How to stand up to Star Citizen and all upcoming Space Sims

[HiddenPalm]

[THIS IS NOT a thread about Star Citizen! or how bad or good it is, its about how to keep SWTOR relevent, through GSF]

 

Many SWTOR players I speak to are eager for the completion of Star Citizen and a number of other coming space sims. I'm sure Bioware is a bit alarmed by it, because no other MMO that came out after SWTOR or is coming out was ever a real threat to SWTOR, mostly because they are not Sci FI based and just weren't as solid as SWTOR. But Star Citizen appears to be the very first potential SWTOR killer, even though its an entirely different type of game, well not entirely.

 

SWTOR has this magic that somehow always keep players coming back, and it has something to do with the fact that it has the potential to continue on innovating, almost like the potential gamers once saw SWG, a game that did everything, but unlike SWTOR, SWG didn't do them right. Which explains why SWTOR didn't attempt to do all of the amazing things SWG was able to. Now SWTOR is reaching that point where it has allot that can also be innovated on, and unlike SWG, the dev team appear able to do it.

 

Here are some ideas to help keep SWTOR afloat when future space games like Star Citizen and Repopulation and others come out, only using Galactic Starfighter and Flagships!

 

The space combat in Star Citizen looks amazing with its detailed animations of ship damage, guns, cockpit damage, etc, SWTOR 2011 will not be able to match those future innovations. But can they beat the fun of Galactic Starfighter? Let's be honest here the space combat of Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous are very advanced but still lack the fun and action of our smaller and more concentrated superior maps.

 

Let's work with that. GSF can have combat maps that no other space sim can touch because our maps' smaller, greater detail and immersive atmosphere can beat the competitors working on larger scale maps that have to emulate the entire milky way galaxy. The competitors are forced to a certain level of redundancy, where as the devs at Bioware Austin are not. On top of that, these maps allow Bioware Austin to still make innovations other game companies are still not doing. The only redundant factor right now in GSF is the lack of maps, but that can change, and it can change to the extreme.

 

GSF MANUAL MOBA MAP SERIES

 

[This idea is built on SWGOKrenEmp aka Kren's original idea and an idea that has been circulating in these forums for way over a year]

 

Flagship integration with Galactic Starfigher. This is how you stand up to Star Citizen.

 

Fleet Admirals are players who have flown over a 1000 GSF missions. It's a cool title. Let's put it to use. In these map series, when two apposing Fleet Admirals have cued up for the same match, they get to play the match from their guild's Flagship (winning Flagship awards for their guild like war supplies, decorations and encryptions).

 

From the Flagship they get to launch NPC starfighers to help achieve objectives which depend on which map from this series of GSF MOBA maps is being played. The Fleet Admiral wouldn't just be blindly launching starfighers, he/she would be sending them out to do specific tasks which have strategic value. This means the Fleet Admiral will have to really think about when and where to launch NPC starfighers at, based on the information from the map, how many can be used and in how long and what can be seen from the bridge of the flagship, where anyone can come aboard and look out the window and see a GSF match ... maybe even take control of a defensive turret! PVP Flagship turrets can be won through these matches.

 

Innovations:

1. First Space MOBA ever.

2. First Manual MOBA ever.

 

More Flagship, Starfighter, Starship integration.

 

A Flagship is a Flagship of a "Fleet", not a lone cruise-liner ship. We're a galactic wide civilization, we don't just have a single fleet. A Guild should be able to consist of a Fleet. And it can feel that way with some simple Flagship enhancements.

 

All three class ships should be visible outside the Bridge window as long as there is a guild member who owns that ship. When a guild member has a mastered Starfigher, that Starfigher can be seen flying around the ship from the Flagship's Bridge window. The more mastered Starfighers your guild has, the more starfighers can be seen flying around the Flagship. The Mastered starfighers dont have to fly in front of the flagship, they can fly around the whole ship and only be seen when they fly in front to add to the realism. The mastered starfighter MUST look exactly the way the guild member put it together, paint job, engines and all.

 

GSF Duels

 

This has also been circulating for ages, since before GSF launch. I should be able to Duel anyone in GSF! It satisfies our pvp needs and it allows for training and teaching combat tactics. The lack of this has extremely hurt SWTOR revenue. Investors take heed here. As GSF is a major invested component of SWTOR in development and in post development, but its most major complaint is the huge learning curve and all the crashing. The tutorial is good but painfully too short. It kicks you off before you can free fly to train. I resurrected a dead guild mainly for GSF but most members don't want to play GSF because they feel it is too hard. To ease that, we require more avenues to train.

 

GSF Free flying

 

See GSF Duels above. Train, train, train!

 

The following are Deathmatch maps, different from the GSF MANUAL MOBA MAP SERIES, which has nodes for the NPCees to attack or defend. These Deathmatch maps don't have Moba elements to it and don't require Fleet Admirals to be at their Flagships. But they do have NPCees, who might have certain buffs.

