Solutions to class stories?

[ChillingFear]

Yes I know this topic has been brought up over and over, but the one thing I've noticed is posts of people talking about how much they want more class story vs giving realistic solutions as to how Bioware could implement class story without it effecting existing content that they now seem to be releasing on more of a consistent basis. Now I dont claim to work at Bioware so I wont pretend I know how financially feasible or how understaffed they may be to make it happen but throwing that to the side what do you guys think they could do to make it happen?

 

My initial thought would be to have the group of developers that were working on the upcoming space pvp expansion, take them and have them start working on the new quest-lines/planets and animations etc that would need to be done from a developer point of view to get class story continuing. Have your writers write out the story and bring in your voice-actors in to get the voice-overs done (preferably all classes at the same time, assuming it would be cheaper to do it all at once). I know easier said than done, but I guess the point I'm trying to aim at is, with the resources and staff that were separate working on the space pvp expansion, it seems they were still able to keep regular content coming out on a somewhat consistent basis, so I think those individuals could get away with working on it separate and content not being sacrificed overall.

 

Now I realize that theres more that goes into building a whole new quest-line for each individual class than I'm shedding light on here, (new skills, new skill trees, new gear, new class rebalancing etc) but at the same time i dont think its impossible for them to be able to do. I understand that everyone may not agree with adding more individualized class story as it may not be what you personally enjoy as much as others, but I think most people would agree, that if there was a way to meet in the middle and have original class stories being worked on again, and it not sacrifice any new content that would get pushed out as we have been having, then its a win win for everyone, more content is never a bad thing. Please avoid bashing other people as this is all individualized opinions and so far as I can tell, giving solutions to a topic rather than moaning and groaning about them may do some good and get things at the very least moving in the right direction. So what do you guys think? If you were someone who mattered over there, what would you do to make class story content a reality without sacrificing future content updates etc?

[Zandoezan]

Well i'd love more story driven content for the classes, even no voice over one's just text based is fine. I started playing MMO's. SWTOR one (yes im new to it) because i heard that there are great stories. I dont do PVP matches and not really into doing Flashpoints and warzones, farming for more commadations so that i can get better gear for my lvl55. IVe tried it and it for me is boring. Each person plays it the way they want to which is great.

 

So if they could write extentions or new follow up stories for the classes then im all for it and will pay for those dlc's. They dont have to do them all at once. Maybe start with one class and switch to next one on opposite side.

 

On a by note one thing i'd like to have is do certain heroics/dailies/flahpoints with the opposite sides also. What i mean is if i play with my Bounty hunter then i'd like to join my friend who's playing his Jedi doing certain heroics/dailies/flahpoints.

[Darth_Wicked]

Well i'd love more story driven content for the classes, even no voice over one's just text based is fine. (...)

 

Pretty sure you have that already, since the Black Hole daily area was first introduced.

 

When the game first came out, even the dailies on Belsavis and Ilum had voice acting and had their storyline arc, which was both cool and foreboding, at least the imperial Belsavis one.

 

In other words, don't give them any funny ideas, concerning class storyline content. Please.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Darth_Wicked

[Laris_Rai]

Yes I know this topic has been brought up over and over, but the one thing I've noticed is posts of people talking about how much they want more class story vs giving realistic solutions as to how Bioware could implement class story without it effecting existing content that they now seem to be releasing on more of a consistent basis. Now I dont claim to work at Bioware so I wont pretend I know how financially feasible or how understaffed they may be to make it happen but throwing that to the side what do you guys think they could do to make it happen?

 

Yay! We don't really know the details of how this stuff works! Let's try and figure out how to fix the problem! We're helping!

[Golin]

I would love to see more class specific, but do not see it coming anytime soon. There are a few main barriers to class specific content.

 

1. Voice Acting

-This is a very expensive thing to do on such a large level, and would require a day or two at least per class in the recording room.

