Deewe Posted December 2, 2012 Share Posted December 2, 2012 I want an *honest* answer about why they can't put in minigames. Easy: $$$ or more precisely the lack of it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshlaBoga Posted December 2, 2012 Share Posted December 2, 2012 Ok, server transfers and optimization are basics, but speech bubbles and chair sitting are very similar to mini-games. They are things some people want a lot, some want a little, and some will be mad if the resources are used to make them. Speech bubbles are actually highly controversial with many players opposed to them altogether. I'm one of the people who's not a fan of speech bubbles. But if they really do add them, then they need to give us an option to make them invisible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daelenn Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 I actually posted a long discussion on Trippintheforce.com about F2P and changes the game needs. You can follow the link in my sig for the whole thing, but since it's not 100% on-topic I won't link the article here. In the article I mention mini-games though, and its my opinion that SWTOR sorely needs some, and soon. Like another poster above mentioned, you need this "fluff" and "filler" content in an MMO to keep people busy between content patches. Even if you play casually or aren't in a cutting edge guild that's clearing brand new Ops on the hardest difficulty 1-2 days after they're released, you're going to go through content faster than any company can create more. If you figure on maybe 2-3 new Ops in a year and 1-3 new Warzones, that's multiple month gaps between new things to do. This is an even worse gap for people that solely like doing one side of the content only. Having mini-games available helps to break up the monotony and stave off burnout by players. When I listed to the live Q&A the other day, it actually made me kind of mad that Hickman felt stuff like this and guild features aren't a priority for them. As for the chat bubble thing, they actually HAD chat bubbles for a very short time during closed beta.. I wanna say it was around June/July 2011. No idea why, but they were causing massive lag issues so they had to take them out. I guess 1.5yrs hasn't been enough time to figure out how to fix that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deewe Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 IAs for the chat bubble thing, they actually HAD chat bubbles for a very short time during closed beta.. I wanna say it was around June/July 2011. No idea why, but they were causing massive lag issues so they had to take them out. I guess 1.5yrs hasn't been enough time to figure out how to fix that. UI frames are killing the frame rate. The more you display the more the FPS drops. And each chat bubble is a separate and new UI frame. It's due to the way the engine handles them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goretzu Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 They never said they can't or won't. My impression is that they just don't think it's a priority to get them in the game right now. You haven't posted in this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowmon Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 so want pod racing upgrade it like your ship, buy upgrades with fleet tokens or by cybertech....GOGO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConradLionhart Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 so want pod racing upgrade it like your ship, buy upgrades with fleet tokens or by cybertech....GOGO! The possibilities are endless for SW:TOR. They just need to grasp the basics of MMO and the Hero Engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoobooMagoo Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 I think a lot of mini games are probably in the works. Swoop racing would be fun, but Bioware would have to spend a LOT of time on it to fully flesh it out and make sure it is a really good addition. There are two mini games that I really want to see, and neither would be terribly difficult to implement. These would be Pazaak and Sabaac. You would basically just have to create a ui to support these games, so a lot of the technical limitations are not there. Plus they could sell particular cards on the cartel market and make bucket loads of money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arlon_Nabarlly Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 I don't think there is a reason that they can't put them in. I think there is a reason why they haven't. A lot of stuff has/had been pushed back due to needing to put in features like the group finder and such. That takes precedence over minigames. Of course, TOR already has a minigame in it: the space game. When they get the time to make them, I'm sure they will. Check the Livestream for a discussion re: the Wall of Crazy. ^This. I don't think it's a matter of can't or won't, I think it's an issue of prioritizing fixing bugs, implementing systems that are desperately need (mini games are not desperately needed), and obviously the work that went into F2P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sledgeweb Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 I want an *honest* answer about why they can't put in minigames. Once again, in a recent interview, they talk about the 'wall of crazy'. Sure, if you want guild capital ships and freeform space combat, that would take a lot of effort, but minigames? There is a reason why KOTOR had Pazaak and Pod Racing. There is a reason why every open world game has like 20 minigames, even if they're not GTA. The reason is that they are *cheap*. Really, really cheap. The most amount of work they would do to make Pazaak is probably creating the page on the website to advertise it. I cannot understand why, when they *clearly* have enough developers to do so, they do not do minigames. It cannot be a limitation in the engine, can it? There are actually quite a few mini games already in SWTOR, they just aren't very obvious. I'll give you a few of my favorites. You can find me running these on Shadowlands sometimes if you ever want to play a game together. 1) See how long you can run against a wall 2) There is a spot near the cargo holds on fleet where you can hover for a limited time, but it's not consistent. So, see how long you can hover. Or how many spins you can do while hovering. 3) Follow that man! Pick a random person on fleet, and see how long you can follow them. You get 10 points per minute followed. Try not to let them see you. If you can follow them to another planet/location, you get 50 bonus point per new location. 4) Marco/Polo. Need at least two people. Pick a somewhat confined area to play in. One person counts to 10 with while the other goes and hides. The one searching can send a group invite to the other, which they must accept. Then the person hiding can immediately remove themselves from the group. This gives the searcher a quick reveal on the mini-map of the other person's location. Both are always moving, and using the group finder trick to mimick a Marco/Polo call and response. If the searcher gets within range to put a buff or other ability onto the one hiding, then the searcher wins. Otherwise, if the one hiding can go uncaught for X amount of time, then they win. EA/BW was very thoughtful in including these and many more mini-games for us in SWTOR. It is a little funny that they made them easter eggs, rather than openly publish about them, but... then, that sort of makes it a series of games within a hidden game itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Karsk Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 (edited) Simpel, bioware is 100% clueless on how to make the playerbase happy.It's like they want to lose subs.Anyone to dumb to understand how importent minigames are, and in the STAR WARS universe should never be allowed to work on the star wars IP when it comes to games. Edited December 3, 2012 by Lord_Karsk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zilik Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Any