A sad reality of this game

[Hessen]

I'm sure they were aware that people would start getting tired of some of the dialogue...they gave us spacebar for a reason. But even though I spacebar through a lot of stuff (dailies, the HMs I've done a million times, side quests), I still enjoy the fact that those dialogue options are there. And I've even gone through class stories multiple times to do them again. It's my favorite aspect of the game.

 

I think they can learn from player's reactions and improve it, though. I think the message is clear that people enjoy class stories and companion interaction, but dislike repetitive dialogue and side quests. While I understand their vision was to fully immerse the player in fully voiced dialogue, I think they can compromise a bit for the future by trimming down the dialogue in extraneous bits and focusing more on class stories and companion interaction. Anyone NOT agree with that?

 

I would be very surprised if there was any future voiced dialogue at all that wasn't just re-using existing recorded material.

[Goretzu]

I guess i'm feeling a little guilty of skipping the hard work that Bioware put into the side quests.

 

Whats everyone thoughts on this?

 

 

 

If they'd:

 

1. Had 2-3 seperate possible levelling paths (for side quests)

or

2. Had ~50% of your levelling content be your class story.

 

(or 3. both)

 

This would have been a completely different game.

[Hessen]

2 different actual quests per side quest dialogue would have been epic.

[chuixupu]

I would be very surprised if there was any future voiced dialogue at all that wasn't just re-using existing recorded material.

 

I believe the VAs are under a long term contract from what I read some time ago, though who knows.

 

They'd be a fool to get rid of voiced content entirely, especially considering it is the only thing that makes this game special. And I would certainly be out along with a lot of others who hold out hope for this game.

[kirorx]

My question would be, what MMO isn't repetitive over the long haul playing multiple characters, or even one character for years on end? Why are people continually expecting SWTOR to be something that no other MMO can offer, either? I just don't get it. I guess I never will.

 

Video games have been repetitive and a looping affair since Pong. The problem will always be that no human being can put together a system of developed content as fast as players can sit there and consume that content.

 

And yes, even the sandbox games are repetitive and just an endless loop of the same ideas.

 

That is why i played SWG for 8 years.

 

I began as a sullustan jedi with no allegiance to any faction, untill i made friends with an imperial sith on Dathomir.

 

We spent a months there searching for the elusive sith 4/5 waistpack holocron, eventually I would join his guild and eventually we would pvp across the galaxy chasing the rebel scum, we were relentless and made many Rebel enemies.

 

Our Guild owned a Naval Fleet of Imperial Ships complete with designated gunners.

 

Some issues occured and some guild leaders, inluding my friend went AWOL and pretty soon the guild fell apart, a few remaining members fled our old city on tattooine and created a subset of the guild and our very own city on Dantooine.

 

We spent months promoting that city and getting players to open stores and cantinas there, we had a lot of pride that city and the day we got our own shuttleport was great feeling.

 

Eventually, the old dogs returned from hiatus and began rebuilding the old guild, but something happened.

 

Our new guild did not want to go back to the old guild and eventually we found our guilds in a full on WAR

(you can declare war on other guilds there, awesome feature).

 

We were outgunned and turned for help from none other than, the rebels.

We allied ourselves with the rebellion and were aided in our war against out one time friends.

 

The epic battle between myself and my old friend from dathomir finally came to head on none other than, Naboo.

 

Our guilds battled for control of the galaxy untill the final shut down, and in the end we all threw one last friendly party aboard my ship, a ship that was decorated to look like a large cantina complete with cantina music (TCG). (Y-8 mining ship)

-------------------------------------------------

 

That was not repeatitive. The problem with games today is that they are not allowing or promoting this kind of interaction with other players, we did not need an influx of content to have fun. We had the galaxy to have fun in.

 

We need a more interactive world, one where we can have fun with out the direct guidance of the Design or the reliance on new content .

