I miss exploring in this game.

[mattgyver]

This made me lol so hard.

 

SWG's model was failing because the game was rushed. Much like this game was rushed. And it had a steep learning curve for the pre-NGE times. Which was alright with some of us. BUt when they changed the game format without adding all the after-content, well... that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Radical changes = destroying playerbase.

 

But SWG was the best model. For crafting. For heroic/raiding. For player interaction. For exploration. Casual enough to let anyone start up but involved enough to give everyone a sense of accomplishment when they got their armor or they got their jewelry... or their rare (and decent-looking) vehicles.

 

I wish you could see it the way I saw it. every day. but now you can't, and it's not worth explaining because you'll just never get it... and it breaks my heart.

 

Part of your post scares me, because I worry that fear of Post NGE Stress Disorder will kill playerbase if they fix the cruddy world design. Bioware may feel they are in a Catch 22 and just decide to play it safe and keep the same formula. Ohh I hope it doesn't go like that

[BlazingShadow]

Part of your post scares me, because I worry that fear of Post NGE Stress Disorder will kill playerbase if they fix the cruddy world design. Bioware may feel they are in a Catch 22 and just decide to play it safe and keep the same formula. Ohh I hope it doesn't go like that

 

It is what it is man. Like SWG had the opportunity pre-nge, there's alot that can be done WITHOUT radical changes, and I would be appeased if they simply tried that.

[Jett-Rinn]

I explore all the time in SWTOR could not have found my Datacrons or lore unlocks with out it.

 

But I get that isn't what this thread is about, it's just another compliant fest for the sandbox crowd.

[BurningDT]

The largest open world game I've played was Asheron's Call.

 

Except for a couple of small islands which you have to zone into, the whole world is one location.

 

You see those mountains, you can run around on them.

 

You see that volcano or valley WAY off in the distance? You can run there.

 

You see that ocean... ok you were kind of stuck to just the shore line as they didn't have real swimming.

 

But the way AC's world worked was that zones would shut down if no one was in them.

 

AC's whole world zone was awesome. The bad thing was that it could only support about 30 people in any one location, anymore than that and you got teleported to an adjacent area.

 

Portal storms still exist, but the threshold for portal storms are MUCH higher than when you last played.

 

AC was a great game and also had amazing PvP. I played again last year and we had fights upwards of 50-60 people.

 

AC was also massive, and you could just run and find random things all over, little huts here and there, vendors, random lifestones etc.

[mattgyver]

It is what it is man. Like SWG had the opportunity pre-nge, there's alot that can be done WITHOUT radical changes, and I would be appeased if they simply tried that.

 

This is what I mean though, they have shown a propensity to take the easy way out (Hero engine, lack of features, simple crafting, low option count for most activities) and if there is an excuse of panicking the masses, they won't change anything. I like this game, I hope they make it better.

[Andryah]

I explore all the time in SWTOR could not have found my Datacrons or lore unlocks with out it.

 

Same here. It's especially fun once you get to 25 and get to hop on a speeder and take off. And it's always fun to see if when I zip around a mob spawn I get away with it or they agro and attack.

 

Since I run with a lot of gathering professions on my characters, there is plenty of reason to get off the beaten path from others to pick up materials. Some planets are actually a lot of fun to cruise around and explore as I go. Cities, not so much, but open planets are a lot of fun.

 

But I get that isn't what this thread is about, it's just another compliant fest for the sandbox crowd.

 

I agree.

 

 

I think the real problem for some is they came from a game with flying mounts which dumbed down exploring of content to an extreme.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Andryah

[Jett-Rinn]

My point was that folks don't use the open space that is available to them now and still complain for more. I know this because every time I ask someone who is asking for this if they have found X Datacron or archived Y explore unlock the answer is most always "no." It's like some of the Role players complaining that there isn't anywhere to RP yet I never see them in the Cantinas or Huge city sized spaceports.

 

It's just like in GW the main complaint that the game was on rails; copious amounts of complaints was written about that... so what did Arenanet do? They made GW2 an open world now you can go anywhere and there are tons of cool things to explore.......only hardly anyone on beta does and it will be the same thing whne the game goes live and what few people actually do once they have explored and said "Oh cool" everyone else is stuck with a big empty world that no one ever visits. Thankfully in GW2 you can click a button and go anywhere most MMO's aren't made that way.

