Can SWTOR be Saved ?

[JeramieCrowe]

EQ2 has kung-fu pandas?

 

Yep, for over a year now.

 

Correction, for over TWO years now.

 

EQ2 Pandas.

 

Panda kung-fu class.

Edited May 21, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[JeramieCrowe]

Yes it is, because it's the same crap warmed over again, and again, and again, and again, and again...

 

Sounds like it's time for you to give the MMO genre a rest, then? Because the trinity system with its mechanics is here to stay simply because there is no better system, regardless of how often it's been done.

[Bluerodian]

Sounds like it's time for you to give the MMO genre a rest, then? Because the trinity system with its mechanics is here to stay simply because there is no better system, regardless of how often it's been done.

 

That's because Triple-A developers are too scared to deviate from the formula. And for the record, I'm not sick of MMOs, just WoW knock-offs. The problem is that it's all that seems to get released these days. had I the capitol, I'd hire the people and do it myself. I have the programming skills for it, but I sure as hell refuse to let myself be beholden to investors that have no sense of gaming.

[JeramieCrowe]

That's because Triple-A developers are too scared to deviate from the formula. And for the record, I'm not sick of MMOs, just WoW knock-offs. The problem is that it's all that seems to get released these days. had I the capitol, I'd hire the people and do it myself. I have the programming skills for it, but I sure as hell refuse to let myself be beholden to investors that have no sense of gaming.

 

Really? And what's this great idea you have to do something other than trinity-mechanics and still have it balanced?

[Amyas]

It can be don't think it will be =(

[Bluerodian]

Really? And what's this great idea you have to do something other than trinity-mechanics and still have it balanced?

 

Trinity exists with the concept of scripted events and threat tables. A tank to soak up damage and a healer to keep the tank alive. If you remove the scripted events you remove the need for a tank, and further remove the need for a dedicated healer.

 

Instead of scripted events you use reach outside of the gaming industry to use higher level neural networks and learning algorithms to create bosses that are adaptive and capable of learning and adjusting based upon the actions of the players which in turn would force the players to learn and adjust to the ever changing behavior of the boss. No two encounters with a boss mob would be the same and threat tables would be rendered obsolete because bosses ignore threat and respond to tactics.

 

By removing the trinity, you remove the need to have fixed classes and can return to a profession based character development system to allow players to develop their characters how they choose instead of in a fixed class.

 

The concept can be stretched out further to encompass the entire world this game would take place in. By assigning personality archtypes to NPCs and letting the AI brain make decisions for these NPCs based upon that personality, with the inclusions of memory for specific players and spatial relationships with other NPCs, you can create a world and narrative that is effectively self-writing with no two servers being identical. The developers would create the setting and the NPCs would self-populate and generate their own quests based upon both the environment and the players around them.

 

For instance, an ambitious NPC you snubbed earlier in the game would grow in to a warlord later in game and would remember you specifically, generating a narrative for you to follow that culminated in a battle between you and this warlord and all the steps in between. Your narrative would be unique to you and only you or the small group you frequently run with, with small branches in the narrative occurring when one of the players in the group is off by him or herself.

 

That's the concept. I'm already experimenting with the AI needed to make it work.

Edited May 21, 2012 by Bluerodian

[JeramieCrowe]

Trinity exists with the concept of scripted events and threat tables. A tank to soak up damage and a healer to keep the tank alive. If you remove the scripted events you remove the need for a tank, and further remove the need for a dedicated healer.

 

Instead of scripted events you use reach outside of the gaming industry to use higher level neural networks and learning algorithms to create bosses that are adaptive and capable of learning and adjusting based upon the actions of the players which in turn would force the players to learn and adjust to the ever changing behavior of the boss. No two encounters with a boss mob would be the same and threat tables would be rendered obsolete because bosses ignore threat and respond to tactics.

 

By removing the trinity, you remove the need to have fixed classes and can return to a profession based character development system to allow players to develop their characters how they choose instead of in a fixed class.

