Top 5 MMO's BioWare should model SWTOR endgame after?

[SWGElder]

Top 5 for me are but SWTOR shouldn't model any of them.

 

1) SWG pre-cu - When I first picked up SWG it was my first mmo and since that game I haven't found a game to top it. Crafting was unbelieveable, PvP was awesome, Community was like no other. To me the community is what made this game what it was. You name the planet and there was pvp going on...It was best times ever. This is where FoTM started. The classes were so diverse. You could be a Bh but specialize in pistols or rifles or carbines or survival, You could be a tera kasi but also be a gunslinger, or a fencer/armorsmith/weaponsmith. I tell you the options were endless. You only did get 1 character and unlocked a second after you made jedi.

2) WoW - I played this game at launch quit because there wasn't pvp, came back after burning crusade and had great times.

3) Old Republic - No matter what anyone says to me this is one of the most complete MMO's to ever come out. Every MMO's has it's flaws. Wow didn't even have pvp when it came out.

4) DaOC - Awesome RvR...this was the only thing I liked about this game. Taking a keep was epic.

5) This is a toss up between The Matrix online and City of Heroes. CoH had great customization and was fun playing. Matrix reminded me alot of SWG because the diversity of the classes..There were so many option when building your toon from 1 to 50.

 

Bottom Line there is no perfect MMO. Right now I am enjoying this MMO and not because I'm a huge Star Wars Fan and Kotor fan but because to me this is one of the most complete games out there IMO. Plus it is a change from swords and bow and arrows...Saber's and Blasters is a nice change.

 

SWTOR should keep there current model as it is..Because this is a different game then all other games. If there is any MMO it should look at it is SWG because SWG did alot of things right until it started to listen to the whiners and screwed the game up. During SWG timeline Jedi's were rare and people wanted to play a jedi hence the changes they made. Take a look at TOR how many jedi's do you see running around? How many other classes? It's works because the timeline of this game fits it.

 

I think BW is doing a great job of making this game better. I mean come on people the game is barely what 5 months old. It only took me what 1 month to get to 50...and I work fulltime. Now I'm going back and playing the other classes for the story because isn't that why we played KOTOR 10+ times to begin with. How many MMO's do you know allows you to get to end level so quickly? I remember WoW when it first launched I think I got my toon to 30 and said screw it and that took a little over a month. Even the great SWG took forever.

[ADPowah]

I'm really enjoying SWTOR but sometimes it lacks some of the emotion I've gotten from other games.

• EQ1-Velius: Three faction war that involved multiple zones with each faction being different. Zones were dangerous and staying alive was not only hard but it mattered. This expansion has some of my fondest gaming memories.
  
• EQ1-Epic weapons: Epic weapons made you feel so BA Baracus, taking months to get a single item and said item actually being worth it was AMAZING.
  
• EQ1-Plan of Hate/Sky (pre-Pop planes): Going there made you feel like a real adventurer, death was always around the corner and the rewards were amazing. I rarely feel this way in a game anymore.
  
• WoW-Alterac Valley: There are probably some haters, but mixing NPCs with PVP was great. Having non-combat collection missions inside the battle was great. Having sumnonable world bosses was AWESOME.

[Dalaell]

For endgame, something I'd love to see is episodic content added every couple weeks or sooner that expands the story. It doesn't have to go along the main class story but could be other branches that tell another awesome story.

 

It's not something I've seen done and makes sense to do.

It's kinda like coming back each week to continue your D&D campaign.

[Andryah]

I think DaoC is a good target to aim for for World PvP.

 

NO, it's not. Unless you go back to the first couple years before premade gank squads became the norm of play. Even in the first two years, it was mostly zerg on zerg, with occaisonal real PvP over actual objectives. But the zerg on zerg was to farm realm points and it was mostly mindless zerging. The only dazzle in the game was having three factions and never knowing who was going to roll you from behind while you were on a fort.

 

Put that into a MMO today and will instantly become premades gank festing everyone else. Which means it quickly becomes premades vs premades..... which you can do right now in this game.

