Can Bioware Rescue This Game?

[Dezzi]

If people are tired of hack 'n slash fantasy, why is Game of Thrones like the single-biggest IP right now?

[thomasgallant]

Well, actually, if you want to really get stuck into it, Jedi Knights, for one example, are based in feudal Japan and medieval European influences which are both GW influences too, so... you know... don't take things on face value and presume things. Star Wars actually owes a great debt to the tropes you see in a game like GW2.

 

Oh, and no trolls in GW2 either. Well, not that I've encountered in beta testing yet.

 

every game builds on the games before it..and for that matter after it.. adapting and reacting to changing mmo flavours.. when did i say it didnt.. but regardless of what swtor took refrence from..it doesnt mean i have to like gw2:P

 

but again.. glad it will be a game you will enjoy.. and im sure in certain circles of players it will be atleast as big as gw 1

[thomasgallant]

If people are tired of hack 'n slash fantasy, why is Game of Thrones like the single-biggest IP right now?

 

because when you say people you think everyone.. when i say people i mean a select group of individuals who are bored of hack and slash typed fantasy games??

[USMCjv]

If people are tired of hack 'n slash fantasy, why is Game of Thrones like the single-biggest IP right now?

The irony being this game almost was a game of thrones MMO. http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/12/21/star-wars-the-old-republic-could-have-been-a-game-of-thrones-mmo/

[Lt_Latency]

Sci-fy fantasy and medieval with magic are basically the same thing IMO.

 

Except the power source is called technology in Sci-fi fantasy and magic in medievel fanasy. You just have to change the words

 

Rocket launcher = fire ball

Teleporter = portal

Jetpack = Flying

Ship = mount

 

Stuff like that, It just a different skin you apply over the base structure

Edited June 2, 2012 by Lt_Latency

[blur]

Sci-fy fantasy and medieval with magic are basically the same thing IMO.

 

Except the power source is called technology in Sci-fi fantasy and magic in medievel fanasy. You just have to change the words

 

Rocket launcher = fire ball

Teleporter = portal

Jetpack = Flying

Ship = mount

 

Stuff like that,

 

Exactly. Well said.

[thomasgallant]

Sci-fy fantasy and medieval with magic are basically the same thing IMO.

 

Except the power source is called technology in Sci-fi fantasy and magic in medievel fanasy. You just have to change the words

 

Rocket launcher = fire ball

Teleporter = portal

Jetpack = Flying

Ship = mount

 

Stuff like that, It just a different skin you apply over the base structure

 

 

the thing you are leaving out of the comparison would be things like feel of game.immersion.. story.. those sorts of things.. yes skills can be transposed and compared..but the feel of a sci fi game is completely differnet than a fantasy game.. thats what people enjoy..not the skills.. some people play a game to enjoy the story and the feel rather than the neat animations your character does

[dalekjs]

An important thing to note is that Star Wars isn't Sci-fi. It's a fantasy in a different setting. The force is a different name for magic, and lightsabers are a more elite type of sword. For it to be a sci-fi it had to involve more scientific elements in its plot and structure, and it has none. Azimov's books are sci-fi for example.

 

The closest Star Wars has ever come to being sci-fi is when they introduced medichlorions in the first movie of the prequels. That was immediately removed because it was a stupid idea, and got rid of the magic and mysticism of the force. It tried, in short, to go all scifi in my fantasy space knights, which didn't sit well with anyone.

[blur]

Yup, Star Wars is more science-fantasy or space-fantasy, as some call it.

 

I know people want to blurt, "SCI FI!" when they see a spaceship, but that's not how you tell what sci-fi is.

[Lt_Latency]

the thing you are leaving out of the comparison would be things like feel of game.immersion.. story.. those sorts of things.. yes skills can be transposed and compared..but the feel of a sci fi game is completely differnet than a fantasy game.. thats what people enjoy..not the skills.. some people play a game to enjoy the story and the feel rather than the neat animations your character does

 

Not really IMO.

 

Luke Skywalker flying off to the Star destroyer to confront the emperor for a final duel. Isn't really that much different from our hero knight flying up to the top of a castle on a mountain to confront a evil king or wizard. Some people do have a preference one way or another but there is heavy over lap.

 

It's like saying call of duty and halo don't belong in the same genre and over lap player base because one is modern and one is sci-fy

Edited June 2, 2012 by Lt_Latency

[KennethHoover]

An important thing to note is that Star Wars isn't Sci-fi. It's a fantasy in a different setting. The force is a different name for magic, and lightsabers are a more elite type of sword. For it to be a sci-fi it had to involve more scientific elements in its plot and structure, and it has none.