 

The concept can be stretched out further to encompass the entire world this game would take place in. By assigning personality archtypes to NPCs and letting the AI brain make decisions for these NPCs based upon that personality, with the inclusions of memory for specific players and spatial relationships with other NPCs, you can create a world and narrative that is effectively self-writing with no two servers being identical. The developers would create the setting and the NPCs would self-populate and generate their own quests based upon both the environment and the players around them.

 

For instance, an ambitious NPC you snubbed earlier in the game would grow in to a warlord later in game and would remember you specifically, generating a narrative for you to follow that culminated in a battle between you and this warlord and all the steps in between. Your narrative would be unique to you and only you or the small group you frequently run with, with small branches in the narrative occurring when one of the players in the group is off by him or herself.

 

That's the concept. I'm already experimenting with the AI needed to make it work.

 

And the mechanics? No PvP? Or would everyone have the same skillset? This idea has been discussed before, at length, here and on other forums. It'd be a nightmare to balance, at best. And no one wants to play a game where your only choice is one or two skillsets.

[islander]

EQ = Forced grouping style leveling game that took a damn long time. Few quests. Very tight knit community. Raiding with 70+ people in a single non-instanced raid. PVP that allowed you to loot your opponent's corpse. Brutal Death penalties.

 

WoW = Mostly solo leveling. Quest heavy and comparatively short. Very loose and hostile in-game community. Instanced Raiding with a progressively smaller amount of people. Little to no Death penalty. PVP that serves no real purpose.

 

TOR = Mostly solo leveling. Quest heavy and comparatively short. Very loose and hostile in-game community. Instanced Raiding with a progressively smaller amount of people. Little to no Death penalty. PVP that serves no real purpose.

 

WoW evolved from EQ. TOR straight up ripped WoW off without further evolution.

 

Inversely it could be indicative of a much deeper problem that all these companies have yet failed to recognize, and that is that WoW's style of gameplay is an evolutionary dead-end and is unable to evolve further, which means the only right and proper thing now is to let it slip away in to extinction.

 

Two things I'll categorical disagree with you on.

 

The community on TOR is 10 times better then in WoW. Not as tight knit as an EQ or SWG, but from an overall maturity/helpful standpoint, it's not even close to WoW. It's way, way better.

 

I also disagree about TOR evolving. It did - in the story/leveling aspect. Leveling in TOR is better than any other MMO out there. I suspect if you took a poll of long time gamers who played at least 3-4 MMOs over time, I'd bet your 1-50 (end level) experience here is hands down the best.

 

So don't sit here and call it a complete ripoff. Besides, while WoW has been continually dumbed down in character development over the past couple years due to Blizzard still failing at balancing classes, Bioware's done a FANTASTIC job balancing the classes and specs on the whole - and in a much, much less period of time.

 

I love this game, but it's just unplayable right now on empty servers more then anything.

[Bluerodian]

And the mechanics? No PvP? Or would everyone have the same skillset? This idea has been discussed before, at length, here and on other forums. It'd be a nightmare to balance, at best. And no one wants to play a game where your only choice is one or two skillsets.

 

The goal for mechanics would be to ensure balance in all the various skills so that there is not one required skill set, but rather designing it around the players personal preference and playstyle. Balancing is never an easy thing, but its worthwhile.

 

As for PVP it would, of course, be separated between PVE and PVP servers with the benefit that world PVP would have relevance and purpose. Before a set of NPCs friendly to one faction can populate an area, players of that faction have to clear out the other faction(s). World PVP would be a fairly common thing with a territory control game. The trick there would be to ensure one side doesn't completely dominate, but then again playing a guerrilla war could be as fun as playing with even factions.

 

I also disagree about TOR evolving. It did - in the story/leveling aspect. Leveling in TOR is better than any other MMO out there. I suspect if you took a poll of long time gamers who played at least 3-4 MMOs over time, I'd bet your 1-50 (end level) experience here is hands down the best.

