure maybe it appears they abandon it from time to time, but they're well aware of the importance of that stuff. You might be surprised to learn the role that the Great Tree in Crystalsong Forest is about to play... they plant these seeds because it takes a while for players to really czare about them and reference them, even as innocuous as the Great Tree there was.

 

In TOR, I don't feel that exploration would let me learn anything about ancient things in the Star Wars universe, nor do I feel anything is strategically foreshadowing the coming events. Implicitly sometimes trumps explicitly.

 

You can sum all of this on the login screens of both games:

 

The Old Republic: "Play"

 

World of Warcraft: "Enter World"

 

 

Edit: re the Undercity stuff, absolutely... even if some things are taken out, the point is that layer IS there, where it never existed in TOR.

 

Then you, like you misguidedly believe I haven't, have yet to look int he right place. Fish around in Taris, fish around in Belsaavis. There are enough lore points there to get the feeling like you have made an impact. Even on Hoth that people hate so much, you can explore those abandoned ships. Hell, You can climb one and overlook the world, and no one will know but you.

 

You can't say a thing about exploration on SWTOR if you haven't explored hard enough. UNLIKE WoW, you don't stumble on the secret boss monsters, you don't stumble on secret hidings to random what-looks-like-rakata-tech. you don't stumble on a hold fast that has almost no meaning tucked somewhere in a corner with nothing but a little lore snippet on what might have killed them. These are all hidden by paths you'd never think of or places you'd never look.

 

What you stumble on are references or places that would be cool maybe eventually. Or a tombstone dedicated to a fallen friend, which you happened to spy at first by flying overhead and, after revamp, now has the angel appear in the real world too. Or a tombstone with a witty limerick right inside a quest hub. The last place I actually had to look for (that wasn't made trivial because of flying mounts) was removed.

 

End of story, if you think there's a lack, you haven't looked hard enough.

[Tarka]

Ladies and gentlemen, please, let's remain civilised and keep personal insults out of comments.

 

Let's also be mindful of the fact that definitions of what "exploration" is, and should be, can often be subjective at best. After all, it is a form of gamplay content. And we all know how subjective opinions can be on that general subject.

 

Whilst one person may consider uncovering new areas on the map to be "exploration", whereas another may think somewhat differently.

 

And whilst one person may consider exploration to be it's own sufficient reward, whereas another may like to find little "things" to collect. It can be argued that elements like Datacrons in SWTOR, Artifacts in Rift, Books left lying around in WoW are all ways that can encourage players to explore the gameworlds.

 

Neither is right or wrong. But I think we can all agree that having MORE is better than having LESS.

 

But when all is said and done, there seems to be some who feel that there isn't enough "off the beaten track" areas in SWTOR to make the feel like it is actively encouraging things like exploration and other types of non-linear play. And its the inclusion of such non-linear elements that helps define the difference between a "game" and a "world".

 

Damion Schubert touched on the differences in a blog prior to launch:

 

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20100402_001

 

Freedom is a true part of the magic of MMOs, and artificial constraints and mechanics can undermine the fiction and the sense that you are living in the virtual world – and when you have a brand as rich and textured as Star Wars™, the last thing you want to do is undermine it. Even worse, the depth and visual splendor of Star Wars™: The Old Republic would be completely lost if players couldn’t jump off the rails and just live in the space from time to time.

 

I’ve long advocated that moderation is the way to go, and I believe on The Old Republic we are successfully travelling a middle path, a centrist path that takes the strengths of both: provide a directed and balanced game experience inside a lush, free-form Star Wars world.

 

It's a shame that to some, TOR hasn't actually achieved that goal....yet.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Tarka

[Tarka]

With the previous discussions in mind, perhaps Bioware should be investigating more possibilities in turning the planets from just being leveling zones that players quickly pass through, into being more like virtual "worlds".

