The Myth of the SW:ToR Story; No it can't support an MMO.

[Pepperawr]

The point some of us are trying to make is that there is no consequence if you do let people live or kill them, other than an email in your inbox describing what happened after. Rarely do you meet a character you spared again, rarely if you kill someone does any kind of consequence follow. And where it does, this was scripted anyway and you were forced into killing them. Have you not noticed that if the class storyline script requires a character to die, then you don't get the option to kill or spare them? You only get that choice if it doesn't matter to the overall pre-written story.

 

Essentially the storylines all railroad you to the same place.

 

Try using ESC on key storyline dialogues to see the different responses. What you'll see is this structure:

 

Stage 1 Dialogue.

This presents 3 choices.

 

Intermediate Stage

Your choice triggers an intermediate dialogue response. This may result in a further intermediate dialogue choices, or otherwise a short filler response from the NPC before they move on to the next stage. This is your cosmetic roleplay 'flavour' dialogue, but it has no tangible influence on anything that happens. You can be as rude and insulting if you wish and after a brief reaction the NPC will still continue on as if nothing has happened.

 

Stage 2 Dialogue

You get the same dialogue here regardless of you choice in Stage 1. The mission continues on along its railroad.

 

Of course with voice acting and cut scenes it is difficult to give players too wide a choice of outcomes and plot forks. But currently there are none of any note. No forks at all. Everyone ends up at exactly the same place. So it *is* like acting out a film script.

 

As for personality, our characters have very little that reflects our choices during the storyline. The odd title and some facial coprruption if we go DS (which can be switched off anyway). No special emotes, abilities or traits we pick up due to our choices. No variation on companions due to our choices. No consequences, period.

 

This is actually a fair argument (as opposed to those arguing for a sandbox game), and while I'm not sure if this happens for all story lines, it does seem that the choices you make and the very end of the current stories hint at the possibility of larger branching in expansions...

 

ie. while being general about this enough not to give spoilers, the BH story seems to hint that depending on who you kill (or don't kill) you may be receiving contracts from different people in the next chapter of story...I admit I'd be disappointed if it didn't have an effect.

 

Perhaps this is something they will continue to advance like all other areas of the game.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Pepperawr

[ikinai]

Any one with a decent GM/DM.

 

Actually, a good GM/DM tells the story, not the player

[Suomipoika]

Wait... What? Does that statement even make sense?

 

Does to me.

[Goretzu]

Actually, a good GM/DM tells the story, not the player

 

Nah, a really good one has a framework to allow and help the players to invent and create there own path/paths, not just lay it out for them.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Goretzu

[DieAlteHexe]

It's not really, although with text it's easy to change the dialogue.

 

Like I said I never really noticed it until the later bonus quest series and especially Ilum quests (as I said I'd guess this is where development continued after voicing was done), it was ended up with about 10 canned phrases being repeated again and again. Even for text dialogue choices that had quite long and intricate descriptions.

 

But that's the point if there's no difference then voice acting has no benifit (in fact IMO it actually gets more annoying to hear the same canned speech again and again and again).

 

 

 

 

Which is an issue SWTOR is going to hit with new content, either than can bring back voice actors to record new stuff (time consuming and expensive) or they can use canned stuff they already have which just makes it sound..... well... like what it is, canned speech being replayed and replayed.

 

Sorry, but I can't agree at all. I enjoy the voice work, I find it a lot more interesting than text boxes chucked up on screen.

 

Guess it's just a total difference of opinion but I'm spoilt now, not sure I could stand a non-voiced MMO anymore. Sure, there is repeat but all do. I think this is far better.

 

To each their own, I guess!

[Dezzi]

Actually, a good GM/DM tells the story, not the player

 

Woah. That's all kinds of wrong.

 

A good GM/DM will provide the set pieces (obstacles) and the players will provide the lines and action (to overcome the obstacles). Table-top gaming is a cooperative activity. If I sat down for a pen and paper game and the GM started telling me what my character was doing, I'd get up before I ever rolled a d20.

 

I know that's kind of off-topic, but I read the entire thread, saw that, and just had to respond.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Dezzi

[Goretzu]

Sorry, but I can't agree at all. I enjoy the voice work, I find it a lot more interesting than text boxes chucked up on screen.

 

Guess it's just a total difference of opinion but I'm spoilt now, not sure I could stand a non-voiced MMO anymore. Sure, there is repeat but all do. I think this is far better.