[Andryah]

SWTOR should keep there current model as it is..Because this is a different game then all other games. If there is any MMO it should look at it is SWG because SWG did alot of things right until it started to listen to the whiners and screwed the game up. During SWG timeline Jedi's were rare and people wanted to play a jedi hence the changes they made. Take a look at TOR how many jedi's do you see running around? How many other classes? It's works because the timeline of this game fits it.

 

Exactly!

 

People need to stop regressing in their minds to their particular "old days in MMOs" fond memories.

 

Let it go.....kind of like when you let your little red wagon go... kay.

 

But hey, if it's really such a great memory, other then SWG,.... you can go back and play them.

[Valperion]

Lineage 2 : Both PvP and PvE

[Kauhu]

Is that why they never broke 300,000 with that game?

 

Sometimes I wonder if all those fondly remembering DAoC only do so fondly because it was their first MMO?

 

MMO market was a ton smaller when DAOC launched. RvR was awesome. Did you ever play it or did you just google "daoc subscriber peak" ?

 

And people who are saying it was just RP farm totally forget about Realm Pride, Relic Raids and all the other things that made DAOC's RvR so awesome. Or do you really think people zerged at RR2 to gain more RR, namely 5 rp / kill?

Edited April 27, 2012 by Kauhu

[Andryah]

And people who are saying it was just RP farm totally forget about Realm Pride, Relic Raids and all the other things that made DAOC's RvR so awesome. Or do you really think people zerged at RR2 to gain more RR, namely 5 rp / kill?

 

Realm pride was largely absent after the second year. Some good and honorable rivalries between some guilds did continue, but that was mostly about guild on guild and guild pride, not realm pride.

 

And yes, it WAS mostly zerg for RP, not for objectives. Objective based PvP was much less common and generally lead by a small handful of guilds on any given server.

 

But hey, if you think the MMO player base gives a rat about realm pride these days......

Edited April 27, 2012 by Andryah

[SoloHand]

NO, it's not. Unless you go back to the first couple years before premade gank squads became the norm of play. Even in the first two years, it was mostly zerg on zerg, with occaisonal real PvP over actual objectives. But the zerg on zerg was to farm realm points and it was mostly mindless zerging. The only dazzle in the game was having three factions and never knowing who was going to roll you from behind while you were on a fort.

 

Put that into a MMO today and will instantly become premades gank festing everyone else. Which means it quickly becomes premades vs premades..... which you can do right now in this game.

 

By your posts you sound a little angry about other peoples opinion of what fun PvP is. SWTOR is not likely to turn into DAOC so relax, no need for the fierce attitude .

 

Personally I found relic raids to be Epic, perhaps it was your definition of zerg vs zerg but I think it was Realm Vs Realm at it's finest. Even the roaming gank squads were like the special forces of each realm, they would patrol and spark battles with other groups trying to get back to the big battle. fights at mile gates, stealthers giving intel in chat on who's going where....it was awesome that was real RvR.

 

Premades are in every game and if SWTOR were to make Ilum like DAOC of old it wouldn't make them any more prevalent then they are already. As for the notion of farming rpees what do you think people are doing in WZ's now? Incentives such as Valor or rp's just bring more people to the fight which in my opinion is better than no people....like it was a few days ago when you got crumbs of valor unless you won.

[Andryah]

By your posts you sound a little angry about other peoples opinion of what fun PvP is. SWTOR is not likely to turn into DAOC so relax, no need for the fierce attitude .

 

Uh... no. You are projecting.

 

I am simply taking issue with the mythology about DAoC PvP. I played it for 5 years, I know about it first hand. It was good, but it does not live up to the mythology circulating on the internet.

[Drakkip]

So many good posts on the previous page...

 

I remember getting my Enchanter Epic, that was pretty damn cool when I finally finished it.

My cleric epic I couldn't get until after they changed it. On our server alts just weren't allowed to get on the waiting list.

