Ghostcrawler offers some food for thought....

[Tarka]

Yep. and the Sarlacc Pit is so iconic. I watched "Return of the Jedi" for the first time many years back when I was a kid (like 5 or something) and that Sarlacc Pit gave me nightmare for several weeks.

 

Agreed.

 

It's a shame the film has this (1:20 mark in the video):

 

But the game has this:

 

The in-game one has no "beak", and no animated tentacles. Effectively, it's lifeless.

[archifikoss]

I will only comment on the first part of the interview you quoted, about the segmented feeling: Well... the world is doomed to be segmented by design.

 

The planets are obviously separated by light years of vacuum... The only way around this would be to either implement an optional fully free-flight space portion to the game (players could still opt out by autopiloting to their destination I guess), or maybe have a much larger and more interactive galactic map in the style of Mass Effect 2 (haven't played 3 yet so can't say how it is ), where other player ships show up - and you could even engage in duels with them if you want (could happen in a random-looking "mini-hotspot").

 

The quickest band-aid solution is to add a faction wide "global" ("galactic" would be more accurate) chat - but whilst the playerbase would be less segmented, the world itself would still remain so... Still, it would be a step in the right direction I think.

Edited March 12, 2012 by archifikoss

[Tarka]

Removing orbital station that serve no purpose would go a long way from to reduce the disjoints feeling between planet.

 

I could imagine free flying above planet (disable datacron vision from free flying), specific landing pad a diffrent point in the map, an hyperspace portal near the planet to travel trough space all without any loading; this is my dream star wars.

 

Well, they are apparently giving players a way to NOT have to run through the orbital stations in the 1.2 patch. Which, I think, is nice and will help in its own little way.

 

The "hyperspace lane" could be nice, it could be "real time" and last only as long as it takes to "load" the destination planet into the pc's memory (if that is at all possible).

 

As for "free flying" above the planets surface, I think that could end up causing more problems than it solves. I think first more of the land needs to be explorable "on foot" / speeder. Those exhaustion zones on Tatooine that split the faction starting bases from the "junglands" really need to go in my opinion. If the reason those exist is to prevent "ganking" of the opposite faction bases, then there are other ways to deal with that.

[Muskaan]

Deathwing was a poorly thought out and conceived villain. He's crazy, and that's that. You can't relate to him. Arthas, Illidan, you felt for them. They had a rich, deep story that was tragic. Deathwing was just a big, crazy dragon.

 

That's because most of us have played as Illidan and Arthas in their RTS - Warcraft 3 & Frozen Throne. Playing a toon in an RPG creates a bonding with them. That's why Arthas and Illidan are so close to us. We know their story.

 

Deathwing has a very strong lore as well. Unfortunately, few people are aware of it.

 

Also, Illidan and Arthas falls in the paradigm of tragic heroes or anti-heroes misguided by ambition which makes their characters extremely strong. same paradigm as Vader (which is why Vader is the most popular character in Star Wars universe).

[Dianoia]

That's because most of us have played as Illidan and Arthas in their RTS - Warcraft 3 & Frozen Throne. Playing a toon in an RPG creates a bonding with them. That's why Arthas and Illidan are so close to us. We know their story.

 

Deathwing has a very strong lore as well. Unfortunately, few people are aware of it.

 

Also, Illidan and Arthas falls in the paradigm of tragic heroes or anti-heroes misguided by ambition which makes their characters extremely strong. same paradigm as Vader (which is why Vader is the most popular character in Star Wars universe).

 

Sylvanus, Queen Ashara. Both would have been >>>>>>>> Deathwing. Also, they could have made deathwing tragic. There was a time when he was good and the Earthwarder. But instead, they went Hollywood BOOM-POW RAWR DRAGON!

 

Anyway, I'm done complaining about that game. I just hope the Bioware team pays attention and DOESN'T emulate the new Blizzard. Everything they need to guide them is right there in TBC....

[Tarka]

I've lost a lot of respect for Ghostcrawler over the past two or three years, and this is just another reason why. He doesn't understand the failure of Cataclysm, which is why that game will limp along hemhorraging more subscribers.