 

The thing is; while it's cool to wistfully want such things the practicality of it just isn't there; as it will hardly ever be used. Most folks want more content and tangible things to do in the short time the have to play...not spend an hour walking toward a crash ship only to say "Oh Cool" and then wonder what else you are going to do.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Sireene
quote of removed post

[mattgyver]

My point was that folks don't use the open space that is available to them now and still complain for more; I know this because every time I ask someone who is asking for this if they have found X Datacron or archived Y explore unlock the answer is no. It's like some of the Role players complaining that there isn't anywhere to RP yet I never see them in the Cantinas or Huge city sized spaceports.

 

It's just like in GW the main complaint that the game was on rails; copious amounts of complaints was written about that; so what did Arenanet do? They made GW2 an open world now you can go anywhere and there are tons of cool things to explore.......only hardly anyone on beta does and it will be the same thing in the game and what few people actually do once they have explored and said "Oh cool" everyone else is stuck with a big empty world that no one ever visits. Thankfully in GW2 you can click a button and go anywhere most MO's aren't made that way.

 

The thing is; while it's cool to wistfully want such things the practicality of it just isn't there; as it will hardly ever be used. Most folks want more content and tangible things to do in the short time the have to play...not spend an hour walking toward a crash ship only to say "Oh Cool" and then wonder what else you are going to do.

 

Well the problem with metrics is that you measure what people are doing and then translate that into the most productive course of design. There is no way to measure how people would experience other options that are not in the game, and there is no way to measure the immersion element that is basically emotional and is a factor of what you feel you could do versus what you do by utility. So frequency isn't everything. Also if you look at your activities over years, you might do something very infrequently and have it add meaningfully to your experience.

 

If you put a button on the wall that says AC, people will press it and feel better even if the button isn't actually connected to anything. If you actually connect it the satisfaction goes up.

 

Right now we have the disconnected button in the world design. The mountains are there, but you can't climb them. The devs can't put things in them, and the time of day in which you see them is forever the same.

[LizardSF]

So I take it you were one of the ragequitters at the onset of the NGE?

 

No, I was one of the ragequitters at the first Lifeday, when the developers tossed around holocrons and everyone stopped doing the careers they liked to grind randomly chosen careers to become Jedi.

 

2006-2011 SWG had huge swaths of open world content from zone raiding to custom storyteller setups. Even the world mobs were involved for the chroniclers to assemble quests about. Every jedi and every creature had a chance to drop legendary loot chests... you could become a billionare over night if you looted a good chest, or at least make a couple of millions if you got the right holocrons.

 

When I played, the "chests" dropped 2 pieces of some random mineral and usually something like a "broken viewscreen".

 

 

You may have not liked SWG but ya haven't a clue what a fantastic exploration game it was.

 

So, what were you "exploring", exactly? It sounds to me like the worlds were just the way they were when I quit... vast areas of procedural terrain with random mobs. Every part of any world is exactly like every other part of the world; if you've traveled for one minute on any given planet, you've seen all the terrain on that planet.

 

A small region of hand-crafted terrain>large region of procedural terrain, always. This is one of the reasons the Elder Scrolls series went from HUGE, I mean, IMMENSE, I mean, you cannot BELIEVE the size, worlds in Arena and Daggerfall to the teeny-tiny, but completely hand-crafted, worlds in Morrowind and Skyrim.

[LizardSF]

Does anyone really think there is exploration in this game? Is anyone really appeased by the carrot-on-the-stick approach to finding and uncovering datacrons for their l33t stats? Are you kidding me?

 

Every interesting nook and cranny in this game is intentionally put there, all arrows pointing in that direction so you can "explore"

 

Well, of course it's "intentionally" put there. That's what makes exploration interesting; you're in a world someone built, that someone thought about, that someone created.

 

Procedural terrain is boring. It's random numbers, and the patterns repeat very quickly.

 

 

yeah. maybe if I use my imagination I can imagine that I'm really in a vast city on Coronet, and every time I use the bullet train I arrive JUST on time. No wait times, no comradery with other players waiting around the shuttleports... just nothing. Maybe there is exploration but there isn't nearly enough of it. There's certainly no player interaction (the best kind of exploration; of human beings) of any type. I'm lead by carrots on sticks and lead down a narrow empty hallway. It's just saaaaaaaad.

