Makeb shows why continuing class stories are necessary

[MSpectre]

And money to waste, apparently. That's what I never understood about the doom-and-gloom types. You're literally paying for the ability to cry about a game you don't even like.

 

I just got back from being away for 8 months and I'm loving all the new additions and changes, so when I see all these tears, I'm just wondering you're even around. When I got tired of the game, I unsubbed and found other things to do with my time.

 

The funny this is you know I'm right.

 

I'm just calling it like I see it.

 

I'll waste my time/money as I see fit. Don't like it the doors that way ---->

[Infernixx]

The funny this is you know I'm right.

 

I'm just calling it like I see it.

 

I'll waste my time/money as I see fit. Don't like it the doors that way ---->

 

The only thing I know is that I'm amused at how people insist on subjecting themselves to stuff they don't like in order to try and bring everyone else down. It's like they're insulted by the fact that other people have the audacity to like stuff that they don't.

 

It's hilarious when you think about how you're spending money in order to be unhappy. But then some people pay other people to beat them up, so it takes all kinds, I guess.

Edited November 3, 2013 by Infernixx
misspell

[MSpectre]

The only thing I know is that I'm amused at how people insist on subjecting themselves to stuff they don't like in order to try and bring everyone else down. It's like their insulted by the fact that other people have the audacity to like stuff that they don't.

 

It's hilarious when you think about how you're spending money in order to be unhappy. But then some people pay other people to beat them up, so it takes all kinds, I guess.

 

Honestly I don't care what you or anyone else thinks.

 

I'll blow my time/money as I see fit.(hell I'm blowin it right now eatin and typing)

 

I'm simply stating my opinion. I'm content pointing out the obvious.

 

It's a $ocial game in the hands of a company that is inept. My 00.2

[Infernixx]

Honestly I don't care what you or anyone else thinks.

 

I'll blow my time/money as I see fit.(hell I'm blowin it right now eatin and typing)

 

I'm simply stating my opinion. I'm content pointing out the obvious.

 

It's a $ocial game in the hands of a company that is inept. My 00.2

 

lol Of course you care what I think. Why else would you keep responding? Why else would you throw your two cents out there except to expect to see support for your opinion. It's why you speak up in the first place, you're seeking validation for your own opinions.

 

And yes, you're very good at wasting your cash in this way. EA thanks you.

[Nickious]

MMO are pointless.

 

MMOs are nothing more then time killing/Socializing devices.

 

EA= Profit above all else.

Bioware= Sold. Dead.(Dragonage 2/Mass Effect 2&3 prove that, imo)

 

At the end of the its just "fun" carrot chasing.

 

Don't expect anything grandiose as far as story goes.

Don't expect any more class missions.

 

Expect more Cartel Items.

Expect your 78 pieces to become obsolete shortly.

 

Enjoy those tasty carrots!

 

Lol, its a business, not a charity, of course its profit above all else. Same goes for just about every company.

 

Purely opinion based. I have no opinion of DA2, never played, but your opinion about ME2 is complete BS imo. ME2 completely blew ME1 out of the water when it came to character development. The only lovable character in ME1 was Wrex, the other 4 so were boring until ME2 brought the best out of them. You might have a case with ME3, though that is entirely subjective as well, I enjoyed great portions of it.

 

Don't know, I can't make any guesses, Makeb may have been boring, but its leading to much bigger climactic battle, conflict abound. And datamined planets show interesting possibilities.

 

Probably, though they said they would try to throw in more class specific missions on that one planet rather than throwing everyone into mission pool

 

Well no ****, CM items is keeping SWTOR afloat and CM stuff is alot more frequent because its less time consuming and easier to make than regular content.

Why wouldn't you expect mods and armor to be come obselote eventually?

Edited November 3, 2013 by Nickious

[Callaron]

And money to waste, apparently. That's what I never understood about the doom-and-gloom types. You're literally paying for the ability to cry about a game you don't even like.

 

I just got back from being away for 8 months and I'm loving all the new additions and changes, so when I see all these tears, I'm just wondering you're even around. When I got tired of the game, I unsubbed and found other things to do with my time.

 

Some people are only happy when they can be unhappy about something.

I used to know a guy on another MMO, and every patch, every single update he used to go on and on about all the bad stuff that they did, how they broke things each time - practically never mentioned anything positive.

Yet he played the game for years.

