Ghostcrawler offers some food for thought....

[Viera]

You know, when I played WoW you pretty much just progressed along a linear path based upon your level. I'm not sure why people think this is new, hell, every MMO I've played has been that way. Some just do a better job at hiding it.

[NoxiousAlby]

Although GC makes some relevant points I still believe the man is in denial

 

The difficulty at which we pegged our heroic dungeons and raids was controversial. They were designed to be about as tough as the dungeons were back in Burning Crusade, but the game has changed since then. Coming out of Lich King, we’d gotten the message loud and clear from players that they wanted tougher challenges.

Personaly I had no problems with Cata heroics but would like to say the above is false. The trash pulls in BC were what made those dungeons hard, the actual boss fights were easier than those in Cata.

 

Furthermore the only players whinging for more challenging content werent the majority. They were the squeaky wheel that makes the most noise, otherwise subs wouldnt have started falling in the first month when players were attempting them.

 

I could name a few smaller features we thought worked out as well. The Justice / Honor badge system in Cataclysm cleaned up the crazy system from Lich King.

That crazy system that allowed all types of players to grind for badges to obtain entry level raid gear (normal)? A system that gave every player the opportunity to progress their character without the necessity of raiding?

 

Sounds to me like GC still hasnt learnt his lesson, and I for one wouldnt even bother buying MOP if he has anything to do with it.

Edited March 13, 2012 by NoxiousAlby

[Dejoblue]

The questing is the most linear I have ever experienced. Certainly I have done epic chain quests like the AQ gates opening or the Druid epic flight form quest, but each and every planet. it is like you don't get to breathe. And everyone makes a beeline for the next marker. the only time you see anyone is at these markers.

 

The "quest helper" has completely ruined exploration. WOTLK is when the sense of wonder and exploration was lost in videogames because of that damned quest helper and carbonite addons. Sure you could look it up on thottbot or wowhead or any other database but that was a not a button click away.

[Firolaine]

There is no exploration in star wars, when you walk somewhere new, it automatically discovers a rather large distance. There is no 'wth is that thing?!?' because before you see a world boss, you enter it's 'heroic area'. You can't discover any of the dungeons because they all exist in space and require you to go to the fleet and take a taxi.

 

And datacrons? pfft. There's nothing that's really fun about watching people's mggs fail repeatedly when they're trying to access the +10cron.

[zebrawizard]

About the questing, swtor is different, and its because its different that it does it better than WoW or any other MMO, because it has narrative and direction. Other MMOs are just, clusters of random quests, and your story is "Your character is there just because he needs to help people to level up"

 

the fresh gameplay is true though, SWTOR is the imitation of WoW, and that doesnt make it fresh or fun (anymore) as an ex-WoW player, which i did enjoy during the time, i wanted something fresh, new and fun. and its the same but with different graphics (essentially).

 

Its also true what ghostcrawler says "i log in but have nothing to do". Theres plenty of stuff to do, dungeons/PvP etc.

 

But why dont you do them? because they dont have loot i need.

 

So people only do these things for incentives, rather than gameplay.

[Asuka]

SWTOR is a theme park with many planets. SWG tried the massive planet thing and it failed because 99% of each planet was filled with nothing useful and just caused one annoyance after another running into player housing trying to get where you needed to go. WoW is 1 world and a half. SWTOR's planets are fine. I think planets like Hoth and Tat are plenty big. The area really only needs to be big enough to accomplish your leveling goal for that world before moving on to the next.

[Incendergel]

Read that same article a day or so ago. I get the idea of what he is trying to say but coming from someone who played the game since pre-retail beta through current expansion pack enough is enough. For me anyway. I mean what, 7 years?

 

That is a lot of time into a single class (yeah, I played only one - go figure) that was hated for its bubble and was changed, patched, and looks nothing like it was upon creation. Heck, before it even went live it had a major overhaul - strikes anyone? This isn't anything new to that publisher / developer. One thing you have to hand them though is this. That game can pretty much be played on anything. Sure - wintergrasp was bad upon release, but shortly fixed. You get the idea.

 

Swtor did some things great. Class quests. Lets face it, they do rock regardless of what we feel about the rest of the game. Voice overs - it is what it is. AoC did it first and had similar stories from level 1 through 20 with voice. 20 to 30 was hit or miss. Post 30 it was a disaster Anyway - nothing new is what I'm saying.