 

This is very true, which is why I and many other SF writers do not view Star Wars as science fiction. It simply doesn't fit the paradigm at all.

Edited June 2, 2012 by KennethHoover

[Mallorik]

Could swtor be saved? absolutely 100% yes.

 

Can bioware save swtor? who knows. But one thing is for sure, we have been shown no proof that they are capable of it.

 

Things like cross server pvp or pve ques and server transfers seem to be out of their technology range.

 

The devs who thought an mmo didnt need things like a combat window, dual specs, macros and an lfg tool are still around and while they have changed their tune on a few of these features they are still stubornly holding off on others as a "last resort"

 

So yeah, not looking good.

[Spatology]

The people talking all this garbage about GW2 on the Swtor forums are the same people who talked all the garbage on the WoW forums about Swtor. They have short attention spans and never accomplish or finish anything in the game. The content demands too much focus, in the pvp competetive arena's it is too coordination intensive for them.

 

GW2 looks like and feels like GW1 to me. I go in, do some quest. Find some people.....the end. There was little or no story or events that drew me in to play. Beta wasnt intresting and neither is this thread.

 

Yes, Bioware can save this game. Imo, if they release LFG tool, funnel the player populations down, and get the ranked pvp in the game, its a win. Followed, quickly, by new content for both pvp and pve (not just NM EC) i dont see how players would have a choice. For me, the alternatives are the primary reason im not ending my subscription.

 

I dont want to play GW2. Panda's and pokemonz can ****. Diablo 3 was fun for all of 48 hours. Tera isnt worth mentioning. Im not looking forward to a elderscrolls mmo or halo mmo.....

 

Call me a fan boy all you want, but the only Bioware game i played previously was ME2 and i didnt like it enough to play ME1 or ME3. Ive also always been a "fanatasy" fan with Tolkien, Salvatore, R. Jordan, Paloini as recreational reading favs. So im not a typical starwars fan either...I loved EC HM that much though. Most fun ive had raiding since Ulduar.

[blur]

Things like cross server pvp or pve ques and server transfers seem to be out of their technology range.

 

The worrying thing is how, the longer time marches on, and these vital things still aren't happening (I was calling our server pop thin back in January!), you start to wonder if they ever planned for it at all? Because surely, if they had, they would have been able to swing a plan into action by now? Instead, they've really screwed things over and tons of people have left, most never to return.

[blur]

GW2 looks like and feels like GW1 to me. I go in, do some quest. Find some people.....the end. There was little or no story or events that drew me in to play. Beta wasnt intresting and neither is this thread.

 

The difference between the instanced world of GW and the persistent world of GW2 makes the games totally different from the ground up. For you to not even know that suggests you've played neither game.

 

So, nice try, but please stick to commenting on games you've actually played.

Edited June 2, 2012 by blur

[Lt_Latency]

The people talking all this garbage about GW2 on the Swtor forums are the same people who talked all the garbage on the WoW forums about Swtor. They have short attention spans and never accomplish or finish anything in the game. The content demands too much focus, in the pvp competetive arena's it is too coordination intensive for them.

 

GW2 looks like and feels like GW1 to me. I go in, do some quest. Find some people.....the end. There was little or no story or events that drew me in to play. Beta wasnt intresting and neither is this thread.

 

Yes, Bioware can save this game. Imo, if they release LFG tool, funnel the player populations down, and get the ranked pvp in the game, its a win. Followed, quickly, by new content for both pvp and pve (not just NM EC) i dont see how players would have a choice. For me, the alternatives are the primary reason im not ending my subscription.

 

I dont want to play GW2. Panda's and pokemonz can ****. Diablo 3 was fun for all of 48 hours. Tera isnt worth mentioning. Im not looking forward to a elderscrolls mmo or halo mmo.....

 

Call me a fan boy all you want, but the only Bioware game i played previously was ME2 and i didnt like it enough to play ME1 or ME3. Ive also always been a "fanatasy" fan with Tolkien, Salvatore, R. Jordan, Paloini as recreational reading favs. So im not a typical starwars fan either...I loved EC HM that much though. Most fun ive had raiding since Ulduar.

 

GW is mainly for PvPers. They want to be a FPS style game with MMO style game play. The added in a short single player game but the main draw is the pvp environment for those game.

[sumuji]

GW2 is absolutely going to hammer a big nail into TORs coffin.

 

Not only is there no monthly fee, but there's as much content, and it's presented in a far more interesting way.