Edited November 3, 2013 by Callaron

[Andryah]

Yes, class stories will be necessary to continue this game for years to come. This expansion took most people less than a week to do the main storyline. That will not suffice for keeping people engaged for years like an MMO is supposed to.

 

This is kind of a false flag statement IMO. There is no continuing class story progression once you move your 5 levels through Makeb to the new cap either. Nor was there before the expansion when people capped to 50.

 

To be honest.. class story progression won't keep people playing in and of itself. Why? Because to continue to play an MMO you, generally speaking, need to take part in a broad set of what is offered by the game. When you focus exclusively on any single element.. you will burn out and you will leave for something else in most cases.

 

Now, I agree that the replay value of Makeb story arc is limited for some players. But the reality is that it is 5 levels to a new cap from and expansion. People generally speaking rush themselves to cap anyway in MMOs... so making it about class story content might lower the burden for some of replay value, but it's not 50 levels of character play, it's 5 levels of character play. So I personally feel the issue is being deliberately over stated by players.

 

Personally, if I want a character moved from 50 to 55, the content I play the character through is less important to me then why I am leveling the character to 55. In other words.. I have a motivation for doing it and a plan for once I get to 55. Where as creating a new character and leveling to 50 is a much larger endeavor and benefits from the different class story arcs to broaden the experience differential of such a long leveling curve.

 

While it's always nice to have 8 pathways to level progression... and it's pretty important for 1-50... to claim the absence of it is ownerous (replaced by two faction story progressions) for 5 additional levels of an expac is IMO focusing on the wrong elements of game play. And as I have commented in this thread and in other threads over the months... from a story design standpoint (and following classic screenplay methodology)... once a character has grown up within the theme of a book, movie, game, etc.... it is common to shift the plotlines to larger themes (ie: faction rather then individual). More pragmatically, you can have more story based expacs faster if they focus on 2 faction based story arcs rather then 8 class based story arcs. So from an over all content and progression perspective, going faction based story arc is the more pragmatic approach for a content consumption driven player base.

 

And before someone does a drive-by on me.. I'm not defending the choice by Bioware, I am providing contrasting thought to the rather sheep like "we want more class story, because we cannot level without class story" plotline that is common in this thread. Fact is.. you can, if you have personal reasons to do so, and will....just like you do in every other MMO you have played (or are playing).

Edited November 3, 2013 by Andryah

[Andryah]

Some people are only happy when they can be unhappy about something.

I used to know a guy on another MMO, and every patch, every single update he used to go on and on about all the bad stuff that they did, how they broke things each time - practically never mentioned anything positive.

Yet he played the game for years.

 

Indeed.

[Tsillah]

I've thought about this one....I am not sure if it's just the lack of class story, but I have to agree that Makeb is a planet I don't realy visit anymore once I am level 55 on a character.

 

Also I find that I get stuck on leveling from 50 to 55 becaue of Makeb. I have to sit down, suck it up and just deal with it. Makeb looks beautiful and all that but it's just not a place I want to hang. The island approach and interestingly the way the taxi's work make it feel like there is no cohesion at all. From a story line point of view that may make sense but it just makes it a planet that's just all over the place. The high mob density is also problematic.

 

When I look at Oricon on the other hand, well, I enjoyed that much more and still do. The dailies are better than a lot of other ones. I only really like the Ilum and Oricon ones in the end. The BH ones aren't too bad but Makeb, Belsavis etc are just tedious and uninteresting.

 

Another thing is that planets normally have class quests, a planetary main story and side quests + heroics. Makeb for some reason doesn't offer enough. I use xp boosts but I still finish Makeb at 53. It just doesn't offer enough to level through from 50 to 55. I really wish I could go to Oricon sooner at level 53 for example.

 

There is a certain detachment of story and character that I've noticed and that is definitely because of a lack of personal/class story. But Makeb is not so popular for me for various reasons, not just the lack of personal story. I thought it was ok at first but in retrospect I have to say that Makeb is mostly tedious and boring and lacks the feel of a planet with a story.

 

I do not know if BW is planning to add to the existing personal story at all. Also I doubt they will add more companions aside from the companions like treek and HK which are available to all. A shame somewhere...if they are worried about people having too many companions, perhaps I could offer something as dangerous as people getting options of getting new companions at the expense of existing ones, but also that I doubt will happen.