[VigDiath]

IMHO what I would like to see is a way to level up from 1 again with new content that makes the game exciting. As it is, I've leveled 2 toons to 50 and a bunch to either 30's or 40's and it's boring having to do the same content over and over again. Especially when it's kill 20 of this, find 30 of this, loot 40 of this. It gets old quick.

 

Now that they are coming out with Cathar as a new playable race I'd love to level a Cathar but not if it's the same grind from 1-50 again. Give us new stuff. I may actually wait until they come out with a different race than Cathar because I could think of any number of other races/species I'd love to level as such as Togruta or Kel Dor. But that is my sad reality of this game.

[Kubernetic]

That is why i played SWG for 8 years.

 

I began as a sullustan jedi with no allegiance to any faction, untill i made friends with an imperial sith on Dathomir.

 

We spent a months there searching for the elusive sith 4/5 waistpack holocron, eventually I would join his guild and eventually we would pvp across the galaxy chasing the rebel scum, we were relentless and made many Rebel enemies.

 

Our Guild owned a Naval Fleet of Imperial Ships complete with designated gunners.

 

Some issues occured and some guild leaders, inluding my friend went AWOL and pretty soon the guild fell apart, a few remaining members fled our old city on tattooine and created a subset of the guild and our very own city on Dantooine.

 

We spent months promoting that city and getting players to open stores and cantinas there, we had a lot of pride that city and the day we got our own shuttleport was great feeling.

 

Eventually, the old dogs returned from hiatus and began rebuilding the old guild, but something happened.

 

Our new guild did not want to go back to the old guild and eventually we found our guilds in a full on WAR

(you can declare war on other guilds there, awesome feature).

 

We were outgunned and turned for help from none other than, the rebels.

We allied ourselves with the rebellion and were aided in our war against out one time friends.

 

The epic battle between myself and my old friend from dathomir finally came to head on none other than, Naboo.

 

Our guilds battled for control of the galaxy untill the final shut down, and in the end we all threw one last friendly party aboard my ship, a ship that was decorated to look like a large cantina complete with cantina music (TCG). (Y-8 mining ship)

-------------------------------------------------

 

That was not repeatitive. The problem with games today is that they are not allowing or promoting this kind of interaction with other players, we did not need an influx of content to have fun. We had the galaxy to have fun in.

 

We need a more interactive world, one where we can have fun with out the direct guidance of the Design or the reliance on new content .

 

Even still, SWG had zero space content until 17 months into launch. And we currently have a space project in motion that has teased the notion of guild capital ships.

 

Was the ability to declare war on another guild there from launch in SWG, or did it get added later?

 

Ultimately, I don't see much difference. Those same kinds of concepts can grow out of this game over time. Your guild can declare war on another guild now... the fact that there isn't an official checkbox in the game to do so is meaningless. You still have ways of communicating with your guild and doing so. The only real thing keeping that from happening appears to be the lack of a guild home base. And we may actually get those...

[VigDiath]

That is why i played SWG for 8 years.

 

I began as a sullustan jedi with no allegiance to any faction, untill i made friends with an imperial sith on Dathomir.

 

We spent a months there searching for the elusive sith 4/5 waistpack holocron, eventually I would join his guild and eventually we would pvp across the galaxy chasing the rebel scum, we were relentless and made many Rebel enemies.

 

Our Guild owned a Naval Fleet of Imperial Ships complete with designated gunners.

 

Some issues occured and some guild leaders, inluding my friend went AWOL and pretty soon the guild fell apart, a few remaining members fled our old city on tattooine and created a subset of the guild and our very own city on Dantooine.

 

We spent months promoting that city and getting players to open stores and cantinas there, we had a lot of pride that city and the day we got our own shuttleport was great feeling.

 

Eventually, the old dogs returned from hiatus and began rebuilding the old guild, but something happened.

 

Our new guild did not want to go back to the old guild and eventually we found our guilds in a full on WAR

(you can declare war on other guilds there, awesome feature).

 

We were outgunned and turned for help from none other than, the rebels.

We allied ourselves with the rebellion and were aided in our war against out one time friends.