 

Ruins of the Ancient Rakata Starship Yards

 

This map would be INSIDE an ancient starship junkyard. It would be so cluttered that deaths would happen from crashes more than kills. Here it will be impossible to do an escape maneuver or lock on your missile because of all the twists and turns and nooks and crannys. All of the obstacles, debris and space clutter, even scavenger NPCees who can shoot back will serve to make this Deathmatch extremely challenging. Think PacMan and Ghosts without the pellets. The NPC scanvengers and space pirates will have buffs.

 

The Story: A massive junkyard of Ancient Rakata technology!!!

 

Goal: Deathmatch

 

Intro: Ghost of Bastila Shan!!! Or the ghost of Eleena Daru!!!

 

Atmosphere: Ancient tech wreckage, dead space mummified bodies, Rakata ghosts, dangerous npc scavengers, ghost ships, and creaky sounds. Over all a very haunting experience.

 

The Exogorth Hive

 

Yes the Exogorth worm creatures from Empire Strikes Back.

 

An extremely turbulent and vibrant Asteroid field with NUMEROUS moving smaller asteroids that can kill you forcing starfighers to fly inside the giant Asteroids to catch their breath. Inside these giant asteroids are Exogorths that will come out of holes you can fly through (try not to fly into one) and come out and catch your Starfighter! You can kill them with missiles, but not easily. They don't self heal or have any shields but have extreme heavy armor. The giant Exogorth's will have buffs.

 

The nature of this map will be to always stay moving. It's not safe inside an asteroid, but it's less safe outside. On top of the death match going on, this will be one of the most exciting and fun space sim maps in the history of space sims.

 

The story: Republic and Empire chose an asteroid field as their battle ground not knowing about the Exogorths.

 

Goal: Deathmatch

 

Intro: Master Oteg!!!! And he's worried about something else (very ancient, older than the Rakata) he senses in the Asteroid field, but cant tell what it is.

 

Both the Exogorth Hive map and the Ancient Rakata Starship Yards map are tight claustrophobic maps so when the old maps cue up, players feel a little alleviated to have open space again. It's a good change of pace to help keep GSF fresh going back and forth.

 

No other space sim coming out has giant space worms coming out of asteroids because none of them are Star Wars. No other space sim has space ghosts as npcees or a haunted dreary space combat mission. No other space sim has manual moba like elements. Bioware can not beat future video games by ignoring them or trying to emulate them, but Bioware can do things with SWTOR no one else is doing, before they can. And our GSF maps and Flagships are that road.

Edited April 13, 2015 by HiddenPalm

[aakrea]

I was actually thinking they could bring warzones and gsf together in a way, the guild ships on opposite sides of the map could launch the ships with a troop transport. The ships fight in the middle and try to get their transport across (if they didn't want to make a new ship type they could even use a class ship), when they do the pvpers could fight for control of the opposing guild ship like voidstar but the respawn is back on your ships and start over. The guilds could decide 8v8 or 12v12 before and set a start time. Also could give conquest rewards to the winner. It would be nice to have new game modes, ships, or at least maps though.

 

I just don't think they want to spend the time or resources it would take to make gsf much more than what it is.

[HiddenPalm]

I just don't think they want to spend the time or resources it would take to make gsf much more than what it is.

 

That's the general feeling. People also feel like there won't be any warzone updates either. I don't think that's the case. I believe things are just being developed ultra slowly. But Jeff Hickman is really going to have to work on GSF development unless he got the ok from Larry Probst to let SWTOR membership decline radically in less than a year. Because I don't see how SWTOR 2011 is going to stand up against 2016 space sim mmo's unless some key space sim features are brought to light in ways no one else is doing.

 

I believe Jeff Hickman saw this along time ago which is why we saw GSF and Strongholds developed, which was a good idea and a great start. Here's to hoping that Jeff Hickman has more up his sleeve. Because if not, its safe to bet, Probst is telling Hickman to start setting things down in terms of SWTOR. Maybe Probst is hoping Star Wars Battlefront is the SWTOR killer and shifting priorities on which project gets the front seat?

 

But I think we all know, that's not the case. SWTOR is just too massive to not keep developing. To stay relevant, it's going to have to work on GSF innovation and not depend on new micro planets once year. We're not talking about is SWTOR the new WOW killer here. We're talking about SWTOR in 2016/17/18.

 

By the way I like your idea with Warzones integrating with Flagships as well, but second to my GSF MANUAL MOBA MAP SERIES idea, because it would be the first space sim moba, ever, and the first manual moba, ever.

 

In retrospect, all of these ideas can be integrated. Lets say a certain achievement is accomplished in GSF through player pilots and/or the Fleet Admiral's mobalike NPC'ees, a faction would then get to invade a flagship like in the example you shared. It would be like one huge PVP flashpoint!