 

Here's some suggestions that Bioware perhaps should look into:

• KEEP THE MAIN FACTIONS TOGETHER FOR EACH PLANET: Find ways to keep both of the main factions together in the same planet during the same level range. No more Balmorra / Taris swapping.
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• DON'T OVERUSE EXHAUSTION ZONES: Don't rely on using silly "Exhaustion Zone" strips across whole maps that separate one area from another e.g. the separation of the "Junglands" area from the faction towns on Tatooine.
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• DON'T OVERUSE "PHYSICAL" BARRIERS: Too much heavy use of physical barriers like moutains and cliff terrain can end up making the game feel "linear" in its progression through a planet zone.
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• GREATER CHOICE ON HOW/WHEN TO DO SOMETHING: People should be allowed greater freedom to choose WHAT they want to do, and WHEN they want to do it e.g. multiple starting missions for the same mission chain. Referrals to multiple missions at a time by the same NPC (thus giving players the choice).
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• FLESH OUT THE WORLDS WITH ADDITIONAL ZONES: Each planet should not just have areas specifically for leveling content, but also include additional "off the beaten track" areas that can be explored.
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• CONTENT FOR VARIED LEVEL RANGES: This goes hand in hand with the point about "fleshing out the worlds". There should be content on existing planets (and new ones) that aren't just catering for a specific level range, but for others too. Thus giving players reasons to revisit them. The "Bonus" series missions do help in that regard. But there could be more.
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• ADDITIONAL INCENTIVES FOR EXPLORATION: Again, this follows on from the point about "fleshing out the worlds". Concepts like the "Datacron" concept and other types of "collection" gameplay can be used to offer incentives to explore areas, along with other types of "Easter Eggs" (World Bosses hidden away in deep caverns, random spawning loot chests, etc, etc).
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• MAKE USE OF OTHER TYPES OF ENVIRONMENTS: Players should be able to explore not just two dimensions, but three. By that I mean, explorable areas don't HAVE to be all on the top "hard" surface of a planet environment. There can be caves, bodies of water to swim in, areas of space to investigate.
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• PLANETS WITH VARIED ENVIRONMENTS: Look into the possibility of including not only planets that have one specific type of environment (e.g. Manaan, Tatooine, Hoth, etc), but others that have more than one. Planets that have forest areas AND deserts AND great seas.
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• BREATH LIFE INTO THE PLANETS: Each planet should have things like Day/night cycles, weather effects, more dynamic interactivity between the mobs.
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• PROMOTION OF THE PLANETS: Facilities both inside AND outside the game could be used to promote each planet. There could be "archive" terminals in the game (on our ships?) and the loading screens could provide information on the planet being loaded. The website could have a more detailed background on each planet.
  

It may seem bizarre to suggest these things, but these things can all collectively help to breath life into the worlds and promote non-linear gameplay like exploration.

 

Side note: when I started thinking about promoting the planets on the website, something struck me.........I wonder IF Bioware intend to continue with Master Gnost Dural's "timeline" presentations?

Edited March 14, 2012 by Tarka

[AJediKnight]

This post is buried in the back pages and will never be read, but I think you're spot-on, OP.

 

The problem with TOR as opposed to WoW is that TOR is essentially designed like Cataclysm right from the start -- IE, every planet lends to that feeling of empty, disjointed, railroaded questing. You don't see players, you don't have a sense of a cohesive world and, worst of all, every trip through a planet is essentially identical.

 

Frankly, I don't know what the developers can do to fix that problem at this point. I resubbed to WoW about a week ago after a year off, and it was astounding to me just how much more... alive... the world feels than anything in TOR. And, what's more, it's filled to the brim with players, quests, NPCs doing interesting things, and zones that you can go halfway through, skipping quests to your liking, before flipping halfway across the world to do something else.

 

In total honesty, I don't think TOR is salvageable. If you build a house on a foundation of sand, rearranging the furniture isn't going to fix the real issues that the house has. In fact, TOR is essentially a bad idea come to life -- it was put together by people who don't really understand what MMOers are looking for when it comes to world design, and to change it would mean something like a 20 million dollar redesign. I don't even know where Bioware could begin to fix this issue at this point -- whether it would mean massively expanding current planets, adding more, or whatever. At the end of the day, I think the game is just flawed at a basic level, and that's why I've unsubbed.