 

The epic battle between myself and my old friend from dathomir finally came to head on none other than, Naboo.

 

Our guilds battled for control of the galaxy untill the final shut down, and in the end we all threw one last friendly party aboard my ship, a ship that was decorated to look like a large cantina complete with cantina music (TCG). (Y-8 mining ship)

-------------------------------------------------

 

That was not repeatitive. The problem with games today is that they are not allowing or promoting this kind of interaction with other players, we did not need an influx of content to have fun. We had the galaxy to have fun in.

 

We need a more interactive world, one where we can have fun with out the direct guidance of the Design or the reliance on new content .

 

This is what I would love to see. I never got to play SWG even though I downloaded the Trial a few years ago. But this post sounds like something I would like. Endless things to do that are not repetetive. A truly open world where I could create something that is my own. So far in this game I don't feel that. I love this game but I'd love to see more of the above.

[Laris_Rai]

I never space bar through anything. I'm here for the story. Space barring through story you haven't even seen seems like a sign of a short attention span to me.

[GavinPatterson]

I want MMO's to move in this direction - a strong story thats fully voiced. If i wanted to mash buttons or read boring dialogue - i'd read a book and press random things on the keyboard.

When playing wow, sto or even lotro its a grind.....its a dull boring grind. And all the way to the top level. I read what i need to...I have no idea what the back story is or even what the main story is. Point is its not fun.

I love the VO - and I love the story. When I am playing - I feel like I am playing - its not like some grind to fifty. Its a story that I am apart of.

but the way I see it:

If your going to do a VO - make sure there is more than three options and make the dialogue count.

OR do what you had in KOTOR and KOTOR II and dragon age 1 - You had worded dialogue and you could select any of it each bit affected the conversation slightly.

[Lazzer]

How so? Roleplayers generally create their own story, not just follow someone else's story. especially in tOR, I spent a substantial amount of time pre-launch creating a backstory, I knew it was story driven but I expected much more of a free-run at the galaxy at large than was possible.

 

It depends on what you are calling an roleplayer, I'm a pencil and paper D&D roleplayer and wouldn't really touch an MMO with the intent to roleplay because it's all too restrictive even pure sandbox MMOs, a RPG title be it an MMORPG or a single player means there is an in depth story that you follow and that that is the way the game is designed.

 

I also disagree with your view of the player-base, I believe 60% of the population are MMO players who rush to end game, then grind for gear and titles. The other 40% are a mixture of newcomers to the genre, and the KotOR fans that could come to terms with the fact that their will never be a KotOR 3. I think most people have a general love for Star Wars (Its the reason its survived this long to be honest) But I doubt many people came here for the SPRPG aspect of the game solely.

 

It's an arguable point as I am a long time MMORPG player and know and have come across plenty of MMO players in this game that migrated from other games because of the story and voice over, because there was going to be a game that put the RPG back into MMORPG. If it is the fact that most people are Starwars fans that simply reinforces my point, without a story and a plot to follow there is no Starwars. The KotOR fans were also looking for story.

 

The "rush to endgame" players are a fickle bunch that jump from one game to the next and most of them play multiple titles, they are not a loyal playerbase and never will be. It is an observable fact (regardless of what percentage of players actually appreciate it) that this game is all about story in an MMO environment and endgame wise people can get better else where. It's too big for it's own good and should have concentrated on a lower number of subs and kept the story crowd happy. I'm in that crowd, I'm play simply to finish each class story.

 

I've completed most of the Operations, done FPs too many times to count and played lots of PvP but let's face it with the instanced style of the endgame it's less MMO and more a collection of minigames run for comms, I see no real difference between a FP, OP and space battles it's all on rails and PvP is nothing more than FPS capture the flag. It's instancing everything (in my opinion) that kills the genre.

 

I'm holding onto my sub for my cartel coins, then going F2P and completing each class story. If by that time they haven't added a good amount of class story I probably won't be logging in to play.

[Diet-Hutt]

my thoughts?