 

So, lemme get this straight. You're saying:

"Exploring places and finding something is dull. Exploring places and finding nothing is exciting."

 

"If I have no reason to explore, then it's fun. If there's a reason to explore, then it isn't fun."

 

"Randomly generated terrain with all the soul and beauty of a spreadsheet is good. Terrain hand-crafted by artists is bad."

 

Do I have all that right?

 

Because, while I cannot attempt to use logic to discuss matters of taste, I can assure you, your tastes place you in a minority... and, sorry to say, being out of the mainstream doesn't mean you're automatically smarter, cooler, hipper, or more creative. Usually, it just means you end up frustrated and bitter because your preferences will be ill-served in the marketplace, and you will attempt to deal with this frustration and bitterness by telling yourself that you're smarter, more creative, etc, and that everyone else is just a sheep controlled by the corporations. Well, if it helps you deal, you might as well indulge. It's a harmless little bit of self-delusion, most of the time.

[Jett-Rinn]

Well the problem with metrics is that you measure what people are doing and then translate that into the most productive course of design. There is no way to measure how people would experience other options that are not in the game, and there is no way to measure the immersion element that is basically emotional and is a factor of what you feel you could do versus what you do by utility. So frequency isn't everything. Also if you look at your activities over years, you might do something very infrequently and have it add meaningfully to your experience.

 

If you put a button on the wall that says AC, people will press it and feel better even if the button isn't actually connected to anything. If you actually connect it the satisfaction goes up.

 

Right now we have the disconnected button in the world design. The mountains are there, but you can't climb them. The devs can't put things in them, and the time of day in which you see them is forever the same.

 

Right and some players just can't wrap their heads around the concept that SWTOR isn't a persistent world and was never meant to be. You are playing out chapters in a story.....when Luke killed the Wampa Ice Monster it was during a Blizzard....if you watch the movie the next time the sun won't be shinning. It's down to that is this game for you? if you want a ever changing open world the answer is simply no because you can't take a Steam Engine and turn it into a Turnip; likewise you can't take a Story based Chapterbook MMO and turn it into a Sandbox...not without and NGE event.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Jett-Rinn

[mattgyver]

[

So, what were you "exploring", exactly? It sounds to me like the worlds were just the way they were when I quit... vast areas of procedural terrain with random mobs. Every part of any world is exactly like every other part of the world; if you've traveled for one minute on any given planet, you've seen all the terrain on that planet.

 

This description is technically accurate, but it's like describing a steak as a protein mass, heated through cumbustion. The worlds were approx. 20km square, and there was a lot to explore. I know the maps in SWTOR already, know where the mobs are, know where I can only look but not walk. The reason is because I am funneled through the same chokepoints over and over. It took years for me to see all of the planets in SWG, and they changed from time to time as cities were built, or as content was added.

I do agree that you should not have to walk all over every inch, and I support instant travel, call to group, whatever. But I don't understand the impulse to deny those who want bigger worlds that option.

Edited March 27, 2012 by mattgyver

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

2006-2011 SWG had huge swaths of open world content from zone raiding to custom storyteller setups. Even the world mobs were involved for the chroniclers to assemble quests about. Every jedi and every creature had a chance to drop legendary loot chests... you could become a billionare over night if you looted a good chest, or at least make a couple of millions if you got the right holocrons.

 

There were heroic areas on some planets, yes, but there were also huge group story areas for the imperial and rebel themeparks. These NPCs were tough as nails and fun to fight.

 

Dathomir was one of the most perfect planets, its world quest (the witches of Dathomir) spread to every corner, and epic 8man bosses dropped l33t gear. All the witches could drop holos and there were INDEED POI badges for most locations.

 

Man... I even miss Hoth, even Hoth was more open-world than, say, ilum, and that was just a friggin instance.

 

And the fishing. The fishing competitions on my server were hilarious... we all wanted to win the guild travel points, lol.

 

You may have not liked SWG but ya haven't a clue what a fantastic exploration game it was.

 

 

^^

Yeah! So true...!!