 

Deathwing was a poorly thought out and conceived villain. He's crazy, and that's that. You can't relate to him. Arthas, Illidan, you felt for them. They had a rich, deep story that was tragic. Deathwing was just a big, crazy dragon.

 

Now that you mention it, I agree. Deathwing has always been a part of the Warcraft lore since War3. But, for the most part, he was always far detached from the player. Whereas Arthas, you actually PLAYED him in War3 and got to relate a bit to his "story" in WoW (the stratholme "Caverns of Time" instance gave players part of that incite).

 

And in that same vein, perhaps players cannot relate to Malgus in SWTOR? He is, after all, a brand new character with very little background shown in SWTOR.....

 

 

Who suddenly decides to split from the Empire because he feels a little unappreciated.

 

So ultimately, maybe players won't be able to fully relate to Malgus for the same reasons they can't relate to Deathwing?

 

There were no "tiers" to raiding. Every patch made the previous raid obsolete. This didn't work near the middle of Wrath, and it definitely didn't work in Cata. In fact, in Cata they took it to a whole new level, making dungeons obsolete, too. Trolloics for four months straight?! Woohoo!

 

Thing is, if there is progression to characters in a "themepark" focused MMO, then ultimately there will be items that become obsolete. The only way around that is, as far as I can see, to be able to "upgrade" items over time. Anarchy Online had something like that: you began with obtaining a "base piece" and having performed certain tasks you were able to upgrade it.

 

Now, the modification system in SWTOR is perhaps something similar from a certain perspective. But, that system has the possibility of rendering crafting just a useless as it is now.

 

They put a vast majority of resources into updating the game world, which has all of a two-day "wow" factor. But yet I still need to zone i to Silvermoon and Azuremyst? And can't fly there? Lazy.

 

Well, I believe that the reason for that is because at the present time silvermoon is still part of the TBC expansion, which is still separate from the parts of the "classic game". Silvermoon is still in a separate "instance" away from Eastern Kingdoms.

 

So until they officially just stop charging for TBC, they won't "merge" the landmass of Silvermoon with the rest of Eastern Kingdoms.

 

Lastly, they need to call it World of Orgimmar/Stormwindcraft, because that's the only place worth going. They intentionally designed convenience in those zones to make other zones pointless.

 

Well to be fair to Ghostcrawler, he did point out how they realised that they had effectively just allowed people to "portal" around too much (due to the design of a lot of the high end zones) and didn't give high end players enough reason to just get out into the rest of the world.

 

I won't even start on how the most interesting stories are left unfinished, on how they tell story in books instead of in game, on Thrall's boring romance, on the oversimplification of classes, on the stillbroken PvP, on the dumbing down of raids, the horribly written worgen, the extremely disgusting and outdated graphics, the ridiculous new race/class combos, etc.

 

SWTOR isn't perfect, but it has some time before falling into these pitfalls. I can understand not being satisfied with some missing features or bugs, but whatever WoW was, it isn't anymore, and will never be again with these jokers at the helm.

 

Well I can certainly appreciate what you're saying about WoW. But to be fair to Blizzard, they have acknowledged their mistakes. Whether or not they can put them right is another matter.

 

As for SWTOR, I'm not sure that it isn't already succumbing to certain "pitfalls" by trying to emulate the likes of WoW, for the wrong reasons.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Tarka

[Cerion]

Agreed. Although to be fair, SWTOR does have "Datacrons".

The concept could be used not to give extra stats but to offer additional Codex information.

 

Perhaps giving clues to where the next Datacron lies. Chain those together and you have yourself a "Treasure Hunt" of sorts. Clues could be changed on a regular basis, and that could become part of a larger "World Event" series.

 

That would be a fair start. One of the best exploration experiences I had in an MMO was Earth and Beyond. Explorer was an actual class. Your exploration skill allowed you to journey to more exotic and treacherous places in the galaxy. When you arrived at a new location, you received xp toward your exploration. You could then use your skill to travel off the beaten path.

 

In SWTOR right now, you get XP for new areas...but it's really not that much of a reward because EVERYONE is funneled into those areas. You're not really exploring.