 

I ran with several gank groups in DAoC as a fill in member from time to time. You can't fault a group for doing well though when you have 8 people all on ventrilo and assisting. Plus there were a few people on those teams who were just amazing players. I do agree though the thing that made DAoC RvR better was the 3 factions. It lessened the impact of population imbalances.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Drakkip

[Kosef]

Shadowbane's open pvp and city building and wars. They could make this capitol ship building and huge space wars with our ships. You then board the enemy cap ship and proceed to take out their defenses. You could have alliances with other ships:...all sorts of opportunities.

 

Aoc's graphics and music.

 

Swg's character customization and diverse planets. Plus explorable planets.

[SoloHand]

Uh... no. You are projecting.

 

I am simply taking issue with the mythology about DAoC PvP. I played it for 5 years, I know about it first hand. It was good, but it does not live up to the mythology circulating on the internet.

 

Nah I would have to be angry to be projecting, it's friday night I have nothing to be angry about lol.

 

I played it from release 7 years with a few months off here or there to try a diff MMO so hey I guess I know first hand too. I don't really read about the mythology of DAOC that you are speaking of and perhaps it wasn't perfect ( what is? ) but it was better than any system that I've come across since imo.

[Bastrios]

5) City of Heroes- Character creation. Simple. I would buy/play that game strictly for the character creation part of it. Hours and hours of endless fun. best character creation system ever created in any game (with SPORE, a close 2nd).

 

YES! I played City of Heroes/Villains for years and out of everything, the character creation was the best part of the game. Thousands of possible combinations, you could spend hours, even days (on and off of course) messing with character creation. So far City of Heroes/Villains is the only MMO that had insane character customization, sadly the game's dying. If BioWare was to implement that type of character creation into SWTOR, it would tower over every other game currently out. I support this 110%.

[Andryah]

YES! I played City of Heroes/Villains for years and out of everything, the character creation was the best part of the game. Thousands of possible combinations, you could spend hours, even days (on and off of course) messing with character creation. So far City of Heroes/Villains is the only MMO that had insane character customization, sadly the game's dying. If BioWare was to implement that type of character creation into SWTOR, it would tower over every other game currently out. I support this 110%.

 

It would totally break the cutscene implementations in this game. There is a reason why they have finite sliders in this game on the character select screen.

[Bastrios]

It would totally break the cutscene implementations in this game. There is a reason why they have finite sliders in this game on the character select screen.

 

I understand what you mean, just wishful thinking on my part.

[kksyong]

I guess most DaoC fans (Myself included) do have a tendency to forget the harsher/unbalanced parts of the game. However it was a game that had many people play for years, whether due to lack of choice or that certain "je ne sais quoi", I do not know.

 

One thing I do know was there was a certain pride in the early days of the game which I never have never felt in the recent MMOs.

 

The feeling when you first get to 50. (As a ranger who was never wanted into a group and had to solo grind it was a big accomplishment). At the time I think there were only 10 Rangers at cap level.

 

When you first get your Epic armour with the help of friends and guildmates. (and when you go about the world and newbies would literally stop to admire your armour)

 

Pride gives a real sense of community as well when you work together as a Realm. Our own realm (Hibbies) even has out own private forums to coordinate various raids and events. We were easily outnumbered 5:3:2 (alb/Mid/Hib), yet when NF came out we were, I believe we were only one of 2 hibernian realms out of 15-18 servers (ish? can't remember) who had not had all their keeps/relics taken, purely because we, as a community , worked together as a team. Not many games I know would have friends text/message you to come help out in a keep defence/raid

 

The sense of pride when your realm is doing well, when you helped open up DF or captured a Relic etc. You just can't feel that attachment to the Empire or Republic in this game, after all, you can just swap sides on the same server so what's the point? BW has pretty much made the game as WoW like as possible, yet they let you create toons on both factions on the same server?

Edited April 28, 2012 by kksyong

[Deyjarl]

So yes: at the time, DAoC was showing perfectly respectable numbers.

 

Never said it wasn't respectable numbers. That's a strawman on your part.

 

But interesting endzone line moving with the different games that had much higher numbers. Don't like the numbers so you change the rules eh?

 

It was at the bottom of the heap. And significantly so.

 

 

BTW I played and loved the game (well before the RvR map change). So this isn't coming from a hater.