 

I also said earlier that I was disregarding the story as it is a finite resource, and focusing on the gameplay side of the game, which needs to be able to stand on its own.

Edited May 21, 2012 by Bluerodian

[Ashlian]

WoW also launched a long time ago. The bar is set with the current revision of WoW, not the original launch version. If they can't compete with WoW as it is now (In features at least) then they're wasting their time.

 

Why would anyone think that games should launch with far more features than prior games did at launch when they're already offering more than those games did simply on the basis of advances in areas such as sound and graphics and all of that takes just as much time to create as the older games did prior to launch? WoW could never have offered even a fraction of the cinematics present in launch with SWTOR. Love it or hate it, the class stories are a huge part of what many people actually DO find appealing about the game, and I'm not sorry they chose to focus on an area they do far better than any other MMO I've played.

 

Any game that was expected to have all of its predecessors' features in at launch would never make it TO launch. It would be so obsolete no one would want to play it. Half the complaints on the forums already state that the game feels aged....I can't imagine how many more there would be if they'd waited longer for launch. But at any rate, what you mean is you feel that they're wasting YOUR time since not everything you want is here right now.....I don't feel that they're wasting mine, and I'm still subbed. My only complaint is the server pops, if they fix that, I'll be a happy SWTOR fan.

[Darth_Therat]

Can someone explain me whats the issue with the engine? wasn't the hero engine the best thing that has ever happened since the discovery of bread in breakfast?

[JeramieCrowe]

The goal for mechanics would be to ensure balance in all the various skills so that there is not one required skill set, but rather designing it around the players personal preference and playstyle. Balancing is never an easy thing, but its worthwhile.

 

As for PVP it would, of course, be separated between PVE and PVP servers with the benefit that world PVP would have relevance and purpose. Before a set of NPCs friendly to one faction can populate an area, players of that faction have to clear out the other faction(s). World PVP would be a fairly common thing with a territory control game. The trick there would be to ensure one side doesn't completely dominate, but then again playing a guerrilla war could be as fun as playing with even factions.

 

I see you're staying away from specifics. But, no matter, specifics have been discussed before, and balancing a system that isn't based on a trinity, and still allow players to feel unique in a group, is all but impossible. Not saying it is impossible, but it hasn't been thought of yet.

 

The bottom line is two things: One, players need to have something familiar. EVE is a testament to this. Even though, at its core, EVE is still trinity-based, it's not familiar, thus the playerbase is niche.

 

And two, players WANT to have a specific role in a group. Having everyone basically being the same thing doesn't fly in an MMO. Oh, you might have a niche group that thinks it's nice, but it'll be short-lived even then. And, again, so far no other system other than trinity has addressed this. In fact, MMOs are actually moving toward a fourth distinct role: Utility and CC. Right now, it's tied into other roles, but its quickly becoming its own. Rift is a good example of this, and players are loving it.

 

It's all well and good to have ideas like this, but ideas that go through the evolution of providing what people will actually want and play, end up far from the original idea every time.

Edited May 21, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[Lexster]

Can someone explain me whats the issue with the engine? wasn't the hero engine the best thing that has ever happened since the discovery of bread in breakfast?

 

We wouldnt know, this is the first MMO to use it. And they wanted it so badly they got it before Simutronics finished it. So what we have here is a hero engine that isnt a hero engine.

 

Maybe a different hero engine game will enlighten us on to whether or not it is a good MMO engine.

[JeramieCrowe]

Can someone explain me whats the issue with the engine? wasn't the hero engine the best thing that has ever happened since the discovery of bread in breakfast?

 

The engine is pretty nice. The main issue is the stop function of the I/O process. Causes noticeable spikes, and is very difficult to work around.

[islander]

I also said earlier that I was disregarding the story as it is a finite resource, and focusing on the gameplay side of the game, which needs to be able to stand on its own.