 

For me, the real exploring happens in SWTOR while I'm 50lvl and I can go back to all of the underleveled worlds and putz around without the frustration effect. However, the rewards are no longer that spectacular, so I mainly do it for the new sights and experiences.

[sockrocker]

I have to say that orbital stations are a terrible idea. It's really just a series of unnecessary hoops to jump through to get from planet A to planet B that could have been handled much better by having hangars on every planet.

It really breaks the sense of freedom to explore (or even to travel to somewhere with a GTN rather than hoarding everything untill I finish each planet).

[Zergor]

I had the following thought process over the weekend. I had some time free up to play, the amount of time was 45 minutes to 2.5 hours. I thought I'd like to play an alt, however I ended up not doing so because to do that, I'd have to login my alt wait for it to load, run to my ship, wait for it to zone, run to my navigation console, wait for it to zone, run to the ship exit, wait for it to zone. Run through some empty "space taxi" area to a shuttle, wait for it to zone, run through a empty space port (where I can't use quick travel or a speeder, despite people driving speeders around the fleet all the time... ?) then hit quick travel or ride a speeder to a quest hub. WHY do I have to zone that many time through empty, boring, pointless areas to get to someplace to run quests?

 

So instead I hit warzone queue, played 2 of those and then my playtime was cut short. Glad I didn't waist 20 minutes zoning through SWTOR's version of TSA.

 

Why must I make the journey back to fleet to pick up PVP/Flashpoint dailies? I could just logout on a planet I wanted to be on to run quests or dailies and pvp or do that planet's flashpoints without the travel/time tax.

 

Why do some major hubs on a planet have a bank and some don't? Why am I escorting a caravan of beasts carrying cargo when the shuttle I ride between point A and B is big enough to park a tank in?

[Tarka]

That would be a fair start. One of the best exploration experiences I had in an MMO was Earth and Beyond. Explorer was an actual class. Your exploration skill allowed you to journey to more exotic and treacherous places in the galaxy. When you arrived at a new location, you received xp toward your exploration. You could then use your skill to travel off the beaten path.

 

In SWTOR right now, you get XP for new areas...but it's really not that much of a reward because EVERYONE is funneled into those areas. You're not really exploring.

 

For me, the real exploring happens in SWTOR while I'm 50lvl and I can go back to all of the underleveled worlds and putz around without the frustration effect. However, the rewards are no longer that spectacular, so I mainly do it for the new sights and experiences.

 

An interesting concept. In fact, if I remember rightly even SWG originally rewarded exploration by giving players the ability to climb steeper inclines.

 

I suppose that some may try to argue that those of us who like to see such rewards are part of the "insta gratification" brigade, but I would disagree with them. After all, from a certain perspective we are "rewarded" for exploring in real life, our muscles get stronger and we get to experience things we wouldn't normally experience.

[Tarka]

I have to say that orbital stations are a terrible idea. It's really just a series of unnecessary hoops to jump through to get from planet A to planet B that could have been handled much better by having hangars on every planet.

It really breaks the sense of freedom to explore (or even to travel to somewhere with a GTN rather than hoarding everything untill I finish each planet).

 

Agreed. From a certain "lore" perspective I could understand their inclusion. For instance, certain planets are too "harsh" to land on. But that perspective has never been cited by Bioware. So god knows what they were thinking when they implemented them.

 

And why did EACH class need it's own elevator? That never made sense to me.

 

Anyhow, the changes in 1.2 may actually help somewhat with the perception that the orbital stations gave.

[Faulhaber]

Hmm traveling... Lovely... I wonder if tis going to be like EQ, plenty of travelling, unfortunatelly I played a Bard so I did not fully enjoy the travelling part of the fun, nevertheless I've always met lots of friends asking for a ride.

[iloveicarly]

Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street recently posted an insight into what Blizzard thought they did right and wrong when developing WoW's most recent expansion.

 

Yes, yes, I know....I can almost hear the fanboys reaching for that "Post Reply" button to feverishly type something along the lines of: "This isn't WoW!!!! You're Ghostcrawler in disguise, here to just try to get people back to WoW!!!". Blah, blah. Sigh.