addition to the game would be great. Mini-games (and achievements of some sort, similar to mini-games in some ways) are actually IMO important to keep people interested either at end game or who are just bored of leveling/FPs/Ops/WZs and are looking for something to do. Plus with these sorts of mini-games they help people do things with other people not just the computer system. Also as said, they could add (lets say the card type games) cards to bosses, world bosses, world drops, random locations for exploration, crafting, the cartel shop ($), etc and give people another reason to leave fleet and go out into the world (or worlds). I for one don't believe EA or Bioware is for some reason "trying" to lose subs, that's foolish and if you think they do it on purpose so are you. They most likely have many things to do, some of which wouldn't be terribly difficult, BUT had to push that stuff back to add the things they did need, fix things that were bugged, and of course the huge amount of time needed to set up the FTP stuff. They have already said the FTP caused things to get pushed back, they had plans that were moved down the list. I for one will stick it out as long as i am having fun and see what they come out with, if its nothing, when i no longer have a good time, ill move on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhinzual Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 I want an *honest* answer about why they can't put in minigames. Once again, in a recent interview, they talk about the 'wall of crazy'. Sure, if you want guild capital ships and freeform space combat, that would take a lot of effort, but minigames? There is a reason why KOTOR had Pazaak and Pod Racing. There is a reason why every open world game has like 20 minigames, even if they're not GTA. The reason is that they are *cheap*. Really, really cheap. The most amount of work they would do to make Pazaak is probably creating the page on the website to advertise it. I cannot understand why, when they *clearly* have enough developers to do so, they do not do minigames. It cannot be a limitation in the engine, can it? That's because Pazaak can kiss me where the sun don't shine. The only advantage I ever had in KOTOR 1 and 2 with Pazaak was Power Word: Reload. I don't need another money sink in this MMO, especially one where past installments have had cheating AI playing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 (edited) What do you mean you're happy without it? Speech bubbles immerse you deeper into the game. It's almost a basic for MMOs. Personally, speech bubbles immerse me in comic books, not video games. In video games, they clutter up the UI with everyone chitty-chatting in bubbles. Sure, people can turn them off, but the fact remains that they encourage cluttered UIs, whereas SWTOR has from the start had a goal of crisp and unclutterd UI. Your results may vary. Edited December 3, 2012 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlacke Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Personally, speech bubbles immerse me in comic books, not video games. This. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slicksteezin Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 I agree that mini games are a must for any MMO and BW needs to prioritize its production much higher than a lot of things they are working on. And I do agree that it really wouldn't take much of a money sink if they did it the right way. For example, since we can all agree that the current space engine is a bust for the majority of players & that there is supposedly going to be a huge 'space revamp in the not-so-distant future, it seems, at least in my opinion, instead of scrapping the current space engine, to just transfer it into a swoop mini game. It will have the same rail system and you can compete against other players and they can put in walls and barricades that you need to squeeze and maneuver through. A bit like the classic cube runner game if anyone can see what I'm saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inzuher Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Well personally I would love to have Paazak added to the game, and hopefully so that players could play against one another as well. I could see some great rp events bassed on Paazak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyla Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 (edited) Well, I completely disagree with the OP on something, they clearly don't have enough developpers and/or the ones left have inherited of a big pile of sh**t code and/or they are slowed down by management and hierarchy problems. When I see how fast my co-workers or I implement or fix things, it's quite clear there's a big problem in TOR dev cycle. One thing that showed it quite clearly is how they had to delay the ranked warzones. From an abstract POV, normal warzones and ranked warzones are almost the same. Sure there are little differences, like how a group is formed, what reward we get... but it's really minor things that should have been handled fast and easily. Despite that, the original PTS version of the ranked warzones was a mess, with bugs beyond thoses differences. Instead of just delaying the ranked warzones a week or or two to fix the bugs, it was pushed back and went live a few months later. Since the launch, all people involved in the making of TOR seem to have way more work that they can handle and unless management suddenly feels like minigames are the #1 priority in the list of things to do you probably won't see many minigames soon. Edited December 3, 2012 by Nyla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inzuher Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 I agree that mini games are a must for any MMO and BW needs to prioritize its production much higher than a lot of things they are working on. And I do agree that it really wouldn't take much of a money sink if they did it the right way. For example, since we can all agree that the current space engine is a bust for the majority of players & that there is supposedly going to be a huge 'space revamp in the not-so-distant future, it seems, at least in my opinion, instead of scrapping the current space engine, to just transfer it into a swoop mini game. It will have the same rail system and you can compete against other players and they can put in walls and barricades that you need to squeeze and maneuver through. A bit like the classic cube runner game if anyone can see what I'm saying. They said at the last life stream that the "secret space procjet" was still being worked on, but that it would take a long time before it was finished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregordunbar Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 I want an *honest* answer about why they can't put in minigames. 1. it requires developers that know the genre, which they dont. 2. it requires developers to acknowledge segments of the playerbase as being a priority which they arent. 3. It requires fanboys to shut the hell up and allow people to voice their wants without trying to shut them down so the company can actually find out about it which no longer seems possible on forums that are not heavilty monitored by the company. I can remember my first look at the beta forums some 16 MONTHS before release and seeing a large segment of the community creating threads about the complete lack of RPing items and side things to do that will bring the towns to life. All of them shot down by a small minority with very big mouths derailing every single one of them until they were finally closed and ignored by Bioware. And now the game is freemium, congrats fanboys, enjoy your short lived shallow game while you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHunterC Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 They are http://http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/20930-sdcc-2012-announcement-wrap-up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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