+1

Edited March 27, 2012 by Lord_Ravenhurst

[mattgyver]

Right and some players just can't wrap their heads around the concept that SWTOR isn't a persistent world and was never meant to be. You are playing out chapters in a story.....when Luke killed the Wampa Ice Monster it was during a Blizzard....if you watch the movie the next time the sun won't be shinning. It's down to that is this game for you? if you want a ever changing open world the answer is simply no because you can't take a Steam Engine and turn it into a Turnip; likewise you can't take a Story based Chapterbook MMO and turn it into a Sandbox...not without and NGE event.

 

Well you may be right about the NGE event, but the game won't appeal to me much longer in the same format.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

Right and some players just can't wrap their heads around the concept that SWTOR isn't a persistent world and was never meant to be.

 

So how is this an explanation that the decision is any better, just because some years passed? Just because they "announced" it will be a themepark ride beforehand? Now I should totally embrace the concept or what?

[mattgyver]

Because, while I cannot attempt to use logic to discuss matters of taste, I can assure you, your tastes place you in a minority... and, sorry to say, being out of the mainstream doesn't mean you're automatically smarter, cooler, hipper, or more creative. Usually, it just means you end up frustrated and bitter because your preferences will be ill-served in the marketplace, and you will attempt to deal with this frustration and bitterness by telling yourself that you're smarter, more creative, etc, and that everyone else is just a sheep controlled by the corporations. Well, if it helps you deal, you might as well indulge. It's a harmless little bit of self-delusion, most of the time.

 

That's a big stretch to say that because you want something different you will become some sort of malcontent who justifies his appetites by feeling superior. This sounds a bit like projection onto the poster. Just because you are in the minority doesn't mean you're a creep.

 

There is no data to prove that anyone is in the minority on these forums anyway. In these discussions there is a disconnect from market demo, etc. If you post here you have a voice.

[Jett-Rinn]

Well you may be right about the NGE event, but the game won't appeal to me much longer in the same format.

 

I understand that; folks need to vote with their wallets and understand when a game isn't what they are looking for. I also play EvE online and we have folks there who have been paying for years and there main goal is to turn eve into a PVE game which is just ludicrous but the spend hours a day campaigning for it. The genre is so big now all MMO's don't have to be for all play styles.

 

There are open world games out there some are fun, good luck where ever you end up.

[Fantazm]

So how is this an explanation that the decision is any better, just because some years passed? Just because they "announced" it will be a themepark ride beforehand? Now I should totally embrace the concept or what?

 

Some things just are what they are.

 

If you don't like it then you're better off finding something else you do like instead.

[Jett-Rinn]

So how is this an explanation that the decision is any better, just because some years passed? Just because they "announced" it will be a themepark ride beforehand? Now I should totally embrace the concept or what?

 

No you find the type of game you want to play and play that instead of campaigning for the steam engine to be turned into the turnip.

 

Pretty simple really.

[LizardSF]

So how is this an explanation that the decision is any better, just because some years passed? Just because they "announced" it will be a themepark ride beforehand? Now I should totally embrace the concept or what?

 

If you don't like themeparks, there's plenty of other games out there. Looked at EVE?

 

If you still want SWTOR to magically become a sandbox game... that's not just a matter of you having different tastes. It's an exercise in absolute pointlessness. It's like expecting Microsoft to announce, "Oh, you know what? GUIs were a dumb idea. The next OS we ship will be command-line based and we're canceling Windows."

 

The game is what it is. It is exactly what it was promised to be, and there's absolutely no reason to expect fundamental design changes of the type you want soon, or ever. You don't need to "embrace" a game you don't like, but it's also not very healthy or wise to spend time railing against the game and wishing it was something else. You're not being COMPELLED to play it. You can cancel at any time -- hell, I don't even know why you subscribed, since it was obvious years in advance this wasn't the game you were looking for and never WOULD be the game you were looking for.

 

I like Wizardry-style turn-based, party-based, CRPGs. You know when the last game in that style was released commercially? About, oh, 2001, I think. I don't go on forums for Skyrim and talk about how great Wizardry was and how I hate Skyrim because it's not Wizardry. I knew it wasn't Wizardry, it was never promised to be Wizardry, it never had any Wizardry-like features....SO I JUST DIDN'T BUY IT, KNOWING IT WOULD NOT SATISFY ME. This is not complicated. If you know you won't like a game, DON'T BUY IT. If buy a game and find you don't like it, STOP PLAYING IT AND DON'T BUY OTHER GAMES FROM THE SAME COMPANY.