 

To each their own, I guess!

 

Yeah.

 

I really liked it initially, but that's because they weren't using so many canned responses through most of the levelling phase.

 

Just in those later bonus series and Ilum where it suddenly became an issue for me.

 

If they'd had the same standard and depth of voice acting they'd had from L1 to L40-odd it would have been a different matter (I think in the dailies it's even worse because you are repeating them so much anyway, but even in the not repeatable quests [outside of the main story quest - which remains good to the end] the responses degrade as you get towards the end of the game).

 

 

 

 

The problem for me is more that apparently they have a stock of these canned responses, and plan to use for future quests.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Goretzu

[ikinai]

Woah. That's all kinds of wrong.

 

A good GM/DM will provide the set pieces (obstacles) and the players will provide the lines and action (to overcome the obstacles). Table-top gaming is a cooperative activity. If I sat down for a pen and paper game and the GM started telling me what my character was doing, I'd get up before I ever rolled a d20.

 

I know that's kind of off-topic, but I read the entire thread, saw that, and just had to respond.

 

But you the player, don't get to make up your own story, it is the GM/DM that sets the story, it is their story not the players. You say your lines, but it is not your story. Sorry, but it's true.

[Dezzi]

But you the player, don't get to make up your own story, it is the GM/DM that sets the story, it is their story not the players. You say your lines, but it is not your story. Sorry, but it's true.

 

Sorry, you're wrong.

 

While I may be playing in the GM/DM's world and interacting with their NPCs, the story being told is that of my character. Dezzi in the GM's world is still my Dezzi primarily because of the choices he makes; the GM might lead us to a city with an evil wizard controlling everyone, but that's just the setting (exposition)--what Dezzi decides to do (and does) next is where the real story comes out.

 

The players in a pen and paper game cooperate with the GM/DM to tell the story. It's not a one-sided affair. And if you've been playing games where the GM does everything for you except roll the dice, I'm really sorry to say that you're missing out on what makes RPGs one of the most amazing forms of story and interactive entertainment.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Dezzi

[ikinai]

Sorry, you're wrong.

 

While I may be playing in the GM/DM's world and interacting with their NPCs, the story being told is that of my character. Dezzi in the GM's world is still my Dezzi primarily because of the choices he makes.

 

The players in a pen and paper game cooperate with the GM/DM to tell the story. It's not a one-sided affair. And if you've been playing games where the GM does everything for you except roll the dice, I'm really sorry to say that you're missing out on what makes RPGs one of the most amazing forms of story and interactive entertainment.

 

You still don't understand what I'm saying do you? It isn't your story. Yes you make your choices, but it isn't your story.

[Dezzi]

You still don't understand what I'm saying do you? It isn't your story. Yes you make your choices, but it isn't your story.

 

I do understand what you're saying, but you're implying that the story being told can be owned by anyone but the group. Which is simply not true.

 

Look, we've already dragged this off-topic. I'll gladly discuss this more in PMs if you wish.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Dezzi

[ikinai]

I do understand what you're saying, but you're implying that the story being told can be owned by anyone but the group. Which is simply not true.

 

Look, we've already dragged this off-topic.

 

Actually it's quite on topic, Bioware is the GM, we are acting in their story

 

do you get it now?

Edited March 22, 2012 by ikinai

[Vincynt]

To me the story is the best thing here and it makes the levelling fun, in my opinion levelling is far too quick.

I 100% agree, the story does make the leveling process for different classes fun, I skip through the VO's for the planet specific quests and just listen to my class quests these days but I've done 4 Imperial Toon picking the AC and 4 Republic toons picking the opposite AC (so a Sith Juggernaught and a Jedi Sentinel) so I end up with 1 of each AC at the end and experienced every class story.

 

If you are basing your game around a story and the levelling system then the story should last long enough so that new story content comes out before the previous is completed by the majority of the player base.

I would agree with that sentiment and it does seem to be, initially, what BW did with SWTOR. And ties in with your previous comment about the leveling process being too quick.

 

The worst part of the game is the endgame because the story and motivation just dies, why on earth do they jump from story to repeatable dailies?? That's a killer for anyone that enjoyed the story lines, make your entry level armour take just as much time as grinding dailies but put it in an epic quest style story line that forces you to go back to different planets and trigger spawn mobs and event but above all follow a story line.