 

Still, I see all that's happened this year and a lot of positive things happened for SWTOR this year. It does make me wonder about next year. I can't imagine they will just leave it as it is but will add new things. So perhaps there is still a place to hope for a more personal touch for our characters. I would want to counter a certain sense of detachment that exists without personal stories.

[Malckiah]

Well we know from Bioware's comments how things get done.... They specifically said that they don't make changes to pvp very often because the pvp crowd isn't complaining for change. ("They are happy as long as they have someone to kill."). So if we are not loud enough about things, unfortunately this is just another thread that will fall away in an hour or week and nothing changes.

Yes to this thread! I want more class story please!!!!!!

Edited November 3, 2013 by Malckiah

[Suromir]

yep.

 

BioWare pulled a bait-and-switch with this.

 

they touted the class stories as the be-all-end-all of Star Wars MMO that SWTOR was to be.

 

when their gamble proved to be a bad one (and ONLY because of terrible design choices..not the "gamble" itself) they've fallen back on SWTOR just being any generic MMO like the rest.

 

If they weren't going to keep with the class stories then maybe they should have done more research on MMO's and not taken so many stupid shortcuts while designing the game.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

FORGET IT

 

Rumors say BW is working on a new Star Wars game anyway so there you will have your story, now let them make MMO features for SWTOR and not waste further time with class story for Yoda's sake

 

story =\= gameplay

 

story focus = MMO death

Edited November 3, 2013 by Lord_Ravenhurst

[LordArtemis]

I still cling to the idea that progression in story can be more important that actual level progression to some folks, as is the continuation of companion stories, and they could do both at the same time by providing small expansions of class story through companions.

 

This would provide a few things, other than level progression naturally.

 

1) Expand class stories in small arcs as time and resources allow, which arguably is one of the game's assets.

2) Allow companion stories to also be expanded.

3) Allow more affection paths other than gifts for some companions.

 

I still think that the bounty system should be expanded to accommodate other classes specifically, and that could also be considered a generic expansion of story.

1) Smuggling missions for Smugglers

2) Jedi and Sith council missions for Jedi and Sith

3) Special bounties for BHs

4) Combat missions for Troopers

5) Espionage, sabotage and assassination missions for Agents

 

Either method could provide some story extension using some current in game assets, without level advancement.

[Ghostius]

 

But maybe they've looked at the data and concluded that story-oriented spenders like me are just too minority to be worth investing in. It's easy to believe my view is important because I post it on the forums, but the harsh reality is that may not be what their "data" says.

 

Smart words here.

As much as I like story, I understand it is just too expensive to make it for content that last few hours.

 

Few facts, in my opinion:

 

1. Why was ToR most expensive MMO in history? Obviously, its because it has something others dont - story telling with cut scenes and voice acting. They figured all this stuff finnancially cant fit in Mmo, mmo have other priorities, so they focused on generic mmo stuff and CM to cut down production costs to save game from doom

 

2. People want sequel of kotor 2 - they identify SWTOR as BW game and automatically think this is Kotor 3 which is not ofc, but keep demanding kotor design policy. Problem is people are doing it on ToR forum instead on EA/BW site

 

3. Class stories ( and player housing for that matter ) are single player stuff and by its nature dont belong to mmo which is one more reason they are not high in priority in BW mind

[valeita]

agree 100%

 

/signed

[wishihadaname]

/signed

 

The devs should really consider making smaller installments of the story, or if they are going to do faction story then they need to make some customizations for the classes. For example, have a few unique companion lines, or have some missions where certain classes get to do things differently.

[Malckiah]

I love this game and will continue to play. But I have seen Bioware make it VERY clear that they do things based solely on what will bring in THE MOST subscribers and what makes them the most money. OF COURSE, they are a business, why wouldn't they?.... Problem I see with this though is that the way they have made clear that they "bring in the most subscribers" is through GROUP content (you bring your friends in to group and they subscribe to).

So that is simply where the money goes. Ofcourse they still put some towards single player content, but it pales in comparison.

Notice what they focus on.... there is a new operation (raid) every time you turn around. Anything that is not group based will never get lots of love without lots of voices demanding it.

 

Why do I even bring up single player content or group content?....because class story is single player content.

 

When they first announced that they were not doing class stories anymore you could tell that they were waiting to see if there would be a negative response....so far, or should I say until now....nothing much has been said.