 

Swtor also had more content than any other "retail" MMO. Yes, I went there. WoW had L/UBRS, was 15 man, and took forever (yeah, forever) to finish. Didn't have any tier gear. Worse yet you needed a key (one person in the group) to enter to upper...MC was a patch. Want to talk about THAT requirement to enter? Lol, yeah. Great times. BWL and Nax pre-BC? Nax rocked when it originally dropped but what, maybe .01% saw it at best let alone completed it.

 

So we have voice quests, we have class quests. We have a HUGE world environment and maps. Everything that hints at a massive game yet falls flat on its face because they sharded it to hellnback. I didn't see a opposing faction member until I was level 28 and landed on Alderaan. AND I play on a PvP server - /facepalm. Really? 28 levels to encounter my first imperial player who I could actually engage in some form of skull duggery? I don't know about you but I rolled on a PvP server to engage in some mayhem and murder people.

 

Anyway - anyone who is spending time and money working on something they love - i.e. bioware employees could learn something from that. Hell, I bet they already did a post mortem of their release. What went right, what went wrong, and the pulse of the game as they see it. The last thing I honestly believe they "DON'T" want to see is their subscriber base leave. Two sides to the story which many want EA to fail because of the way they constantly ruin games. The other side want them to make it.

 

Choose your side. I'm in it till June anyway. Then we'll see.

[HexHammer]

He has it all wrong, people who play very simple games doesn't play it to earn something, they play it for the simple and fun gameplay which escapes most MMO devs.

 

See how people play FPS games, not to grind armor, weapons, rep, mounts or any other silly things, but pure gameplay fun!!!!

 

The most fun PvP I'v ever played was Lineage II clan v clan wars, not this boring WoW PvP BG grind. Not only was it more fun, but that respect and selfrespect was unparalelled.

 

They should release fewer things, but more quality gameplay. That Arden Tournament in WotLK, could easily be a blast, but i was domped down to retard lvl, and no fun gameplay, not highscore, no nothing.

[Star-ranger]

The First problem is the group size. With a maximum of 4 players in a standard group how does that promote socialization, especially with each player having a 'companion' which counts as a member? My wife and I play together. With our companions out we don't need anybody else. We're a whole freaking team of 4.

 

Somehow I think that was a mistake on the part of Bioware. It actually reduces the amount of people playing together until you get to bigger raid content. But, what experience do people have playing raid content when they finally get around to it... none.

 

People complain about instances. I've never found instances to be a problem... of course I come from COH where just about every mission is an instance, but you have teams of up to 8 players on a normal team...AND...the instances are scale-able. I.e. you can set the difficulty level you want, and the instance will scale for your level, and the number of players you have on your team. I have no problem with COH style instances. I don't know who would except for PvP players who would want to get into a location to ambush unsuspecting opponents on a mission. Even then you could set up PvP situations where opposing sides had similar goals in the environment and it would be a race to the finish to see who could get the objective first.

 

Without some way of adventuring together beyond 4 characters you're not really going to build community, especially since there are few social tools in the game as of yet.

 

The second big problem is the linear nature of this game. Lots of theme-park, very little sandbox. Don't get me wrong. I love story, and this game is full of great story...But... a lot more could be done with each planet to add in some non-linear content.

 

There's got to be more to some of these planets than just the linear story arc. There are all sorts of tile sets that could be utilized ready to go. What if each planet had another zone besides the story arc zone... like a sandbox zone.

 

I guess I think there should be more to be done in for planets like Corusant, Tatooine, Alderan, etc.

[Stejo]

WoW feels like a living, breathing world. When you are in your capital city, you can just ride off to the distance towards any direction you like, pass through mountains, rivers, oceans, see countless creatures moving around in a proper day/night cycle, dynamic weather changes and all that fluff.

 

It's stuff that I only came to appreciate after I picked up swtor. The disjointed planets felt so sterile and railroaded, I just couldn't stand it. I'd say it's the biggest problem of the game, at least in my eyes, because it's a fundamentally wrong design that can't ever be fixed without changing the entire game world.

 

The world in wow (and most decent mmos actually, it's not like wow invented this) gives you a feeling of freedom that swtor is desperately lacking. I just felt boxed in every planet I visited in swtor.

 

Maybe if it was easier to travel between planets without having to go through all those loading screens and somehow convey the feeling of traveling rather than a series of loading screens, it would be easier to stomach.

[swtonewbie]

I agree with this. One of WoW's greatest accomplishments was having massive continents with different zones that you could explore, have WPVP, and have seemless transitions across lands.