 

And, dare I remind anyone, GW2 isn't based on grinding for the best gear; a fatal mistake TOR made by copying WoW.

 

Grinding for gear isn't copying WoW it's copying the standard MMORPG model that's existed for the last 15 years. Those of you looking for a game that's not like WoW are going to keep running into that wall that makes you cancel every single game after a few months. The genre isn't for you if you're looking for a game that's not centered around character progression and the grind of some kind that comes with it. Until something comes along and totally innovates MMORPG's that should be something to expect. It utterly amazes me to see this mass exodus in every game with people saying things like "They copied WoW". That like buying a new first-person shooter and raging because it's like the others with you running around a map and blowing people up.

Edited June 2, 2012 by sumuji

[Aerevan]

This game can be rescued. Momentarily, the way I see it (!), it's like a ship with dead ahead an iceberg. We can still steer clear, but the captain doesn't seem to be issuing any orders. That's because the First Mate is screaming: 'draw me like one of your French girls'. Another only talks via the intercom to someone that saw condensation on a car's window. Another is complaining about the music, yet no one seems to discuss the iceberg and the captain thinks that steering clear is something of last resort. Perhaps the music will make the iceberg drift aside. Or the drawing will impress the sea currents to change the course mysteriously; after all, steering is hard work and the ship is unsinkable! Some engineer in the back is discussing that it could 'theoretically' sink, but we all know he's Dutch and probably ate too much cheese.

 

I've been lurching on these forums for some time now (post launch) and the issues I see brought to the front are pathetic. 3D space fights, chat bubbles and a load of 'goodies' that, while nice to have, aren't the reason people are in the rafts. For all the 'flak' World of Warcraft seems to be getting, I feel people are misjudging the merits of the game.

 

MMO's never were about 'skill' (perhaps PvP being the exception) and the only talents you need for an MMO are the ones found in the talent tree and a lot of spare time. MMO's require you to discover some tactical way of dealing with an enemy, memorizing it and repeating it all over. When you defeat thousands of them, you've got to be downright stupid not to be able to discover an efficient rotation. Bosses require tactics, which isn't skill, but just cramming in some ridiculous scheme how to 'dance' with Noth (or Heigan, well... whatever). Gear = time. That's endgame in a nutshell. Clearly BioWare didn't understand that concept and thought it was skill (most of our hardcore bois here think the same - but as someone that wasted a lot of his teenage years plowing vanilla raids, I have to disagree and say it's more about knowing people, tactics and ways to dodge schools and parents). Endgame is a grind with as a reward 4 points extra on the e-peen meter and a shiny armor (that's why designing a *********** armor is important and should not be left to someone with a samurai fetish). That's what keeps the hardcore bois on board; Recognition by fellow players. WoW BC is the standard example; they did well. End.

 

Leveling however is an entirely different matter. It's here where you capture the casuals in their virginal state! You have to lure them (Geez, I sure want dem shiny armors at dem end! = carrot) by paving a clear road (with some variation) and making it a fun, yet long lasting experience towards level 9000. It's here that BioWare really dropped the ball. Leveling is boring, doesn't feel fast paced and quite frankly, reminds me way too much of vanilla WoW and than even worse. Enemies have a ******** of HP's, you can barely defeat them with a char on the same level and it's just so long winded *bash, bash, bash, bash, bash - Yeah, 3 mobs to go! etc.*. You scare the casuals! Instead, make the mobs easier (making combat faster paced), yet have players defeat more and having them do more quests by lowering the xp award. Heirlooms for the altoholics, ta da winning formula.

 

You aimed at the wrong people at the wrong point in the game. It's why casuals strand around Tatooine/Alderaan and the core players get bored to tears at 50.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Aerevan

[blur]

Grinding for gear isn't copying WoW it's copying the standard MMORPG model that's existed for the last 15 years.

 

That's patently untrue. I wasn't grinding for gear in UO back in 1997... I wasn't grinding for gear in EQ... I wasn't grinding for gear in SWG...

 

WoW was really the game that brought the gear grind into the spotlight, making OCD kids all over the world get on a treadmill so they could have the latest hot weapon or armour... and it's so RIDICULOUS as a game mechanic... it's fantastic that GW2 throws it out the window.

[Mallorik]

The worrying thing is how, the longer time marches on, and these vital things still aren't happening (I was calling our server pop thin back in January!), you start to wonder if they ever planned for it at all? Because surely, if they had, they would have been able to swing a plan into action by now? Instead, they've really screwed things over and tons of people have left, most never to return.

