Nostalgia bomb. SWTOR's evolution.

[Ashania]

So I was rewatching some of the videos from way back when, when many of us were anxiously waiting for new videos and information on the game every Friday (and becoming highly disappointed when it turned out to be a 'Fan Friday'. Boohiss)

 

As I watched the Taral V walkthrough: http://www.swtor.com/info/media/trailers/taral-v-developer-walkthrough you can really see how much has changed, aswell as mechanics.

 

Not only are ability icons different from during development (ie. mind crushes icon) and animations are changed (eg. disturbanc/telekinetic wave) but the Scoundrel doesn't appear to have the Upper Hand mechanic and Emergency Medpac seems to be a resource free instant heal on a CD.

 

It would be interesting to know whether at this stage of development if certain mechanics (such as the Upper Hand/Tactical Advantage) were thought-up or if they were created much later in development.

 

Given how UH/TA don't marry well in the Dirty Fighting/Lethality skill trees it leads me to believe the latter is the case.

 

I wonder what design decisions Bioware initially pursued but were later scrapped and replaced with something different.

 

PS: Has the games graphics ever looked so good?

Edited July 1, 2012 by Ashania

[Bloberts]

I always notice a graphical improvement with each patch. I don't think many others do though.

[cshouston]

I remember this video. What's striking is how terrible all of BioWare's (what I assume to be) in-house testers are at the game. Epic backpedaling! Edited July 1, 2012 by cshouston

[Ashania]

I remember this video. What's striking is how terrible all of BioWare's (what I assume to be) in-house testers are at the game. Epic backpedaling!

 

And clicking!

 

I know, but you have to try and look past it!

[Xaionik]

I was expecting a more drastic change.

[SweetNausea]

Lol, look at all that clicking and backpedalling. No wonder players tore this game apart so quickly, their testers had no idea what they were doing and couldn't provide adequate feedback. :/

 

I really like that old UI though.

[Theronlas]

Lol, look at all that clicking and backpedalling. No wonder players tore this game apart so quickly, their testers had no idea what they were doing and couldn't provide adequate feedback. :/

 

I really like that old UI though.

 

Has it occurred to you that T5 is a mid level instance that is expected to be accessible to all. Perhaps the testers were deliberately playing like people new to mmos in order to make sure it was possible to complete that way.

 

Its not a 16man raid. Some of the group content needs to be pretty easy.

[erei]

There is an EV video from before beta somewhere. They just show the first fight (turret + droid), and use the POV of several character in the raid. You can see for example the mercenaries is not about spaming traver missile, like it is currently. Or the player is just terrible.

There is also an old video I've seen, where a group is fighting Ulgo. It seems it was a 4men group in the past, and not a solo quest like it is now.

Unfortunately, I don't have links anymore for them.

 

On another note, feel free to check the various class video on the website, the consular, for example, have a removed skill shown (you grab a mob in the air and crush it on the ground).

 

Also, I love the old interface, black>>light blue IMO. And it's completely neutral.

[Kaptain]

I miss the idea of shooting around corners while standing up as was part of the original cover system from early videos.

[Thuggy]

It would be interesting to know whether at this stage of development if certain mechanics (such as the Upper Hand/Tactical Advantage) were thought-up or if they were created much later in development.

 

Given how UH/TA don't marry well in the Dirty Fighting/Lethality skill trees it leads me to believe the latter is the case.

 

I wonder what design decisions Bioware initially pursued but were later scrapped and replaced with something different.

 

PS: Has the games graphics ever looked so good?

 

iirc (I played an operative in beta), at the time that video came out...scoundrels/ops were not even fully designed. They had rough outlines of abilities and skills, but no real synergy. So things like upper hand were not yet built or ready for testing.

 

Lol, look at all that clicking and backpedalling. No wonder players tore this game apart so quickly, their testers had no idea what they were doing and couldn't provide adequate feedback. :/

 

I really like that old UI though.