 

Or a stage in my idea for "The Exogorth Hive", where the match would somehow evolve from a GSF match in a turbulent asteroid field to a warzone match inside one of the giant Exogorths!

Edited April 13, 2015 by HiddenPalm

[Nemarus]

I appreciate the effort of the post, but I think Battlefront is the biggest threat in terms of taking away Star Wars fans, especially the small GSF enthusiast crowd.

 

Everything I've seen of Star Citizen's space combat indicates it is just going to feel too slow after the speed of GSF.

 

As for Star Citizen taking away from the general SWTOR population ... has Star Citizen actually indicated it will even have PvE content? I don't even mean raids or anything. I just mean ... like a story or campaign. I keep hearing about world building and ship classes, but I hear nothing about the actual narrative of the game.

 

Or is it like EVE, where it's just going to throw everyone into a big galaxy and see what player narratives emerge?

 

Either way, I think Star Citizen will have a hard time competing with SWTOR in terms of story, or with GSF in terms of space combat. And let's be honest, Wing Commander (SC's ancestor) always had inferior space combat to X-wing and TIE Fighter (GSF's ancestors).

 

I'll be trying Battlefront at Celebration this week--I'll be sure to let you all know how it feels

 

And I'll also be giving at least one hard question to the SWTOR devs at the cantina event, regarding GSF. I think you should all prepare for the answer to disappointing though.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Nemarus

[mpatsos]

This is great! I for one felt that GSF has sooo much potential and was really upset when bioware decided to put off any new content with it... I would love for them to keep adding features and bring more of a sandbox pve element... GSF combat is fast pace and uses the maps well... that's the main difference from other games. The ques are still popping and people are playing GSF, so its not dead yet... One suggestion is to bring some sort of rewards for the ground play to make it worth while for people to start playing GSF more... Conquest system needs a major overhaul and bring space pvp to be a key feature to conquer a planet anyway great post OP, hopefully bioware sees and reads it and would generate a response.

[Binthurmung]

It's my firm belief that unless they start giving GSF the TLC it deserves, and soon, I might just lose hope in this game. No Man's Sky is going to pull me away from this game guaranteed, unless the give me a reason to stay.

[Nemarus]

The thing is... all of the features you're talking about would help retain existing GSF users. But that honestly isn't something BioWare has to worry about just yet--at least not until Battlefront comes out.

 

But if GSF is going to be successful in the long term, it needs a much more helpful tutorial and ramp-up experience. It's just too opaque right now for new pilots.

 

Before we get any kind of warzone/flagship/GSF integration or other wild-eyed features, we need a decent tutorial. One that is both discoverable (more than a <?> button tucked away in a corner) and one that lets you sample more of what the game is actually about, including all four ship types, various engine components, and various weapons.

[SWCNT]

Asking what BW is doing to GSF to stand up to Star Citizen is like asking Hyundai what they are doing to compete with Maserati. They are completely different games with very different purposes. I don't see many players leaving GSF for Star Citizen. GSF is very fun, but for serious flight simulation experience there are other options, nor was GSF ever meant to be a flight simulation. It's an arcade shooter designed to appeal to a large audience, that's why they didn't want to force users to use joysticks and special controls to get the full experience. Games like Star Citizen are hardcore, requiring >GTX 960 graphics just to get more than 30 FPS, at least at the current alpha level. A lot of people playing swtor would need to invest ~$300-400 just to play Star Citizen at reasonable levels. Not to mention HOTAS equipment if you want the full experience. I've been playing the alpha of Star Citizen and it's a lot of fun, but a completely different experience from GSF, which is why I wouldn't consider the two games in the same competition bracket. Like Nemarus said, Star Citizen is the least of GSF's worries atm. BW's biggest problem is communication, the community feels abandoned because we have been. There was more transparency between the East and West during the height of the Cold War than there is between the players and devs of swtor.

[Squatdog_nz]

It's a a completely different genre.

 

I play Eve Online and Warthunder, but still subscribed to SWTOR for five months.

[nyghtrunner]

Everything I've seen of Star Citizen's space combat indicates it is just going to feel too slow after the speed of GSF.

 

As for Star Citizen taking away from the general SWTOR population ... has Star Citizen actually indicated it will even have PvE content? I don't even mean raids or anything. I just mean ... like a story or campaign. I keep hearing about world building and ship classes, but I hear nothing about the actual narrative of the game.

 

Or is it like EVE, where it's just going to throw everyone into a big galaxy and see what player narratives emerge?

Not that I think this is the place to debate the merits for/against SC, but in answer to the PVE content question; the short answer is yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen#Squadron_42

 

Either way, I think Star Citizen will have a hard time competing with SWTOR in terms of story, or with GSF in terms of space combat. And let's be honest, Wing Commander (SC's ancestor) always had inferior space combat to X-wing and TIE Fighter (GSF's ancestors).