The problem is that BW pretty much created two different games in one. Which is why I feel that the polish is lacking and they're playing catch up. They made this awesome story driven co-op'able leveling experience, 1 - 50. You can either play it with your friends or solo it. They've given you tools to do this like companions. All in all not a bad run.

 

But then you get to lvl 50 and you enter the second stage of the game. The "endgame" phase. It's here that they tried to copy what Blizzard did with WoW. Operations, dailies, world PvP, etc. The issue here is that they continued with that "easy mode" mentality of leveling. Op's are easy, dailies are repatative, and PvP isn't very well balanced not to mention has some issues with the engine when there's a load of people on screen at once.

 

To me the leveling game and the end game seem like they had different directions, different driving forces, and there isn't much continuity. People who love the leveling don't even bother with the end game because of said repatativeness, they don't want to group up for ops, etc. Those people just make new characters and level thru the story again. Then you have people who want the end game. The problem there however is that the end game is easy mode so it appeals to the casual story guy, but the casual story guy isn't really the one playing end game. So the players that wanted challenging end game are left in the wind with this system that they all beat in the first month of release with nothing new but to change their play style to leveling alts, which they don't want to do because they didn't come to an MMO for the story in the first place.

 

After playing a story why on earth is everything instanced and in one spot? PvP queues and teleports to warzones (bleh) give me open world PvP zones with story lines, NPCs ect to complete.

Because that's what other MMO's do, specifically WoW, and they're trying to take paying customers from the other titles, specifically WoW. Again goes back to my argument that they really had two different focus's and it seems like two different games.

 

Operations and all level 50 flashpoints out of the fleet? Put them on the planets, make people find them, make them tie in with the story. It will keep the planets occupied.

 

World bosses, why are they single bosses out in the open? They were a great opportunity for unrestricted (level and number of player wise) for open world raiding for those of us that do not want instanced raiding. Put them in dungeons with mini-bosses!

 

Multi-group content under level 50? When my guild 1st started here we had 12 people hit around level 30 and look for something to do together, not a single Operation exists for under level 50.

 

When we had people hit 50 we wanted to go into an operation to size it up, we had 5 level 50s and 7 people from level 47-49, we couldn't enter prior to level 50...

 

We actually had to wait for the guild members to get to 50 before we could act like a guild, that to me was a bad sign and very annoying.

 

That is for me (in this game) the biggest anti-climax, you go from travelling all over galaxy, following a well written narrative to repeating dailies on 2 planets or standing on Fleet waiting for a group.

Everything you talk about in there is about copying other games to appeal to the people who play end game in those other games.

 

BW Employee: "Hey I know, lets make a game with a unique leveling experience that will bring in casual players and people who don't normally play MMO's!"

 

EA Fat Cat: "But we need it to make money if you want to spend all this cash developing it. So how about we copy the end game from another currently successful MMO."

 

BW Employee: "Well I guess we could do that... But we'll have all these casual people who might not have a ton of patience nor time for that type of hardcore end game."

 

EA Fat Cat: "Well... Lets just make the end game easier so the casual's can complete it in one play session! Surely that will make everyone happy."

 

BW Employee: "Because we know how effective trying to make everyone happy is... LETS DO IT!"

 

And that was how SWTOR was born... (at least in my mind)

Edited March 22, 2012 by Vincynt

[Jandi]

That's the downside of voiced dialogue and story. It can only vary so much while still keeping with the overarching storyline. It's the problem with all computer RPGs. It's impossible to count for multiple paths. They COULD do it but the amount of work would be insane and the size of the game, physical disk space required I mean, would be enormous. If the game took 1 TB of disk space, they could never sell hard copies and a lot of people couldn't fit it on their pc.

 

You also have to take into account that this is an MMO. There is no quickloads lol. Can you imagine the whining if you could permanently kill your companion for example? What about killing an NPC that prevented you from accessing a whole quest chain? While *I* personally would be fine with it, I understand the amount of whining that would result from it.

 

It's the dilemma of "What would be cool and interesting" VS "What is realistically feasible".

[MXIII]

I understand it.

 

But just call it like it is, we are telling you a story, insted of trying to sell it as my story, because, it isent.

 

SWTOR is a good game and i do enjoy it, i just wish it was abit more sandboxy

 

You only have the community to blame. At the beginning there were more choices. People you spared gave you quests later in the game, Companions could be killed abandoned or betrayed. Choices you made led to different content that another player wouldnt have because ehe made a different choice. So what happened? It went to testing and the players whined because they couldnt do EVERYTHING. They didnt like that you couldn't go back and see the other options without rolling a whole new character. Then crew skills came out companions became more important.