 

-Possible solution would be to do hybrid text/voice. I would be more then willing to put up with some of the scenes being in text only, but bioware will never go for that. They would lose the right to brag about fully voice acted.

 

2. x times content needed

-For a class content expansion they would need to essential create 8 times the content they do for the more episodic stuff. It is easier and more cost efficient to just pump out generic, but decent content.

 

-Possible solution to this would be to charge more for a class content patch. Or they could always combine class stories a bit. Have the Force users and non force users have the same new story, but differing reactions. That way it is still specific to your class, but they do not have to make all new areas and non character convo for each story.

 

I would be very much willing to pay more, or to have classes stories combined a bit. Anyone else with me on this?

[Chicktopus]

My initial thought would be to have the group of developers that were working on the upcoming space pvp expansion, take them and have them start working on the new quest-lines/planets and animations etc that would need to be done from a developer point of view to get class story continuing. Have your writers write out the story and bring in your voice-actors in to get the voice-overs done (preferably all classes at the same time, assuming it would be cheaper to do it all at once). I know easier said than done, but I guess the point I'm trying to aim at is, with the resources and staff that were separate working on the space pvp expansion, it seems they were still able to keep regular content coming out on a somewhat consistent basis, so I think those individuals could get away with working on it separate and content not being sacrificed overall.

 

You can't simply take developers from one team and drop them in another team's juristiction. Asides from the faff this can cause accessing resources digital and not, you've then got the problem that these developers don't know the area -- this is something epopel tend not to appreciate about software developers.

 

Let's put this in a context which can be generally understood -- Take a lion tamer. He knows how lions work and how to make them do as he says. He has his tools which he uses for that. What you're suggesting is that we take this lion tamer and just have him train dogs instead. The core principle's the same -- you're teaching an animal to behave in a certain manner, but what you know about lions is not going to apply here and you can't use the tools you're familiar with. Some of your knowledge will still apply, but you're going to have to spend time simply figuring out how dogs work and how they differ from lions before you can start using that knowledge to do something meaningful.

 

In this context what you're getting is a halt to space content and then little to no extra content for several months while the developers re-adjust to their new positions.

[Rafaman]

And.... sorry but, this solution whatever it is should have voice overs. It "makes" the game. Went to other games recently and I came running right back because of the voice overs and fully fledged content.

[ImpactHound]

And.... sorry but, this solution whatever it is should have voice overs. It "makes" the game. Went to other games recently and I came running right back because of the voice overs and fully fledged content.

 

I think you're more of a single-player style player and not so much an MMO player.

[Excise]

When the game first came out, even the dailies on Belsavis and Ilum had voice acting and had their storyline arc, which was both cool and foreboding, at least the imperial Belsavis one.

 

For the dailies on Ilum, I found the VA to be really terrible. Nearly all of the quotes given by the player are just the generic replies that you hear over and over. On Pub side it's even worse as the vast majority of quest givers speak alien (and thus are also alien).

 

The story missions are good, though.

[ImmortalLowlife]

And.... sorry but, this solution whatever it is should have voice overs. It "makes" the game. Went to other games recently and I came running right back because of the voice overs and fully fledged content.

 

^^^This.

[ChillingFear]

Yay! We don't really know the details of how this stuff works! Let's try and figure out how to fix the problem! We're helping!

 

Try and show some self restraint, or at the very least some common sense when responding, clearly the title of the post itself ends with a question mark. So I'm not sure if you are missing the point of the post itself or not, but let me shed some light on it for you, this post is supposed to be a collaboration of thoughts for solutions and ideas to improve and add to class story. If your able to read that, then try reading the rest where I talk about people who moan and groan about things yet offer no solutions

[ChillingFear]

You can't simply take developers from one team and drop them in another team's juristiction. Asides from the faff this can cause accessing resources digital and not, you've then got the problem that these developers don't know the area -- this is something epopel tend not to appreciate about software developers.