 

Here it is Ship-->Orbital Station-->Airlock-->Shuttle-->One Planet that is very segregated often times.

 

I am not sure how else you do it other than being able to physically fly a spaceship from planet to planet to give you that same exploring feel. Something I think would be great but likely isn't in the cards.

 

Yah, IMO they should just have it go from space > planetside spaceport. A good example of this is the very beginning when you roll a smuggler. Your smuggler lands in a port on the planet, and the indoor area right next to it is the cargo/office area, and then just a few more steps and you are outside. Something like this but maybe slightly bigger, but not so big that you have something the size of Coruscant spaceport.

Edited March 13, 2012 by swtonewbie

[Tgpo]

Read that same article a day or so ago. I get the idea of what he is trying to say but coming from someone who played the game since pre-retail beta through current expansion pack enough is enough. For me anyway. I mean what, 7 years?

 

That is a lot of time into a single class (yeah, I played only one - go figure) that was hated for its bubble and was changed, patched, and looks nothing like it was upon creation. Heck, before it even went live it had a major overhaul - strikes anyone? This isn't anything new to that publisher / developer. One thing you have to hand them though is this. That game can pretty much be played on anything. Sure - wintergrasp was bad upon release, but shortly fixed. You get the idea.

 

Swtor did some things great. Class quests. Lets face it, they do rock regardless of what we feel about the rest of the game. Voice overs - it is what it is. AoC did it first and had similar stories from level 1 through 20 with voice. 20 to 30 was hit or miss. Post 30 it was a disaster Anyway - nothing new is what I'm saying.

 

Swtor also had more content than any other "retail" MMO. Yes, I went there. WoW had L/UBRS, was 15 man, and took forever (yeah, forever) to finish. Didn't have any tier gear. Worse yet you needed a key (one person in the group) to enter to upper...MC was a patch. Want to talk about THAT requirement to enter? Lol, yeah. Great times. BWL and Nax pre-BC? Nax rocked when it originally dropped but what, maybe .01% saw it at best let alone completed it.

 

So we have voice quests, we have class quests. We have a HUGE world environment and maps. Everything that hints at a massive game yet falls flat on its face because they sharded it to hellnback. I didn't see a opposing faction member until I was level 28 and landed on Alderaan. AND I play on a PvP server - /facepalm. Really? 28 levels to encounter my first imperial player who I could actually engage in some form of skull duggery? I don't know about you but I rolled on a PvP server to engage in some mayhem and murder people.

 

Anyway - anyone who is spending time and money working on something they love - i.e. bioware employees could learn something from that. Hell, I bet they already did a post mortem of their release. What went right, what went wrong, and the pulse of the game as they see it. The last thing I honestly believe they "DON'T" want to see is their subscriber base leave. Two sides to the story which many want EA to fail because of the way they constantly ruin games. The other side want them to make it.

 

Choose your side. I'm in it till June anyway. Then we'll see.

 

This is my biggest gripe with the game, ive said it before and I'll say it again, this game while having many great aspects to it is far too instanced. As you mentioned, you didn't see anyone from the opposing faction til level 28, I think I was a few levels higher and by doing this they have failed to make you feel like you're apart of some massive galactic war.

 

There isn't any freedom to explore enemy territory, why have they made this game so "carebear" friendly? I have a space ship, yet I can't fly to an Imperial world. I'd like to be able to wreak havoc upon their cities, after all i chose a pvp server, or did I? There is barely any difference between pve and pvp servers in this game.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Tgpo

[swtonewbie]

This is my biggest gripe with the game, ive said it before and I'll say it again, this game while having many great aspects to it is far too instanced. As you mentioned, you didn't see anyone from the opposing faction til level 28, I think I was a few levels higher and by doing this they have failed to make you feel like you're apart of some massive galactic war.

 

There isn't any freedom to explore enemy territory, why have they made this game so "carebear" friendly? I'd like to be able to wreak havoc upon the imperial cities, after all i chose a pvp server, or did I? There is barely any difference between pve and pvp servers in this game.

 

I wonder if BW that that on purpose or if it was accidental? to prevent high levels from griefing opposite factions in their low level starting zones?