 

i told em so.

 

seriously i called it. when fully voiced mmos were all the hype and said. . . well isnt that going to make new content come out slower because they have to record voice overs for every class as well as npcs and their responses?

 

It's even to the point where some players don't even want to wait for new players to go through the dialogue in groups.

 

It was nice first time around, but I wish there was a way to permanently disable it after a certain point.

 

Commend the effort though, great voice work and story, but that's the only strong point in this MMO.

Everything else needs a major overhaul.

 

Especially PvE mechanics.

 

- DH

[Cakellene]

It's even to the point where some players don't even want to wait for new players to go through the dialogue in groups.

 

It was nice first time around, but I wish there was a way to permanently disable it after a certain point.

 

Commend the effort though, great voice work and story, but that's the only strong point in this MMO.

Everything else needs a major overhaul.

 

Especially PvE mechanics.

 

- DH

 

What's wrong with PvE?

[Venarive]

That is why i played SWG for 8 years.

 

I began as a sullustan jedi with no allegiance to any faction, untill i made friends with an imperial sith on Dathomir.

 

We spent a months there searching for the elusive sith 4/5 waistpack holocron, eventually I would join his guild and eventually we would pvp across the galaxy chasing the rebel scum, we were relentless and made many Rebel enemies.

 

Our Guild owned a Naval Fleet of Imperial Ships complete with designated gunners.

 

Some issues occured and some guild leaders, inluding my friend went AWOL and pretty soon the guild fell apart, a few remaining members fled our old city on tattooine and created a subset of the guild and our very own city on Dantooine.

 

We spent months promoting that city and getting players to open stores and cantinas there, we had a lot of pride that city and the day we got our own shuttleport was great feeling.

 

Eventually, the old dogs returned from hiatus and began rebuilding the old guild, but something happened.

 

Our new guild did not want to go back to the old guild and eventually we found our guilds in a full on WAR

(you can declare war on other guilds there, awesome feature).

 

We were outgunned and turned for help from none other than, the rebels.

We allied ourselves with the rebellion and were aided in our war against out one time friends.

 

The epic battle between myself and my old friend from dathomir finally came to head on none other than, Naboo.

 

Our guilds battled for control of the galaxy untill the final shut down, and in the end we all threw one last friendly party aboard my ship, a ship that was decorated to look like a large cantina complete with cantina music (TCG). (Y-8 mining ship)

-------------------------------------------------

 

That was not repeatitive. The problem with games today is that they are not allowing or promoting this kind of interaction with other players, we did not need an influx of content to have fun. We had the galaxy to have fun in.

 

We need a more interactive world, one where we can have fun with out the direct guidance of the Design or the reliance on new content .

 

 

For roleplayers, and for those willing to put in a little effort to connect with others and interact, rather than needing to be led on through a story by rewards, there has not been another game to rival SWG. Even most of those who did not define themselves as roleplayers on my server created cities, rivalries, wars over bases, tournaments, races, etc.

 

I loved it and was immersed in it for years, having very different stories to yours but equally exciting and fun for me and many others.

 

However, it appears that not enough people wish to play with that amount of freedom and there is the constant cry for more content rather than an outcry for games that allow one to create one's own content. People want to be spoonfed now or so it appears. Grinding for gear takes precedence over having a character that lives in a world where one can sit on a chair or buy any clothes to fit one's mood (does anyone think about how silly it is not to have a certain look till a certain level?) and actually change the landscape around one.

[Izorii]

End game quests, dailys and flash points needed a lot more work. Was on an Opp Story mode and one of the group actually asked where the story was. All we did was skip as much of the trash mobs as possible and fight by numbers the bosses.

 

They need to put more work in the end game. However lv 1-50 are cool and I liked the story and the world arcs, the bonus quests I saw as a necessary evil.

[Digimanbyte_ID]

To me this game has some of the best stories and side quests of any any MMO, however, saying that it is sad that now that i have eight Alts that i am leveling at the moment i am now using the space bar more often to just skip through the dialogue so that i can get the mission to move on. I do make a point of watching the class stories all the way through.