 

Let's put this in a context which can be generally understood -- Take a lion tamer. He knows how lions work and how to make them do as he says. He has his tools which he uses for that. What you're suggesting is that we take this lion tamer and just have him train dogs instead. The core principle's the same -- you're teaching an animal to behave in a certain manner, but what you know about lions is not going to apply here and you can't use the tools you're familiar with. Some of your knowledge will still apply, but you're going to have to spend time simply figuring out how dogs work and how they differ from lions before you can start using that knowledge to do something meaningful.

 

In this context what you're getting is a halt to space content and then little to no extra content for several months while the developers re-adjust to their new positions.

 

 

Good points, which is why I did state two things, that 1) I wasnt going to sit here and pretend that I work at Bioware (or in the video game industry as a whole) and 2) that was my initial thoughts on the topic. The only thing I disagree with on you about is the end. Anytime we are talking about a "team" of individuals in general, that are working on a centrally focused goal (in this case the development team left at Bioware Austin) and they take up a new "project" whether it be an expansion of sorts, or any type of new content, there is a re-adjustment that takes place anyway. What your doing now is speculating on that process and how it will affect future content, which before that you clearly pointing out that I was doing. So the point im making here is this is ALL opinionated, The purpose of this post is to present POSSIBLE solutions (which you didnt do) from an opinionated point of view all of which was expressed up front in my initial post.

[ZETA_SCORPII]

I would love more class stories but I'm not really worried about getting my Star Wars fix over the next several years because of the next gen consoles and the new movies. Battlefront by Dice (non Harry Potter PvP), Star Wars 1313 (it will get finished), and at least half a dozen new movie driven SW games all on the shiny new consoles. I love this game and will continue to play it till it shuts down but as a Star Wars game fan (I owned almost every Star Wars console game from the PS2 to 360 days) I have no worries.

[branmakmuffin]

I think you're more of a single-player style player and not so much an MMO player.

And fully voiced cut scenes is what sets TOR apart from many other MMOs. So it's irrelevant even if it's true that that feature is more "single player."

[Golin]

I don't know what you are talking about in saying you cannot just drop developers into other divisions. Game studios do this constantly, and Dev's just need to deal. Very rarely are people allowed to stay on one aspect of a project long term. So no, it is very possible to move Dev's to prioritize class stories. It is just far more cost efficient to have them working on easier generic content.

[Vandicus]

Well for your suggestion about moving devs from the one type of project to the other, probably only some could move in a practical manner(not all resources are equally transferable) and that might very well not be enough to release class stories in the reasonable future. They probably know best how to balance their dev staff.

 

To achieve your stated goal of bringing class stories back without compromising other features, they'd need either an improvement in efficiency, or an increase in resources. It is unlikely we can suggest anything useful regarding the former given our combined lack of development experience and more importantly our complete lack of familiarity with their current practices.

 

For more resources, they'd need to get more funding from EA, and it'd be better if they could get a significant amount of funding specific to expanding class stories. Its plausible that they could present to EA management data or projections that indicate that expanding class stories would significantly expand the life span(and thereby the period in which the game produces revenue following trends) and convince management that it warrants the amount of funding they need. However they're probably at least to some degree aware of how to go about doing that as well. It seems to me that Bioware has spent most of the time since launch(after the first few months) trying to find their footing so that they can more or less met EA's expected results without difficulty before they embark on such long-term projects.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Vandicus

[Golin]

Or they could simply compromise a bit on content. As I suggested before, mixing Force user story quests together, and non force user story would work just fine. Keep the class responses unique, but have main plot be same. It would in essence be a hybrid of class story/ and the sort of stuff we are seeing now.

 

So force user would have the same story, but react to it differently. While non-force would have a different story then force, but same as others in their group.

[ChillingFear]

Or they could simply compromise a bit on content. As I suggested before, mixing Force user story quests together, and non force user story would work just fine. Keep the class responses unique, but have main plot be same. It would in essence be a hybrid of class story/ and the sort of stuff we are seeing now.

 

So force user would have the same story, but react to it differently. While non-force would have a different story then force, but same as others in their group.