[Tarka]

This post is buried in the back pages and will never be read, but I think you're spot-on, OP.

 

The problem with TOR as opposed to WoW is that TOR is essentially designed like Cataclysm right from the start -- IE, every planet lends to that feeling of empty, disjointed, railroaded questing. You don't see players, you don't have a sense of a cohesive world and, worst of all, every trip through a planet is essentially identical.

 

Frankly, I don't know what the developers can do to fix that problem at this point. I resubbed to WoW about a week ago after a year off, and it was astounding to me just how much more... alive... the world feels than anything in TOR. And, what's more, it's filled to the brim with players, quests, NPCs doing interesting things, and zones that you can go halfway through, skipping quests to your liking, before flipping halfway across the world to do something else.

 

In total honesty, I don't think TOR is salvageable. If you build a house on a foundation of sand, rearranging the furniture isn't going to fix the real issues that the house has. In fact, TOR is essentially a bad idea come to life -- it was put together by people who don't really understand what MMOers are looking for when it comes to world design, and to change it would mean something like a 20 million dollar redesign. I don't even know where Bioware could begin to fix this issue at this point -- whether it would mean massively expanding current planets, adding more, or whatever. At the end of the day, I think the game is just flawed at a basic level, and that's why I've unsubbed.

 

Personally, I think it is salvagable. BUT, and this is the problem, it would take a co-ordinated effort designed specifically to reduce the feeling of linearity in the game.

 

But, nevertheless, I think it could be done using the bullet points I listed above.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Tarka

[AJediKnight]

But, nevertheless, I think it could be done using the bullet points I listed above.

 

The problem is, again, the amount of money required to change even a few of the things you've listed in those bullets would be prohibitive, an issue that is compounded by the need to record additional, costly voice-overs whenever quests are added/changed (all the more reason why I think it may be decades before another MMO has full VO).

 

The thing about MMOs is that they literally are 'all your eggs in one basket' affairs. MMOers are quirky gamers -- they tend to be flighty creatures who will nest in multiple spots... but if they're spooked by bad conditions in one location, chances are they won't return. That's why launch is everything with these games. I have heard multiple times over the past year that both AoC and WAR are 'a lot better,' but I don't care. They didn't win me over the first go-around, and, as far as I am concerned, that's that.

 

Now, I cannot, of course, speak for everyone, but the thing about these games is, because they are so reliant on large bodies of people to A) populate the servers and B) fill the coffers every month, once a game starts to slide downhill, things deteriorate in a hurry. Additionally, because the 'seen it; done it; it sucked' crowd is so prevalant, the chances of the numbers of players necessary to restart the machinery suddenly showing up on the doorstep is next to zero. A few might trickle back over time, but they'll never represent the tidal wave that was present at launch -- and it's that size of population that's necessary to keep content fresh, servers full, and designers busy.

 

Thus, I don't think TOR can recover from this bad start for three reasons:

 

• The financial types 'upstairs' might not be good at gaming or design, but they know when a ship has been torpedoed. Thus, they will pull the plug on a huge revamp that is seen as being unable to save a game that is hemorraging subs.
   
   
  
• The people who really drive these games -- the 'one-percenters,' who appear at flagship metagaming events (like tournaments, etc), and push the envelope in extremely challenging raid content while competing with other guilds worldwide for world-firsts, etc. -- have already fled. Derided as these types may be, they are absolutely essential in a AAA MMO and, what's worse, they are almost always one-shotters. They will not return.
   
   
  
• Finally, I don't think the development team at Bioware really has a clue about what's wrong. If you look at their announcements post-launch, we've seen a much-hyped "2-parter!" zombie-knock-off flashpoint that's been talked to death, we're getting a legacy system 'added' when it should have been present in the game from the start, and the PvE/PvP crowd who are going delirious while playing the same facerollable content week after week are getting a lone bone tossed to each. There is no indication that changes to the worlds, the leveling arc, the world PvP (*cough* distinct lack thereof *cough*) or the numerous other flaws are even on the drawing board.
  