Those trailers are not captured from testers, they're recorded to make the encounters look as epic as they can, not how they expect it to actually be played >_>

Edited July 2, 2012 by Thuggy

[TheTempz]

I played in Beta, and i played a little at release after coming back this patch the first thing that hit me was sprint at level 1, Mass QQ probably made that happen i assume, also the controls are a little less clunky now but thing's still are ugh in a way.

 

I played sith warrior in Beta, some things have changed, surprisingly this time around i feel i know alot more about what's going on than i previously did, with my guilds help and things i experienced in the beta and early release i generally had a good advantage over players who did not play beta/release, and are just starting now.

 

Game is heading in the right direction slowly but surely.

Edited July 2, 2012 by TheTempz

[Ashania]

iirc (I played an operative in beta), at the time that video came out...scoundrels/ops were not even fully designed. They had rough outlines of abilities and skills, but no real synergy. So things like upper hand were not yet built or ready for testing.

 

Even so, if they had the idea in place, they then had to go back and redo the Scoundrel's skills. Remove CD on Emergency Medpac and make it cost UH, whilst looking at PvP balance and healing viability in PvE with this mechanic.

 

I've never even thought about it, but love the game or hate it, there's no denying so much work has gone into it (same with any game, I know).

 

Also, is that Jedi Guardian armour still in-game? I don't think i've ever come across that and I wouldn't mind it for the Guardian I am levelling!

[adamqd]

I remember seeing the CGI Trailers and thinking they were some of the greatest most beautiful Star Wars ever created, then my world came crashing down when i saw actual gameplay lol.

[Morlaak]

The UI did look cool, didn't it?

 

Sure, it could have used some tweaks, but black looks better than the current blue.

 

 

And it also looked like the stealth was different too, you almost couldn't notice the scoundrel was in it when he used the tranquilizer.

 

And the mini boss dropped a "Telos Commendation", guess that was cut off eventually.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Morlaak

[Ashania]

The UI did look cool, didn't it?

 

Sure, it could have used some tweaks, but black looks better than the current blue.

 

 

And it also looked like the stealth was different too, you almost couldn't notice the scoundrel was in it when he used the tranquilizer.

 

And the mini boss dropped a "Telos Commendation", guess that was cut off eventually.

 

The stealth did look better in that video, sort of like a light gloss over the character. And the Scoundrel was able to go into cover whilst still in stealth.

 

My computer is awful and I play everything on lowest settings, but does anyones game actually look like that?

 

From streams/videos/pictures etc that i've seen the graphics never looked as good as that.

 

Also, at 6:40 the Guardian used Force Pull

Edited July 2, 2012 by Ashania

[jarjarloves]

 

PS: Has the games graphics ever looked so good?

 

?? umm the graphics look much better now. They looked pretty bad back in that video compared to now.

[EATtheDEAD]

I did like the game more during closed beta. My sith warrior was a lot happier.

Too many things changed directly before launch.

 

Like the commendations dropping and being able to be traded to different characters. It was so nice!!!!!!! Also commendation npc's having a trade in rate, 4 dromund kaas comms for 1 balmorra comm, etc..

 

Made playing alts so much less painful. "oh crap im 3 comms short for this mod or piece of gear, it's ok! i have that on my main!" *trade and win!!*

 

now it's "oh damnit im 3 comms short!! guess ill have to grind 200000 mobs to get them" *log out and delete* lol kidding

 

Also the old ui was much much better on the eyes, it didn't give me a headache after staring at it for a few minutes and being black it melted away into the backround while pvping and such. the neon blue is an eyesore.

 

Bioware sure took this game in a bad direction me thinks, besides the basic utilities like lfg tool (which still needs to be xserver), custom ui settings

[EATtheDEAD]

Another thing I miss about the game back then was the Capital Worlds were the main place for players to hang out because you had pvp mission terminals there, all of the pvp gear merchants there, AC quests took you there instead, etc..

 

That was the place to be! Which made chat a lot busier for everyone playing through the content there and made it easier to get help if you were stuck on a mission. The cantina in Kaas City was actually popular too! Imagine that!