 

 

Would definitely have to say I would agree with you on this. If there was a compromise that needed to be made I'd take that, instead of created 8x the content for each individual class they could keep it somewhat grouped up in a way (force user and non force user as you suggested) and they could even pepper in a bit of content (such as cutscenes or maybe a quest) just specific to that class that the others dont. That way you are still getting and seeing something that you didnt with the others (thus the replayability as well in doing that content with alts vs the effect we get running makeb with alts). This would in turn lower the overall costs of having new content specific to classes, yet still bringing and expanding on each classe's story arcs in some way.

[Chicktopus]

Good points, which is why I did state two things, that 1) I wasnt going to sit here and pretend that I work at Bioware (or in the video game industry as a whole) and 2) that was my initial thoughts on the topic. The only thing I disagree with on you about is the end. Anytime we are talking about a "team" of individuals in general, that are working on a centrally focused goal (in this case the development team left at Bioware Austin) and they take up a new "project" whether it be an expansion of sorts, or any type of new content, there is a re-adjustment that takes place anyway. What your doing now is speculating on that process and how it will affect future content, which before that you clearly pointing out that I was doing. So the point im making here is this is ALL opinionated, The purpose of this post is to present POSSIBLE solutions (which you didnt do) from an opinionated point of view all of which was expressed up front in my initial post.

 

I appreciate it's just opinion and speculation, but I'd just like to let people know a little bit about how these things work so they can gain an appreciation for the process and use this knowledge to make increasingly informed suggestions, it was in no way meant as a criticism.

 

Teams in companies tend to focus on areas, which is why you'll have something like a 'Space' team, a 'Missions' team, an 'Operation and Flashpoint' team etc.

 

Each team which will, be working on a number of small tasks in parallel, depending on the personnel resource available. It is worth noting that these tasks are not necessarily complete features, but may be parts of or enable larger features (such as separate the hood from robe models (but leave them in place) so we may later add a toggle option). These 'tasks' may take minutes or days to develop and test, depending on their relative complexity. Which 'small tasks' are being developed at any one time depend on deadlines for certain features -- as you would expect, tasks for long-term features are delayed when deadlines for other features are approaching.

 

I'm not claiming this is exactly how BioWare does things as I do not work there and do not know how they manage their projects, I'm making a speculation based on how the developers phrase their responses and professional experience.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Chicktopus

[Ghostius]

To me, it looks like people here want Kotor 3 and story. This is not Kotor although it looks something like it. This is Swtor Mmo and making class stories is quite expensive, especially with voice acting. They will just produce more daily- based moons like Oricon in the future.

[ChillingFear]

To me, it looks like people here want Kotor 3 and story. This is not Kotor although it looks something like it. This is Swtor Mmo and making class stories is quite expensive, especially with voice acting. They will just produce more daily- based moons like Oricon in the future.

 

 

No people here definitely understand that this is SWTOR and not KOTOR 3, SWTOR was built from the foundation of story driven content (at least initially). They advertised it as such and pushed the product out stating that this "MMO" was based on a 4th pillar of content which was story. The reason why we are discussing the idea of expanding on individual class story is because yes it may be expensive to do, but just like any problem, there are possible solutions to it. Bioware has already proven they can give us a somewhat consistent stream of content, while having a separate group of staff working on a different portion of the game aimed at expanding the game in a different direction.

[Dallayna]

Actually, one idea that's been floated I think could work is to just keep it small. Like maybe one or two missions for every class for the larger expansions like Makeb.

 

When you think about it, cost-wise, it really shouldn't be that much more because the developers, voice actors, etc, etc, etc, all have to be there and working for the expansion anyway in order to get the new planet together- how much more would it really be to simply extend production a little bit in order to toss in, what? Somewhere between 8 and 16 extra missions?