[KepavEgi]

I also hope they continue with the individual class stories. Personally, I'm more interested in the single player content than the group stuff.

[Savej]

They could spend millions of $ making 2-6 hours of content for every class or... they could spend the exact same amount making 16-48 hours of content for everyone. Sure, for those that play every single class it would be the same thing but most people do not. The math is simple. And while I like the class stories, if they were my main selling point/draw I would not have subbed for more than a month or two.

 

Don't get me wrong - I like having individual stories tailored to my choices. But even the class stories we've had, where every other Jed Knight has exactly the same companion interactions and exactly the same story lines/choices (to the point where it's hard to distinguish them no matter what choices get made) do not feel distinctive or immersive. Maybe if it was a single-player game... but being in a party with 3 other knights that are also married to my character's wife and killed all of the same big name bosses is a bit weak in that department.

[WestXv]

They could spend millions of $ making 2-6 hours of content for every class or... they could spend the exact same amount making 16-48 hours of content for everyone. Sure, for those that play every single class it would be the same thing but most people do not. The math is simple. And while I like the class stories, if they were my main selling point/draw I would not have subbed for more than a month or two.

 

Don't get me wrong - I like having individual stories tailored to my choices. But even the class stories we've had, where every other Jed Knight has exactly the same companion interactions and exactly the same story lines/choices (to the point where it's hard to distinguish them no matter what choices get made) do not feel distinctive or immersive. Maybe if it was a single-player game... but being in a party with 3 other knights that are also married to my character's wife and killed all of the same big name bosses is a bit weak in that department.

 

Should of tried playing Sith warrior or the agent as there class stories are the most unique as there are 2 different versions of a warrior comp and they both have very adaptive stories and warrior is the most dependant on morality.

[Xakthul]

And yet, here you are. lol

 

Yep. Don't you love hipocracy?

[LordGarmaZabi]

I've thought this at varying points. They did tell us they had more class story written/knew where it was going. And they're basically calling Makeb an interlude, which to me implies in their grand plan it's intended to serve as intermission where some of us go get snacks and the rest of us keep the seats warm. That's fine, assuming they buckle down and bring us a new chapter.

 

I suspect they're gauging the level of interest in expansions by a low-investment RotHC installment, then judging by how many F2P players shell out for that content, deciding the budget for the future expansion to bring us a new chapter. If the sub base + f2p don't buy enough copies of RotHC to make them think it's worth investing big bucks in the next chapter, we may well see the original class story plans scrapped in favor of continued 'interludes', but I think their DESIRE is for a second wind and a new chapter.

 

I honestly think the writers and creatives at BW desperately want to bring us their original vision. I'm a writer too, and I know how frustrating it is to have one's ideas nixed because they're impractical for a given timeline or won't appeal to whatever target demographic the publisher has gathered marketing info on. I don't think that's what they -want- and I don't think it's laziness as much as what was stated above.

 

They got ahead of themselves. They thought they'd finally found the WoWkiller. They hoped the Star Wars IP would hold onto fans while they went through their growing pains. And for me, it did. For a lot of you, it did. But for the vast number of people who bought this game expecting it to be bug-free and professionally handled, replete with "WoW standard" guild and grouping features, with a stable, versatile game engine from day one...it disappointed, and they unsubbed. (Obviously a lot of people unsubbed for other reasons as well.)

 

So their initial plans were predicated on far greater gains than they saw, not just in the first quarter, but the second quarter, and going on into the present. They began f2p and CM to stop the hemorrhaging of profits. It seems to have worked. My hope is that, at this stage, the creatives will be able to wrest some control back from the financial/management sector of BW/EA and make their vision happen so we can all get what we were promised at the start.

 

I fully agree. What many forget, or perhaps never knew, is that TOR was record shattering in how much it cost to make, but it didn't make nearly the money they were expecting. It isn't a matter of laziness, or how evil EA is, in truth, after this games sub numbers started plummeting, what we have now became inevitable. I'd even wager things could have been far worse.

Edited November 4, 2013 by LordGarmaZabi

[Shoshannim]

/signed More class story please... pretty please.

[Lunafox]

/signed More class story please... pretty please.

 

Said it before, will say it again a few zillion more times. What this poster said. ^^

[Wynternight]

Has there been any word from the devs that class stories are no more or are we just extrapolating based on Makeb and the upcoming space shooter?