Frankly, given the development team's frequent perplexed expressions during the guild summit (populated as it was almost exclusively by fanboys asking softball questions), I think these people are out of their league. It is very clear that while the 'A-Team' was off designing ME3, the dregs were left to try and summon up repetitive content for TOR. These people not only struggled with innovation; they couldn't even rip off WoW properly. The only reason the game isn't a full-fledged WoW clone, in fact, is that it is so ***-backwards in so many respects that any comparison between the two is, to be blunt, insulting for World of Warcraft.

 

So, the question here is not whether or not we can raise the Titanic from off the sea floor (because, of course, if enough money was thrown at a lot of these problems, they could go away), but rather if it is worth the capital it would take to undertake such changes, especially when a large number of would-be subscribers have already jumped ship. The time for discussion about the failings of this design was in early alpha -- not going-on three months out of the starting gate. That ship has sailed...

 

... into an iceberg.

Edited March 14, 2012 by AJediKnight

[Varteras]

I feel that Bioware is allowed to make these 'mistakes' in game design as their product is young and a significant portion of their team hasn't done anything like this. Now if Bioware ends up being guilty of the same thing Blizzard is 4 or 5 years from now then yes I'd say there is a problem. The honesty of Ghostcrawler is nice and I don't want to sound like what he said doesn't matter but we're talking about a game that had been around for quite awhile and they only just now realized some of the growing problems with WoW?

 

The end-game zones feeling disconnected did not bother me as far as the fact that they were quite literally physically disconnected. What bothered me, as someone who enjoys story, is that it was the story connections that felt lost. Going from Uldum and doing everything there and then heading back home while someone barely mentions what we just accomplished before shoving us off to Twilight Highlands with little build-up was, to me, where the disconnect was at.

 

The story disconnections were made worse by the terribly conceived villain. First of all Deathwing had always been a cunning creature in the past. Now suddenly he's just this loudmouthed "RAWR I'M GOING TO BURN EVERYTHING" monster with no rhyme or reason. He makes a few VERY short appearances and even those appearances are nothing more than showing off a huge dragon. Then we had the extremely random and equally short events (I still know some people who play and have yet to cross paths with him) where he just burns things, possibly killing you in the process, and then leaves. For a villain who was so heavily promoted as the centerpiece for Cataclysm we didn't see much of him.

 

Next we have the whole idea of releasing great content for everyone and moving away from linear leveling. I really wish I could have been there when he said this so I could have thrown my collector's edition box of Cataclysm at his head. After which I would have yelled at him, "The Burning Crusade! Wrath of the Lich King! Cataclysm!". Why? Because that's how many expansions it took for them to realize that certain players were left in the cold and that their leveling experience was heavily linear?? In all three expansions, the post-launch content was almost exclusively aimed at PvE endgamers. People who enjoyed battlegrounds or PvP zones would get one or two new ones and then have to wait over a year or almost two years before they got anything new. Content was more and more aimed at gearing people up for raids instead of trying to find new ways to engage the playerbase. Even the dailies that existed were about engaging people for the existing endgame content.

 

What's worse is that in Cataclysm even the PvE endgamers got the finger. They had to wait 7 months before new raid content was released and all they got was an extra boss added to Baradin Hold and a 7-boss Firelands raid. Then they had to wait another 5 months or so before getting another Baradin Hold boss and an 8-boss Dragon Soul raid. The raid boss count for Cataclysm is by far the lowest in WoW's history and it didn't take very long to reach those bosses. The epic raids of past expansions like Black Temple, Sunwell Plateau, Icecrown Citadel, and Ulduar (probably the greatest raid of all time) were nowhere to be found. It wasn't even a matter of quality over quantity. These raids just simply felt like Blizzard either didn't put much effort into them or somehow ran out of ideas. Dungeon runners got two Heroic-only 5-man dungeons in the form of two rehashed, retuned Troll raids and then didn't get to see anything completely new until a year after launch where they got three more Heroic-only 5-man dungeons. The bottomline here is that it was just a total failure in post-launch content all the way around.