 

Firstly, yes, I know this isn't WoW. Secondly, no, I'm not trying to get people away from this game (unlike certain fanboys and girls in these forums). So don't get your panties in a bunch. If you can't read this with an open mind, then perhaps you shouldn't be reading it at all. Just for a few minutes, put aside any prejudices you may have about WoW, and try to prevent yourself from hitting that "Post Reply" button before fully reading and understanding Ghostcrawler's post.

 

The fact is that Bioware hold Blizzard's product in high regard. So any development concerned with Blizzard's product will possibly give Bioware pause for thought on how they continue development with SWTOR.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/4519250

 

Anyhow, below are some snippets which caught my attention, and I think could possibly end up applying to SWTOR in some ways too. Just ignore the fact that he mentions their next expansion (I left those bits in purely to give his words enough context).

 

 

 

How could this apply to TOR?: Well, the planets do essentially end up "scattering" players much like the different zones in Cataclysm did. He also touches on the subject of "exploration" (the bit I emboldened) and how he thinks it is important to ensure that giving the players opportunities to explore is quite important.

 

The co-founders of Bioware also talked pre-launch about the need for exploration in TOR and how that activity is important. But some complaints have remarked how there isn't enough opportunity to do that at the moment.

 

 

 

The above applies to TOR in some respects too. Some complaints about TOR have been centred on the fact that progression through the "zones" (planets) feels a little too linear, whilst not providing enough opportunities to just do other things, like explore.

 

 

 

Blizzard have obviously realised that one of the keys to remaining successful is to not ignore any one particular playerbase too much. There have been complaints that perhaps Bioware are currently forsaking one type of playstyle (i.e. those who like to continue progressing their "end game" characters) in favour of focusing more on another type of player (i.e. those who like "rolling alts").

 

 

How does the above apply to TOR?: Well again, Ghostcrawler touches on getting players out into the world, and to give them the opportunity to see others whilst out there too. Instead of allowing players to "portal" about too much. One of the recent complaints about TOR has been how the game "splits" up the playerbase a little too much, giving the feeling of "empty worlds".

 

He also obviously realises that "fresh" gameplay is needed, and it should be offered in ways that don't feel too "grindy". Some could say that's what TOR is already doing to some regard. But one thing he does touch on, that TOR isn't offering at the moment, is the opportunity to get involved in different and yet interesting NPC factions.

 

And lastly, he shows an understanding that getting content out as fast as possible (within reason) is of paramount importance, and not to wait too long before getting it to the servers.

 

 

Now, no doubt some of Ghostcrawler's post contains moments which may make one want to say "Well duh!", but on the other hand it's hard not to ignore the honesty and truth in his post.

 

Like I said in the title of this thread, it's food for thought.

 

Flame away.....

 

 

the devs could use this as an advantage and steal more of WoW players

[Tarka]

I had the following thought process over the weekend. I had some time free up to play, the amount of time was 45 minutes to 2.5 hours. I thought I'd like to play an alt, however I ended up not doing so because to do that, I'd have to login my alt wait for it to load, run to my ship, wait for it to zone, run to my navigation console, wait for it to zone, run to the ship exit, wait for it to zone. Run through some empty "space taxi" area to a shuttle, wait for it to zone, run through a empty space port (where I can't use quick travel or a speeder, despite people driving speeders around the fleet all the time... ?) then hit quick travel or ride a speeder to a quest hub. WHY do I have to zone that many time through empty, boring, pointless areas to get to someplace to run quests?

 

So instead I hit warzone queue, played 2 of those and then my playtime was cut short. Glad I didn't waist 20 minutes zoning through SWTOR's version of TSA.

 

Why must I make the journey back to fleet to pick up PVP/Flashpoint dailies? I could just logout on a planet I wanted to be on to run quests or dailies and pvp or do that planet's flashpoints without the travel/time tax.

 

Why do some major hubs on a planet have a bank and some don't? Why am I escorting a caravan of beasts carrying cargo when the shuttle I ride between point A and B is big enough to park a tank in?