 

My point is i guess, that Bioware put a lot of time and effort into the game with the mission objectives and the cool voice overs and now all that work seems for naught as i have already seen it enough times now with all my Alts that i just skip it.

With the time it took to develop this game i would have thought that they might have added more specific side quests according to class instead of all side questions are available by faction only.

 

I guess i'm feeling a little guilty of skipping the hard work that Bioware put into the side quests.

 

Whats everyone thoughts on this?

 

Anyone who hits space bar in a cutscene, deserves the consequences of boredom. To be honest. I have no clue why you can't just finish one class then move onto the other. It will give you massive burn out and a feeling of grind to 50 if you do that.

 

Myself the situation is simple. I complete one class on one faction then do the other advanced class choice on the opposite faction, back and forth.

 

ATM I don't really blame bioware for the lack of endgame content. This is still a new game and other MMO's in their vanilla stage suffered the same issue.

[Yogol]

I have no clue why you can't just finish one class then move onto the other. It will give you massive burn out and a feeling of grind to 50 if you do that.

 

I got all 4 classes on the rebel side (I'll be damned if I ever turn to the dark side), a whoooooole lot of quests are exactly the same for each class, as you know. I didn't count, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that the class quests make up less than 20% of your quests.

 

Saying ''reroll'' will only get you so far in today's MMO world, when 80% you will do is exactly the same.

[Scritchy]

My question would be, what MMO isn't repetitive over the long haul playing multiple characters, or even one character for years on end? Why are people continually expecting SWTOR to be something that no other MMO can offer, either? I just don't get it. I guess I never will.

Some games that aren't repetitive on how you have to level?

 

Aion - I had three characters and each ended up doing a different thing to level. One did quests, one did a whole lot of crafting, and another did a bunch of instances. Two of them never even set foot into the Abyss.

 

EQ/EQ2 - Neither had a 'set way' that you had to level. EQ was a long slog, but you weren't forced to follow a predetermined path to make it to the end game. EQ2 had so many zone choices that it wasn't until my fourth character that I even set foot in Thundering Steepes to grind giants. A lot of people avoided leveling in Nek Forest at all because it was mean.

 

SWG - You 'leveled' by using the skills. You weren't forced into a linear path of not only the order of planets you visited, but what you did on each of those planets. You could do whatever the hell you wanted to level. It was the exact opposite of repetitious.

 

So no, repetitious leveling doesn't have to be part of a game.

[Quething]

I got all 4 classes on the rebel side (I'll be damned if I ever turn to the dark side), a whoooooole lot of quests are exactly the same for each class, as you know. I didn't count, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that the class quests make up less than 20% of your quests.

 

Saying ''reroll'' will only get you so far in today's MMO world, when 80% you will do is exactly the same.

 

This game is not designed for completionists.

 

To elaborate: You are not supposed to do every quest on every planet with every character. You will find that if you do, you badly outlevel content. Every quest on Tython plus every quest on Coruscant plus picking up holocrons and getting full world maps means you get your ship and can head straight to Nar Shaddaa, because you're already entirely too powerful to be meaningfully challenged by half of Taris.

 

Do the Nar Shaddaa planet quest with your Agent, then come back for the bonus. Skip it completely with your Bounty Hunter because she's not an Imperial and doesn't give a crap about Imperial problems, and never bothered to answer that "all Imperial citizens with combat skills come report to the Imperial outpost" message lying around near the taxi. Do the Voss planet quest with your Knight and ignore Alderaan; do Alderaan with your Smuggler and ignore Voss. Roleplay a businesslike Trooper who doesn't have time for random acts of charity and ignore every civilian sidequest giver. Roleplay a Smuggler with a pathological avoidance of authority and only take sidequests from civilians. Do all the Hoth heroics and none of the Tatooine ones, then come back on a different toon and go vice versa.

 

You'll find replayability is significantly improved.