 

*shrug* I think the gameplay does. You can pick any spec and level with relative ease - you aren't forced to level a healer as a DPS for the sake of efficiency, for example. Leveling isn't faceroll easy like WoW. I'm not just refering to the story.

 

We can agree to disagree, though. I find the gameplay reasonably engaging though. Combat isn't 'amazing' but it's good. I love the lack of auto-attacking. It alone makes it better then many others.

Edited May 21, 2012 by islander

[Lexster]

I see you staying away from specifics. But, no matter, specifics have been discussed before, and balancing a system that isn't based on a trinity, and still allow players to feel unique in a group, is all but impossible. Not saying it is impossible, but it hasn't been thought of yet.

 

The bottom line is two things: One, players need to have something familiar. EVE is a testament to this. Even though, at its core, EVE is still trinity-based, it's not familiar, thus the playerbase is niche.

 

And two, players WANT to have a specific role in a group. Having everyone basically being the same thing doesn't fly in an MMO. Oh, you might have a niche group that thinks it's nice, but it'll be short-lived even then. And, again, so far no other system other than trinity has addressed this. In fact, MMOs are actually moving toward a fourth distinct role: Utility and CC. Right now, it's tied into other roles, but its quickly becoming its own. Rift is a good example of this, and players are loving it.

 

It's all well and good to have ideas like this, but ideas that go through the evolution of providing what people will actually want and play, end up far from the original idea every time.

 

That fourth role, CC/utility, isnt a new thing. It is a role that vanished and hopefully makes a re-emergence.

[islander]

We wouldnt know, this is the first MMO to use it. And they wanted it so badly they got it before Simutronics finished it. So what we have here is a hero engine that isnt a hero engine.

 

Maybe a different hero engine game will enlighten us on to whether or not it is a good MMO engine.

 

Yep, I forget which MMO I saw was using a Hero engine. They asked them about why they chose it, with the issues TOR had with it, and they said "well, the version we're using is like 4 generations better then the one TOR is using"

[JeramieCrowe]

Yep, I forget which MMO I saw was using a Hero engine. They asked them about why they chose it, with the issues TOR had with it, and they said "well, the version we're using is like 4 generations better then the one TOR is using"

 

The Elder Scrolls Online is using it, too.

[islander]

The Elder Scrolls Online is using it, too.

 

here it is:

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/05/pathfinder-mmo-on-kickstarter/

 

 

"Adams: You believe you can develop the Pathfinder MMO with a fraction of the time and resources of traditional MMOs. What will you be doing differently to realize these savings?

 

Dancey: The first big savings comes from the middleware revolution. This effect has not really been felt yet in the MMO space; even the games that have shipped that used a middleware layer did so before the middleware was really mature. Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, uses a version of the Hero Engine that is several iterations removed from the software made available today to new games."

 

 

I picked up on this because like many of you, I follow Reid's twitter.

Edited May 21, 2012 by islander

[JeramieCrowe]

here it is:

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/05/pathfinder-mmo-on-kickstarter/

 

 

"Adams: You believe you can develop the Pathfinder MMO with a fraction of the time and resources of traditional MMOs. What will you be doing differently to realize these savings?

 

Dancey: The first big savings comes from the middleware revolution. This effect has not really been felt yet in the MMO space; even the games that have shipped that used a middleware layer did so before the middleware was really mature. Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, uses a version of the Hero Engine that is several iterations removed from the software made available today to new games."

 

 

I picked up on this because like many of you, I follow Reid's twitter.

 

Yep. And it's because they modified it so extensively, anyway, all they wanted was the barebones engine. Although the I/O stop I speak of is actually a HERO feature.

[Aerevan]

Can SWTOR be saved?