 

Then people complained when they accidentally killed them off. Hell I think it got so bad on the testing forums, that they even took out the bit where if your a complete tool to mako she just sits on the ship crying.

 

Most of the features we were promised were all removed during testing.

[Dezzi]

Actually it's quite on topic, Bioware is the GM, we are acting in their story

 

do you get it now?

 

They're doing it wrong.

 

[Dezzi]

You only have the community to blame. At the beginning there were more choices. People you spared gave you quests later in the game, Companions could be killed abandoned or betrayed. Choices you made led to different content that another player wouldnt have because ehe made a different choice. So what happened? It went to testing and the players whined because they couldnt do EVERYTHING. They didnt like that you couldn't go back and see the other options without rolling a whole new character. Then crew skills came out companions became more important.

 

Then people complained when they accidentally killed them off. Hell I think it got so bad on the testing forums, that they even took out the bit where if your a complete tool to mako she just sits on the ship crying.

 

Most of the features we were promised were all removed during testing.

 

Bingo. It's not that BioWare can't do this, as they've demonstrated they can. It's just that players couldn't handle the fact that their actions had consequences--sometimes dire ones.

[ikinai]

They're doing it wrong.

 

 

How else would you do it given the game they wanted to design? Given the story they wanted to tell? How could they be doing it wrong?

[Goretzu]

Actually it's quite on topic, Bioware is the GM, we are acting in their story

 

do you get it now?

 

I think you've only been playing with type 23.

[MXIII]

Bingo. It's not that BioWare can't do this, as they've demonstrated they can. It's just that players couldn't handle the fact that their actions had consequences--sometimes dire ones.

 

And it brings up a pretty good point. What happens to your perfectly crafted story, when you group up with somebody who has a completely different one? Or what if they want to make different choices than you? If you can answer that question maybe there can be more story in MMOs, but if your not okay with your story being completely changed by the story of someone else, then its just not possible to have your OWN story in an MMO. Because the obvious answer, and biowares answer "Be careful who you group with" just didnt fly.

[Dezzi]

How else would you do it given the game they wanted to design? Given the story they wanted to tell? How could they be doing it wrong?

 

Read up just a few posts.

 

Good, interactive story-telling is in the choices and the consequences--both good and bad--of those choices. What made the Odyssey exciting wasn't that Odysseus got stranded on an island with the Cyclops; it's what he chose to do and the consequences of those actions that made the whole scene exciting.

 

Of a more topical nature, we knew that Anakin is the Chosen One and that he would eventually fall to the Dark Side, but what we all wanted to know was how that happened, and what he did to fall so tragically.

 

BioWare has effectively taken my ownership of the story--of my character--in order to streamline and safeguard players' experiences. So you're right in this very specific case; that the GM (BioWare) is the one doing the storytelling.

 

But what I'm saying is that that's wrong. That's not the way to make an interactive story, and it's certainly not the way to give me the impression that I'm telling my own story.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Dezzi

[Nyla]

Read up just a few posts.

 

Good, interactive story-telling is in the choices and the consequences--both good and bad--of those choices. What made the Odyssey exciting wasn't that Odysseus got stranded on an island with the Cyclops; it's what he chose to do and the consequences of those actions that made the whole scene exciting.

 

Of a more contemporary nature, we knew that Anakin is the Chosen One and that he would eventually fall to the Dark Side, but what we all wanted to know was how that happened, and what he did to fall so tragically.

 

BioWare has effectively taken my ownership of the story--of my character--in order to streamline and safeguard players' experiences. So you're right in this very specific case; that the GM (BioWare) is the one doing the storytelling.

 

But what I'm saying is that that's wrong. That's not the way to make an interactive story, and it's certainly not the way to give me the impression that I'm telling my own story.

 

Now please tell me how you do that on a computer ?

[Dezzi]

Now please tell me how you do that on a computer ?

 

Have you played Mass Effect? Mass Effect 2? Oblivion or Skyrim? Admittedly the latter is a little light on player-choices and consequences, but they're there.

[Goretzu]

Now please tell me how you do that on a computer ?

 

You could do it in NWN on the right server, I don't think we'll be seeing it in an MMORPG for a long, long, long time though.

[Nyla]

The choices and consequences are still pre-made