 

Gotta admit, there are some weird things associated with the planets in this game.

You do have a good point about the PVP / Flashpoint / Operation "dailies" and "weeklies". Why do you need to visit a specific "terminal" to pick them up? Why aren't they just listed as optional missions in a specific tab in your Journal?

[Tarka]

the devs could use this as an advantage and steal more of WoW players

 

Indeed, they could. But that would mean that they would have to address the similarities that I highlighted

[FalmeseReb]

WHy is this on the star wars forums... go to the wow forums if you want to talk about wow... Why is this so hard to understand???

[Tarka]

Hmm traveling... Lovely... I wonder if tis going to be like EQ, plenty of travelling, unfortunatelly I played a Bard so I did not fully enjoy the travelling part of the fun, nevertheless I've always met lots of friends asking for a ride.

 

I realise that some don't like the idea of travelling and to them the "fun" begins when they actually get involved in an activity.

 

But, travelling is one of those activities which some like, and some hate. It's one of those "necessary evil" type of things that set an MMO that is trying to give the illusion of a vast world (or set of worlds) apart from one that is nothing more than a "hub" with a collection of instance doorways to dungeons (*cough* DDO *cough*).

 

When people can insta-portal everywhere, the world (or worlds) become so much....smaller. Convenience can be good, but too much can be bad.

[Ansultares]

Now that you mention it, I agree. Deathwing has always been a part of the Warcraft lore since War3.

Say what? Edited March 12, 2012 by Ansultares

[Lethality]

Just gonna support Tarka on the OP. It's spot on, and if you give Blizzard credit for anything it's always looking at themselves critically, and usually hitting the nail on the head with what to tweak.

 

Blizzard has really perfected many of the things in the genre, and while BioWare holds WoW in high regard, it strikes me as odd that more of the important lessons learned didn't seem to carry.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Lethality

[Tarka]

WHy is this on the star wars forums... go to the wow forums if you want to talk about wow... Why is this so hard to understand???

 

Sigh. Well....I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone completely missed the point of the OP.

[Ansultares]

Just gonna support Tarka on the OP. It's spot on, and if you give Blizzard credit for anything it's always looking at themselves critically, and usually hitting the nail on the head with what to tweak.

That comment of his, about them being the most critical of their work, came across well.

[Tarka]

Say what?

 

I'm not going to dwell on Warcraft lore, but I seem to recall that Deathwing and the other dragons where part of the Warcraft 3 lore. But, even so, I suppose players couldn't really "relate" to that particular character as much as, let's say, Arthas or Revan in Kotor.

[Camryyn]

I've always thought they should've overlapped the questing zones alot more. I've got 3 characters 40+ and I can count on one hand in every single 25+ planet how many people from the opposing faction I've seen. I saw my first on Belsavis last night and I'm almost done with the zone. I encountered 2 on Tatooine, 1 on Taris, etc.

 

I always liked having to watch your behind while questing. Vanilla Ashenvale was glorious IMO. The cycle of getting a main to gank the ganker that got ganked was so fun.

[Ansultares]

I'm not going to dwell on Warcraft lore, but I seem to recall that Deathwing and the other dragons where part of the Warcraft 3 lore. But, even so, I suppose players couldn't really "relate" to that particular character as much as, let's say, Arthas or Revan in Kotor.

Deathwing is like as old as the series.

 

Definitely in WC2; possibly in the original, though it's been so long I can't remember.

[Moncrief]

In general I feel the sheer number of planets is what TOR got wrong. it really does hinder exploration and the whole "running in to others doing stuff" idea Ghostcrawler mentioned. I think they would have been better off with two or so much larger planets. Making the main high-level hangout (Fleet) completely separated hinders this more. It is my one big gripe. Crash the fleets and make Coruscant and Dromund Kass the two main cities. Or, similar to WoW, make ultiple main cities. Perhaps, instead of racial affiliation, they could be class affiliated - Jedi Temple, Republic HQ, Imperial Intelligence, etc..

 

The number of small, disjointed planets is a design that is unfortunately not changeable. So, axe the fleets and get people on the ground!