 

It depends. BioWare isn't really listening to it's fanbase (or the whole spectrum of it). It goes a little like this:

 

Fan: "derp, ME3's ending was bad"

BW: "herp, you just don't get it"

*Amount of fans dissatisfied with ending get's critical mass where it hurts sales*

BW: "herp a derp, you guys didn't get it, we'll photoshop some extra pictures so it'll be clarified"

Fans: *Facepalm*

 

BioWare isn't very strong on communication and I (I'm honest to admit this is my opinion) think they're catering to a group of people they have in their pocket anyway (RP'ers and so, the cupcakes that so ferociously defended having no LFG tool as 'it destroys community' - Well sunshines as the Big Ben tower sniper famously spoke: "If BioWare doesn't deliver it soon, there won't be a community left to save").

[Arrys]

I love how people think that their experiences are shared by everyone else in exactly the same way. Your SWTOR experience is largely defined by which server you are on. I'm now on one of the aussie servers...Result is 2 instances of fleet because it's so busy. No shortage of people for flashpoints, heroics and other stuff..We even have people pugging the ops for HM and Nightmare. In short, it's probably the ideal situation for Bioware and one which in an ideal world, exactly how they envisaged the game experience to be.

 

It's obviously not replicated like that on all the other severs. To be honest, I really don't understand why those people who are going overboard in their criticism about dead servers just do not roll on a busy one. There is enough data out there now to know which are the main servers and if you've been playing on a dead server, your character is unlikely to be geared to the max, so you're not really losing much by just creating another toon. It doesn't take long to level and i already have 2 50's a 42 and now levelling a trooper who in the space of one evening I got to level 10....

 

Is it an ideal situation? No..but creating another character is probably preferable than whining and waiitng until the summer for transfers.

 

Experienced that in january february, march no longer experiencing it. Their biggest challenge is pace of implementing change and perhaps that is a result of the game engine they chose. Regardless I actually know what you are experiencing it's just died on this side of the pacific except possibly for a single server.

 

And actually their legacy system psychologically impacts desire to switch servers and lose all your buff benefits;).

[Bluerodian]

I see you're staying away from specifics. But, no matter, specifics have been discussed before, and balancing a system that isn't based on a trinity, and still allow players to feel unique in a group, is all but impossible. Not saying it is impossible, but it hasn't been thought of yet.

 

The bottom line is two things: One, players need to have something familiar. EVE is a testament to this. Even though, at its core, EVE is still trinity-based, it's not familiar, thus the playerbase is niche.

 

And two, players WANT to have a specific role in a group. Having everyone basically being the same thing doesn't fly in an MMO. Oh, you might have a niche group that thinks it's nice, but it'll be short-lived even then. And, again, so far no other system other than trinity has addressed this. In fact, MMOs are actually moving toward a fourth distinct role: Utility and CC. Right now, it's tied into other roles, but its quickly becoming its own. Rift is a good example of this, and players are loving it.

 

It's all well and good to have ideas like this, but ideas that go through the evolution of providing what people will actually want and play, end up far from the original idea every time.

 

I'm staying away from specifics because it's a concept at this time, not a design document.

 

Now to address other points. You say it would be niche. This is not a bad thing for someone who is targetting a specific niche. I know a concept like this would never get WoW numbers. It would be designed to NOT get WoW numbers so as to cater as close as possible to its target niche. Those that know a niche and can cater to it can see high profitability as well.

 

On roles in a group. This would be up to the players. Think of it in a sort of military squad. You have a someone who is a Grunt, somone who is a medic. Someone who works demolitions. Someone who is a sniper, etc etc etc. They all can do the same basic things, but then also specialize in a particular field. That would be a similar to what I am aiming for while still allowing enough lattitude to the player to be able to diversify. At the same time, I also want to allow for "Jack of all trade, master of none" players. How an individual would feel unique is in what they are capable of bringing to the group in the various skills they have chosen to work with.

[USMCjv]

Really? And what's this great idea you have to do something other than trinity-mechanics and still have it balanced?

Guild wars two doesn't have the trinity system in place, though they don't have as much of a focus on pve so it is a bit easier to implement.

[seanisawake]

give me a server transfer and ill stay..