 

Now, granted, it would extend the production of these larger expansions and no doubt increase the cost a little bit but it would certainly be cheaper then trying to get everyone together from scratch for some unattainable "Class Content Patch." Particularly since they seem to be able to do just that for new dailies every few months (get everything together from scratch) for the smaller releases: Section X, Cz-198, Oricon....

 

Of course, these wouldn't be the overarching and huge plots that players who love the class stories are screaming for but, I do think that it would be a compromise that they would be willing to take in light of the fact that it's probably about the only thing that could be done in a small enough budget to keep costs down and the fact is that even during the first 50 levels, there's only 3-4 class missions per planet to begin with so, all the company's really doing is scaling it back.

 

Anyway, those are just my thoughts and I think that it's a nice compromise that could work.

[Vandicus]

Actually, one idea that's been floated I think could work is to just keep it small. Like maybe one or two missions for every class for the larger expansions like Makeb.

 

When you think about it, cost-wise, it really shouldn't be that much more because the developers, voice actors, etc, etc, etc, all have to be there and working for the expansion anyway in order to get the new planet together- how much more would it really be to simply extend production a little bit in order to toss in, what? Somewhere between 8 and 16 extra missions?

 

Now I'm no game dev, but my impression is that when they release a new planet, class stories would more or less have to be planned with it from the ground up. You may have noticed while leveling that there is generally a good flow with quests leading to each other, a flow class quests match. So Bioware will need to set up class specific instances(locked out locations in the planet) in order to match this flow. Additionally, those 8 or 16 extra missions of work become 1 to 2 missions of actual game experience for the players. Now I think that the difference in quality makes such an exchange worthwhile(especially when taking into account how class stories promote alt rolling which contributes an enormous amount of additional play time and adds replay time to general questlines), but it remains to be seen whether Bioware is convinced of that.

[Golin]

To the guy saying how people seem to want Kotor 3, and this is not it. Yes, this is not Kotor three, but it was marketed as a story based game. Right from the get get that the biggest thing they spoke about, and the thing they most hyped. The massive story and voice acting is what set this game apart post launch, and to drop it now would be a real shame.

 

 

-- They could add class stories in later a few at a time, but it would not flow as well. Secret world uses this sort of adding in story to existing world, but they are not as theme park like as SWTOR. Bioware would have to make their worlds more open if they wanted it to feel natural.

[ChillingFear]

Now I'm no game dev, but my impression is that when they release a new planet, class stories would more or less have to be planned with it from the ground up. You may have noticed while leveling that there is generally a good flow with quests leading to each other, a flow class quests match. So Bioware will need to set up class specific instances(locked out locations in the planet) in order to match this flow. Additionally, those 8 or 16 extra missions of work become 1 to 2 missions of actual game experience for the players. Now I think that the difference in quality makes such an exchange worthwhile(especially when taking into account how class stories promote alt rolling which contributes an enormous amount of additional play time and adds replay time to general questlines), but it remains to be seen whether Bioware is convinced of that.

 

 

I agree, but even if your only getting 1 or 2 missions unique to your class out of that total its some kind of meeting ground. And lets say for the sake of saying, that they go that route, theres other ways to further make your experience unique to your class other than just a unique class mission or two, they could also make other shared missions operate a bit differently objectively lets say. So based off your class your doing something cloaked, or instead of planting a device or bomb your stealing whatever your supposed to be blowing up for other reasons. They can continue this pattern, and add to what happens with the next "bit of content". Ok so my mercenary stole those plans instead of blowing them up, now in this new bit of content I understand why he did vs oh ok my assassin was sneaking around stealthed, and blew up those plans, and now in this new bit of content this has happened because of it. I think we can see where I'm going with this, there are ways to increase class specific story arcs in such a way that keeps it cost effective. The neat thing about this "new model" is that 1) it encourages replayability of content with alts vs the makeb storyline and the repetitiveness of it once you have done it. And 2) it keeps players engaged in the next bit of content, what is going to happen now that my assassin blew up that facility or those plans etc, and how will it differ from my mercenary's perspective seeing as he preserved that situation .