 

Lastly, writing completely disingenuous things like "I wish there was more exploring" when you clearly mean "I wish this was a completely different game" doesn't fool anyone or convince anyone of the correctness of your viewpoints. It just makes you look sleazy and deceptive. This might bode well for you in politics, where you can control how people reply to you, but it doesn't work on an open forum where anyone can call you out.

[mattgyver]

No you find the type of game you want to play and play that instead of campaigning for the steam engine to be turned into the turnip.

 

Pretty simple really.

 

It's a good point, and at some time the discussion will be objectively moot. But my 15 bucks is the same as everybody else's so I want to make my preference known.

[mattgyver]

Lastly, writing completely disingenuous things like "I wish there was more exploring" when you clearly mean "I wish this was a completely different game" doesn't fool anyone or convince anyone of the correctness of your viewpoints. It just makes you look sleazy and deceptive. This might bode well for you in politics, where you can control how people reply to you, but it doesn't work on an open forum where anyone can call you out.

 

parsimony would dictate that his post was in line with his intentions. I don't think there was a macchiavellian intent to deceive you into thinking he was an everyman when he was actually a diabolical sandboxer.

 

If your argument is to hold, then you are essentially arguing with people who are tilting at windmills. Is the motivation to guide us to the right path?

[mattgyver]

No you find the type of game you want to play and play that instead of campaigning for the steam engine to be turned into the turnip.

 

I was on board until the backwards technology reference.

[LizardSF]

It's a good point, and at some time the discussion will be objectively moot. But my 15 bucks is the same as everybody else's so I want to make my preference known.

 

Not really.

 

Your desires are so far out of what the game is, and will be, that your 15 bucks means nothing. You will never be a long-term customer because the game will never be what you want. It's like a vegan threatening to boycott McDonalds. The vegan will never be a McDonalds customer worth courting; at most, they might a salad if they're forced to enter the Slaughterhouse Of Innocent Big Eyed Widdle Calves by their callous and uncaring so-called "friends", but they will never be more than a rounding error on the bottom line.

 

So it is with anyone who came to SWTOR expecting, against all advertisement, announcements, and documented features, that it would have anything in common with SWG except for some lightsabers. As a segment of the customer base, they're worthless to BioWare. Some minority of them might decide they like SWTOR for what it is and stop wishing for it to be what it isn't, but the majority will just be angry and frustrated, and rather than blaming themselves for setting their expectations falsely, they'll blame Bioware for telling the truth from the get-go about what the game is and what it was always planned to be. Because they like to spread their bitterness around, they're actually of negative worth; as long as they subscribe, they pollute the forums with their bile. (Why not? They're paying money and won't play the game, so they figure, as you've shown, that they might as well spend that time on the forums.) The sooner they cancel their accounts, the better.

 

Now, if you figure that, for your 15 dollars a month, you might as well cause as much misery as you can for Bioware, who soulessly and cruelly went and made the game they always planned to make, instead of the game you kept wishing they'd make (what kind of evil bastards crush wishes like that, anyway? The fiends!), well, you can keep on paying 15.00 a month to make sure everyone knows your preferences, and that you'd rather spend money to tell people how much you hate this game instead of spending that money on a game you'd actually enjoy, which, in turn, tells us a lot about how much credence to give your opinions.

[NotDonnaReed]

You enter a world, very nice looking and all. You look at the sky and far far away you see a ship that have crashed.

 

First I was thinking "cool! I must visit that one!"... then I found it was just a painting...

 

We can't run to anything, stuck in a tunnel...

 

I hope in the future that the planets become more open. Freedom and open world to explore is one large thing with MMO's.

 

Yeah I agree with you that a lot of the zones feel too small. I don't mind it on the indoor planets like Coruscant and Nar Shaddaa, because you expect to have walls and sidewalks everywhere. But on the outdoor planets like Tatooine, I expect to have a little more freedom. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to see more whimsical elements too. The game feels too utilitarian at the moment, because there's hardly anything that isn't necessary to the storyline.