 

I dont believe they ever planned to have them, in fact i believe they planned the opposite and tried to make a game without them at all. Take Rift for example, it launched without a few of those things but had them in within 4 monhts of launch, because they either had them planned but couldnt get them in at launch or they knew they might need them and had a plan in place incase they did need the.

 

Bioware tried to release a game to rival wow and for some reason thought they could do it without the features that help wow keep people playing . I have no idea if it was from lack of trying to figure out why people stay playing wow, or the arrogance of doing something their own way not because its a good way but because its just their way.

 

Dual specs, combat windows, macros and cross server lfg does not make a game a wow clone. It makes it a modern mmo ready to compete in the modern mmo market. I think swtor has everything esle it needs to compete with wow, they just failed and still fail to realize those key components.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Mallorik

[Lt_Latency]

That's patently untrue. I wasn't grinding for gear in UO back in 1997... I wasn't grinding for gear in EQ... I wasn't grinding for gear in SWG...

 

WoW was really the game that brought the gear grind into the spotlight, making OCD kids all over the world get on a treadmill so they could have the latest hot weapon or armour... and it's so RIDICULOUS as a game mechanic... it's fantastic that GW2 throws it out the window.

 

What what?? All you did was grind in EQ. You just stayed in one place for like 12 hours grinding out levels. Then you went to planes and stuff to grind out gear to raid. Then you grinded out keys and more gear to unlock the next teir of raiding.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Lt_Latency

[The-Vortex]

GW2 is absolutely going to hammer a big nail into TORs coffin.

 

Not only is there no monthly fee, but there's as much content, and it's presented in a far more interesting way.

 

And, dare I remind anyone, GW2 isn't based on grinding for the best gear; a fatal mistake TOR made by copying WoW.

 

Is it really that hard to understand that people still like this game? Why do you feel the need to boast about how awesome GW2 is and how it seems to be the second coming of Christ in mmo form. You complain that people are making unfair comparisons to GW and GW2 due to them having fundamentally different mechanics but its perfectly okay to compare GW2 and SWTOR? Newsflash those also have fundamentally different mechanics. There's room for both games.

 

People look for and like different things in an mmo, is that so hard to understand? Some people prefer PvP, some PvE, some RP, yet are those people branded "fanbois" or "drones"? I think not, why should it be different for mechanics? Some people prefer the old tried and tested mechanics (wow, swtor, rift etc) and doesn't automatically make someone a fanboy / drone or whatever else you people call us, its called an opinion, everyone has one and all of them are different, none of them are fact.

 

Personally I'm not at all interested in GW2 mainly because it has no PvE endgame to speak of (and no, I don't count a handful of 5 man dungeons as endgame) and I have never had any interest in PvP in any mmo I've played. I tried the beta, it wasn't for me. Those dynamic events to me seem like glorified grinding that will get old pretty fast and the story (or what I've seen of it ) is a complete joke.

 

Seriously, you like GW2, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion, but that's all it is. Stop throwing it around like its fact. Just do everyone here a favour and go to their forums or something.

[Northarrow]

Grinding for gear isn't copying WoW it's copying the standard MMORPG model that's existed for the last 15 years. Those of you looking for a game that's not like WoW are going to keep running into that wall that makes you cancel every single game after a few months. The genre isn't for you if you're looking for a game that's not centered around character progression and the grind of some kind that comes with it. Until something comes along and totally innovates MMORPG's that should be something to expect. It utterly amazes me to see this mass exodus in every game with people saying things like "They copied WoW". That like buying a new first-person shooter and raging because it's like the others with you running around a map and blowing people up.

 

The hilarious thing is: this has been going on for years and I doubt it's going to end anytime soon. It's like they refuse to see the trend. The stuff we seen in TOR's forums is the same stuff we've seen in every other MMO's forum in the post-WOW era, we're already beginning to see it in TERA"s forum and I can't wait until 3 months after GW2's launch and we see the "Why this game failed" threads.

 

I'll be around to say I told you so

[blur]

Is it really that hard to understand that people still like this game? Why do you feel the need to boast about how awesome GW2 is and how it seems to be the second coming of Christ in mmo form.

 

The answer is simple.

 

What's killed TOR is that it copied WoW. And what will make GW2 a raging success is that it didn't.

 

Told you it was simple.

[Valkirus]

Dual specs, combat windows, macros and cross server lfg does not make a game a wow clone. It makes it a modern mmo ready to compete in the modern mmo market. I think swtor has everything esle it needs to compete with wow, they just failed and still fail to realize those key components.

 

Very well said and right on the mark of truth.