 

In all three of those expansions your options were extremely limited for leveling. In The Burning Crusade you went through 5 zones in order until reaching the end in which you had a choice of either Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley. In Wrath of the Lich King they did a bit better. You had a choice to start off in either Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord and then you went through the next 5 zones in order to then come to another potential split of Storm Peaks or Icecrown Glacier. Then came Cataclysm where you decided between Mt. Hyjal or Vashj'ir but the other 3 zones were done in order. So it took them 3 expansions to realize that the choices they gave us for leveling paths during pre-expansion WoW (what many felt was a strong point of the game) had taken a backseat to overly linear content and that many players were not happy about it?

 

For all of the criticisms I see leveled at Mists of Pandaria I do feel that much of what they're doing is what needed to be done. Like it or not the Pet Battle System is something very different. A new type of content for those who have become bored of the same old thing but also with connections to other aspects of the game since certain pets can only be acquired through doing other parts of it. The PvE Scenarios are also something that people have snickered at or complained about but once again it is a new type of content giving the players another way to play instead of what has been typically offered. Challenge Mode Dungeons will give a new competitive edge to something that has been seen as nothing more than a stepping stone to raiding. Add onto this that the next expansion will give PvP'ers 3 new Battlegrounds (with objectives that are very different than what has been in the past) right from the start as well as a new map for Arenas and it at least APPEARS that Blizzard is finally acknowledging where they have been going wrong.

 

The big question will be what will their post-launch content look like? If it still ends up being nothing but more dungeons and raids with some dailies sprinkled in then Blizzard will show that they don't understand one of the underlying problems with WoW. That giving something for everyone in the beginning and then catering to one group for the rest of that expansion causes a division in your playerbase. One particular group is getting what they want on a constant basis while the rest are forced to wait years. As far as linear leveling I highly doubt that is going to change with MoP. I could be surprised but based on what I've seen at this point I can't imagine how Blizzard is going to go back to the way leveling use to be.

 

So what should Bioware do to avoid the problems that Blizzard is just now acknowledging as well as do what Blizzard has done right?

 

1) Content updates should be as diverse as possible and on a consistent timeline. We won't always get something like 1.2 and that's understandable but don't make your players go an entire year, through 3 updates, and all you've given them are a handful of Flashpoints, a couple Operations, and a new daily area. Also, updates should come every 3 or 4 months. Release new content too early and players won't feel like they had adequate time to do the previous content and if you release an update beyond 4 months you had better make sure it's a huge update.

 

2) Try to step away from linear leveling. I understand that Bioware is trying to tell a story but that can still be accomplished even when giving the players choices as to where they level. Story completionists will still go back and do the other missions on the other planets but don't force players who do solo PvE leveling to go through every single planet in the game. It's fine the first time but after 2 or 3 characters it becomes a headache. It's too familiar. Repetitive. They're already going to have a lot of repetition in the endgame. Don't make that something they experience from start to finish. I don't even care if you give us certain choices for some areas but then force us into others. For example; Aa or Ab -> B -> Ca or Cb. Any variation of that would work as well. Just give us something significantly less linear at least.

 

3) TOR needs to match or exceed WoW in UI and Guild functionality, content amount and diversity, and depth. They need to not simply do this casually either. They need to be aggressive about it. Blizzard has been all too casual with such things but they could afford to. There was no significent competition.

 

3a) The UI and Guild functions need to pretty much be at the same level as WoW by the end of the first year and Bioware should push Guild features further afterwards.

 

3b) Blizzard is expanding their content diversity greatly in WoW very soon and Bioware needs to step up and challenge them. Pet Battle Systems, PvE Scenarios, and Challenge Mode Dungeons will need to be met by new types of content in TOR. Possibly by adding things like minigames (Pazaak, Dejarik, Swoop Racing), expanding the space experience (which they apparently have plans for), and maybe even the PvPvE Battlefields that some people have suggested as a separate form of content from Warzones.

 

3c) Bioware seems to be doing a solid job of providing Flashpoints and Operations. Though Operations are declared too easy right now I think we'll see the difficulty ramp up soon. TOR's Warzones need to play catch-up with WoW's Battlegrounds. I'd say there should be at least 5 Warzones by the end of the first year but push for as many as 6 of them. In-game events need to be added which they say will be coming. Seasonal, monthly, one-time, and random events would go a long way in giving life to the world and giving players reasons to go to other planets they forgot about.