 

One of my most memorable moments in WoW was when i first rolled a Human Paladin and got out of the Northshire area and went to Goldshire. Now i was an MMO ultra noob, and after only playing the game for like 30 minutes i didnt know how to read character levels. So Goldshire came underattack by a bunch of hordies, and naturally i tried to defend. Only problem was i was level 5 and the attacking horde were level 60 (but i didnt know it at the time). But instead of being frustrated because I was getting killed repeatedly i actually enjoyed myself.

[illgot]

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.

 

Finding venders that sell rare mats or recipes = exploring

 

Finding the right location to fish = exploring

 

Finding odd little islands that have weird mobs only found on that island = exploring

 

Finding locations under water that are just neat = exploring

 

Finding certain rare mobs spawning in the back of an inconspicuous cave = exploring

 

A lot of exploration in games is ruined by the sheer fact you can look up things on the internet, but you still need to first figure out what you are trying to look up and for players that enjoy exploring (going off the quest path) it can be fun.

[Jeskelech]

How many of you have really explored and seen the Sarlacc Pit in Tattoine? Why not be innovative and come up with a quest involving the Sarlacc pit?

QUOTE]

 

 

I am guessing you have only played the imperial side....

 

[Tgpo]

I wonder if BW that that on purpose or if it was accidental? to prevent high levels from griefing opposite factions in their low level starting zones?

 

One of my most memorable moments in WoW was when i first rolled a Human Paladin and got out of the Northshire area and went to Goldshire. Now i was an MMO ultra noob, and after only playing the game for like 30 minutes i didnt know how to read character levels. So Goldshire came underattack by a bunch of hordies, and naturally i tried to defend. Only problem was i was level 5 and the attacking horde were level 60 (but i didnt know it at the time). But instead of being frustrated because I was getting killed repeatedly i actually enjoyed myself.

 

I'm sure grief prevention may have been one of the reasons they had done this, included among a long list of others (eg technical and convenience) However BW mentioned that pvp on a pvp server can not be construed as griefing, not matter the circumstances.

 

As for your experience in WoW, I am exactly the same and really enjoy these moments (giving or receiving hehe) For those who would prefer to level without the hindrance of the opposing factions, that's why there is PvE servers.

[Vlaxitov]

3. Appeal to a broad audience. I’m always surprised by the number of players who want the game to be easier and the equal number who want the game to be harder (and can’t understand why anyone would disagree with them!) We approach the issue in a different way -- we think that what all of those players are really saying is that they want content for them.

 

This is the patton mistake responsible for most of their past mistakes.

 

"jack of all trades" is "master of none"

Edited March 13, 2012 by Vlaxitov

[Tgpo]

This is the patton mistake responsible for most of their past mistakes.

 

"jack of all trades" is "master of none"

 

There's a famous quote by Bill Cosby that a few players have as their signature, “I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

[RabidPopcorn]

SWTOR really needs a way for us to use our spaceships in a more dynamic manner; the spaceship needs to be further integrated into each zone. Why can't I land my spaceship wherever I want, then disembark and explore on foot only if I wish?

[MrStabbie]

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.

 

OK, you obviously haven't seen the ORIGINAL film, before the CGI beak and tentacles were added in, post production...

[Necrolepsy]

Agreeing with ghostcrawler is like agreeing with a doctor that you need crutches once he smashes your legs in.

[Sunsoar]

I curse you OP for bringing this to my attention. Being two years sober from WoW, I now have returning hope and an urge to get back into the game based of what they have planned and have released since I left the game.

 

One reason I mainly won't go back is because their graphical engine is hella outdated in the character/armor textures. While the art style is still barely holding up and the water system was a much needed revamp, character/armor textures just matter a lot to me.

 

 

Here's hoping TOR will become something as awesome as WoW has been, and maybe, just maybe, I will return to TOR one day too.

[Tiande]

Agreeing with ghostcrawler is like agreeing with a doctor that you need crutches once he smashes your legs in.

 

No, that's more like after he accidentally smashes your leg, trying to fix your broken arm. And all with good intention.

[Necrolepsy]

No, that's more like after he accidentally smashes your leg, trying to fix your broken arm. And all with good intention.

 

He must be a massive klutz because he's smashed a lot of legs and arms ever since he became lead developer.

 

That's what happens when you put a marine biologist to be a freakin lead dev.

[Sunsoar]

He must be a massive klutz because he's smashed a lot of legs and arms ever since he became lead developer.

 

That's what happens when you put a marine biologist to be a freakin lead dev.

 

And yet WoW is the MOST SUCCESSFUL MMO of all time. Apparently they/he did something right...

 

Huh : /