 

(It's an interesting design choice, actually. If you want the KotOR crowd... well, we're a completionist bunch, on the whole. We're not going to adjust automatically or particularly well to just ignoring quest givers. On the other hand, since their story design and the need to let different classes level up together means they can't do different leveling zones, I can't see what else they could have done.)

[Goretzu]

I believe the VAs are under a long term contract from what I read some time ago, though who knows.

 

They'd be a fool to get rid of voiced content entirely, especially considering it is the only thing that makes this game special. And I would certainly be out along with a lot of others who hold out hope for this game.

 

The are, however if you look at the daily quests you can see how the % of "canned speech" is creeping up.

[Skorz]

They wasted resources on voicing the side quests. Only class quests should have been voice acted, IMO.

[Goretzu]

They wasted resources on voicing the side quests. Only class quests should have been voice acted, IMO.

 

Yeah this has been suggested for extra levelling paths (just use terminal quests).

 

However the downside to this is it basically makes SWTOR as "voiced" as LOTRO is.

[Skorz]

This game is not designed for completionists.

 

To elaborate: You are not supposed to do every quest on every planet with every character. You will find that if you do, you badly outlevel content. Every quest on Tython plus every quest on Coruscant plus picking up holocrons and getting full world maps means you get your ship and can head straight to Nar Shaddaa, because you're already entirely too powerful to be meaningfully challenged by half of Taris.

 

Do the Nar Shaddaa planet quest with your Agent, then come back for the bonus. Skip it completely with your Bounty Hunter because she's not an Imperial and doesn't give a crap about Imperial problems, and never bothered to answer that "all Imperial citizens with combat skills come report to the Imperial outpost" message lying around near the taxi. Do the Voss planet quest with your Knight and ignore Alderaan; do Alderaan with your Smuggler and ignore Voss. Roleplay a businesslike Trooper who doesn't have time for random acts of charity and ignore every civilian sidequest giver. Roleplay a Smuggler with a pathological avoidance of authority and only take sidequests from civilians. Do all the Hoth heroics and none of the Tatooine ones, then come back on a different toon and go vice versa.

 

You'll find replayability is significantly improved.

 

(It's an interesting design choice, actually. If you want the KotOR crowd... well, we're a completionist bunch, on the whole. We're not going to adjust automatically or particularly well to just ignoring quest givers. On the other hand, since their story design and the need to let different classes level up together means they can't do different leveling zones, I can't see what else they could have done.)

 

I usually lvl my alts by doing all the quests but I skip the bonuses on quests that have multiple stages and I also skip the bonus series. Then I do the space missions that give xp and PvP dailies and move onto the next planet. If I get really behind in the lvls then I might do a planet bonus series here and there.

 

This way I can lvl without getting really tired of the grind. I hate the quests that have multiple bonus stages the most because usually you need to kill like 80 mobs but they also give the most xp though :/

Edited September 11, 2012 by Skorz

[oakamp]

My question would be, what MMO isn't repetitive over the long haul playing multiple characters, or even one character for years on end? Why are people continually expecting SWTOR to be something that no other MMO can offer, either? I just don't get it. I guess I never will.

because the reputation,

because it is the BW+kotor,

it supposed to be the promised game,

just like anakin should be the chosen one,

yet......

[Goretzu]

My question would be, what MMO isn't repetitive over the long haul playing multiple characters, or even one character for years on end? Why are people continually expecting SWTOR to be something that no other MMO can offer, either? I just don't get it. I guess I never will.

 

Video games have been repetitive and a looping affair since Pong. The problem will always be that no human being can put together a system of developed content as fast as players can sit there and consume that content.

 

And yes, even the sandbox games are repetitive and just an endless loop of the same ideas.

 

 

Most MMORPG I've played (including Everquest 1) had more than one levelling path. SWTOR has 1.5 (if you're being generous with bonus series).

 

It's a side effect of the voicing for sure (to slow and expensive to make), but they could add some mission terminalled areas to add quicker and cheaper content.