[Deyjarl]

 

Ad Homium lie. I was around then also. And there were MMOs with larger numbers. His own research shows there were. But again, love how people change the goal posts and set up exceptions when the facts don't match up to the claims.

[thomasmeadows]

NO MMORPG SHOULD IMMULATE ANY OTHER! Take the best of each and try to add your own thing into the mix.

[JamesJamerson]

1) Neocron (the original not the car crash that was DoY) Two main reasons -

 

a) the faction system with 7 or so different factions, all with complex relationships between them - allied, neutral or hostile. Made for a great, balanced pop with allied clans and considerations about whether you'd back up a friendly clan against a neutral one etc.

 

b) the outpost system. The best endgame content I've experienced. 20 or so outposts spread across the world map that were claimable by a guild and offered easier access to farming/levelling zones and an income. They were regularly fought over and led to some of the biggest, most tactical and most fun fights I've ever had in a mmo. Very easy to implement and gives real reasons for spontaneous open world pvp.

[Vylettes]

1. Dark Age Of Camelot PvP - As said above, this was hands down the best pvp. It gave opportunity to every playstayle, be it solo, small groups, full groups or zergs. They all co-existed. Of course you actually had to know what you were doing to play in anything other than the zerg, but the zergs were there for the masses. And don't forget the 3 realms (mythic really dropped the ball with warhammer :/)

 

2. UO/SWG type housing where you could place your house in the actual world and decorate your house creatively. This would include the 'rares' from UO that people would go after. And items that you dropped on the ground actually looking like the item they were.

 

3. Crafting Professions like UO/SWG - The way the crafting system worked in those games, your character WAS the crafter. If you were an armorsmith, then that is what you did. You were not a fighter or whatever. MMOs nowadays are centered around everyone killing stuff. It doesnt give the leeway for people who want to roleplay or experience the MMO in a different aspect. I thought the cantina/dancer thing in SWG was great and finding a LGM crafter in UO to make your new armor set after your old one broke was always fun hanging around the forge.

 

4. Non-class based system like UO/SWG- your one character could level or unlevel any profession/fighting and pick up a different one at any time.

 

5. And PvE like the modern mmo. I did quite like Global Agendas pve system, where you would queue up for it like we do with warzones and it would balance a group out to do the instance (flashpoint type) pve. Raids/encounters etc like swtor/wow/etc have. And rare drops you could farm like the older games have. Also make grinding viable again WoW's introduction of do 100000 quests to level was quite novel at the time, but sometimes i would like to just stand in one area and level up like you did in daoc/eq/etc by grinding monsters.

 

 

 

I think what no game has captured yet is bringing together the social players and the hardcore into one environment. And keeping the social butterflies around makes for an active community of people which is what keeps people playing games longer than reaching the max level.

 

 

And with people talking about DAOC at 300k, that was a HUGe number back then, when there was NOT a computer in every home. Most of us playing from universities or netcafes severely limited the market. WoW came on the scene as more and more people were having internet in their home and with the bombardment of advertising, it got people into gaming who had never been part of the market before. It mainstreamed it, so to say. And it made gaming 'easy' and noobie friendly.

[Wolfeisberg]

Is that why they never broke 300,000 with that game?

 

Sometimes I wonder if all those fondly remembering DAoC only do so fondly because it was their first MMO?

 

DAoC getting 300,000 subscribers in those days would basically be the same as an MMO getting 6 million subscribers today. The top MMO of that time was Everquest, which maxed out at 500,000 subscribers. By comparison, DAoC was far more successful then SWTOR is.

[Asturias]

Is that why they never broke 300,000 with that game?

 

Sometimes I wonder if all those fondly remembering DAoC only do so fondly because it was their first MMO?

 

DAOC gave EQ a run for there money hence the reason why EQ2 came out. DAOC was a head of its time but people tend to lean towards shiny new game and when WoW came out it was over for the old classic MMOs.

[flyersfan]

1 - 5) The Old Republic

 

I don't want a copy and paste version of some other game. I bought this game to play this game. I want the developers to do what they want to do and bring us a game from their studio, not anyone else's.