 

3d) Additional ways to expand the combat abilities of your character in all aspects of the game and modifying your gear more than is currently available are things that I feel will become necessary in the future. This shouldn't be an immediate concern but definitely something that Bioware should prepare for. Things are relatively simple now but I believe they will have to gradually make things a little more complex as time goes by.

 

4) Bioware needs to own their cinematics. This is the one part of TOR that Blizzard can not even hope to compete with Bioware on. Current cinematics are too often static or focused on just the conversation. Cinematics which cut away to show you things that you and the NPC are talking about (like showing a battle between Republic and Imperial forces at a base or a warship orbiting the planet waiting for the call to bombard a target) is something that myself and many others envisioned when Bioware was talking about their cinematic scenes. It may just be for show but that's not a bad thing if what we see is entertaining or gives us a view of something we will fight for or just fought for.

 

5) Finally, Bioware needs to increase the life of their worlds. So many planets in TOR don't have nearly as much going on as they could have. For a game as old as WoW, their zones feel much more alive even in areas that you would normally associate as being lifeless. More critters, mobs that have very large pathways, fewer mobs that just simply stand in one spot, and scripted little NPC events that have no effect on you nor can you interact with but simply giving you the sense that these NPCs have lives and things happening to them as well would go so very far in making TOR feel alive and not simply a shooting gallery.

 

Sorry for the long post that just crit your eyes but I wanted to be thorough. I've been thinking about these things for a little while and wanted to get them off my chest.

[Ziljin]

When I play an MMO, I expect a game like when I played the original Dungeons and Dragons with friends on a table, with my character sheet in front of me, dice in my hands, ready to take on the world. To go off on a great adventure with my fellow mates.

 

What's missing from MMO's is that excitement. I've tried so many games and the times that I've had the most fun in any MMO was with the people I met in the game. It's the adventure we have together. It's the horrible deaths. It's the challenge of working together for a common goal. The consequences of our actions.

 

Most of these new MMO's don't have real consequences. There's no time where I said, "oh crap" in this game.

 

When I played Asheron's Call, there was that sense of danger all the time. You could practically lose the shirt off your back. There were real consequences and it frightened. I remember I was just level 10 and I tried to run to the next town but I was crapping in my pants hoping I wouldn't die. Exploration felt real back then. You have to run for miles to get places and it also had those cozy moments.

 

I'm babbling. SWTOR is fun, but it's not one of those games that break any new ground and there aren't any real consequences to your actions.

 

There's no "Oh s#$t" moments.

[Tsaritsin]

Frankly, given the development team's frequent perplexed expressions during the guild summit (populated as it was almost exclusively by fanboys asking softball questions), I think these people are out of their league. It is very clear that while the 'A-Team' was off designing ME3, the dregs were left to try and summon up repetitive content for TOR. These people not only struggled with innovation; they couldn't even rip off WoW properly. The only reason the game isn't a full-fledged WoW clone, in fact, is that it is so ***-backwards in so many respects that any comparison between the two is, to be blunt, insulting for World of Warcraft.

 

I found the Guild Summit painfull to watch, most of the Bioware guys looked uncomfortable, like they did not really want to be there, I found parts of it almost embarrassing and had to stop watching,

 

With the exception of one guy, the guy who did the Roleplaying talk, cant remember his name, had a bright blue T-shirt on, he was fantastic, he was having fun, and he seemed to be passionate about the game.

 

The rest, they seemed very nervous, uncomfortable, and looked like they were just following a script,

 

At one point a very softly spoken Lady asked a fairly complicated question, the Guy on the podium just simply had no answer, I dont think he even understood the question, he looked at the others seated to his left, as if asking for help, and then just stated -

 

"If I had a pen and paper I would write that down"

 

I loled, and switched off

 

Was it all just a PR stunt for 1.2 ?

 

I really dont know what the hell it was,

 

But whatever it was, it didnt work for me.