Also, to be fair here, Wing Commander I (1990) and II (1991) were out before X-Wing (1993) ever saw the light of day. And most people I know say X v Tie is the pinnacle of that series, which didn't come out until '97.

 

As for my views re:controls, to each their own. I had a friend who preferred playing the X-wing series with a trackball... I have to admit it was kind of hilarious to see him furiously spin the thing. Worked for him, though.

[StrixHiraeth]

Hey HiddenPalm, I would be thrilled to see those suggestions implemented in SWTOR! But not necessarily for the purposes of competing with other games (I am inclined to agree that the only real competitor for current or potential GSF pilots will be Battlefront.). I'm just tired of seeing the same builds and strategies over and over again. I'm working up to possibly making a new thread about it.

 

Anyway, it's good to see that people are still bringing creative ideas like this to the forum!

Edited April 14, 2015 by Ymris

[AgentRobP]

And let's be honest, Wing Commander (SC's ancestor) always had inferior space combat to X-wing and TIE Fighter (GSF's ancestors).

 

While the Wing Commander and X-Wing series can be compared, I don't think it makes sense to Star Citizen and GSF to each other, or to compare either of these games to the "ancestors." They're both space combat games with PvP, but completely different in play style. It's entirely possible to like both and to play whichever one you're in the mood for; or to enjoy one and completely dislike the other.

 

As for the predecessors:

 

Star Citizen definitely has callbacks to the Wing Commander games. However, its actual space combat is completely different from what I know of Wing Commander (admittedly limited experience). Maybe it is what those games wanted to achieve but couldn't for various reasons.

 

GSF is nothing like the X-Wing series. The closest bit is energy management, but that is actually closer to FreeSpace than to X-Wing. (Though I consider FreeSpace's energy management a refinement of the X-Wing energy management; FS was very much a refinement of concepts taken from both XW and WC.)

 

And GSF has a number of other features that are closer to FS (some of which came from WC) than to XW: lead indicators, firing primary and secondary weapons at the same time, dumbfire missiles, afterburner (boost). And cooldowns and hit/evade chance, which are taken from the MMORPG roots of the game and don't appear in the classic games or SC.

 

That said, I did enjoy the dogfighting in the X-Wing series much more than WC, and usually more than FS.

[Verain]

I mean, GSF alone (a subgame of SWTOR) can't compete with Star Citizen (a full game). The ideas are great, but the magnitude of the effort is very large.

 

 

Still, this is a great thread. I really like the ideas in it.

[Ramalina]

I agree on the different audiences front.

 

Playing GSF, Star Citizen, Kerbal Space Program, and DCS world I can say from experience that what you're looking for in any one of those, you don't find in the others.

 

If I want realistic simulation and/or combat, DCS is where I go. But I don't always want to re-read 25 pages of documentation on the differences between WVR radar modes, cause I've been away for a few weeks and forgot some of the details.

 

If I want space flight that actually resembles space flight (with some flaws), Kerbal.

 

If I want pretty fake space flight and pretty fake combat, Star Citizen.

 

If I want something quick, simple, and that has no real resemblance to any known type of flight (or the laws of physics at all) but is fun and has space themed in the art assets, then I hop on to play GSF.

 

Bottom line, GSF has absolutely no hope of ever becoming a peer competitor with any sort of simulation, or even most standalone space themed games. Time and effort shouldn't be wasted trying to do something doomed to failure.

 

That said, GSF is its own thing, and a lot of fun. GSF doesn't need to pose as something it's not, it needs improved GSF and more GSF. Friendlier new player experience, better rewards, new game modes, new maps, and maybe a balance pass that finally gets people to start crying about strikes as a class.

[HiddenPalm]

I think people got way too caught up comparing Star Citizen with Galactic Starfighter. That wasn't the point of my post, as clearly stated in the very first sentence of my post. It was to share ideas on how SWTOR can stand up to SC and all upcoming space sim games through GSF and Flagships.

 

Regarding Battlefront. Yes it will take away many of the Star Wars fans from SWTOR. Fortunately I would argue that most of SWTOR members are not dedicated Star Wars fans. Battlefront is appealing to Star Wars fans, and the older ones at that. Not the ones who grew up reading the Expanded Universe, who will be inclined more to SWTOR, where the EU still exists. In short if Planet Side II didn't take away our membership, Battlefront will hardly do so as well. Most of our members, and most of our best players appear to come from WOW, SWG, LOTRO, and even Minecraft (don't ask).

 

I brought up Battlefront earlier, because of the potential of Probst telling Hickman that the EA focus is now going to Battlefront not SWTOR. By the way SWTOR in recent months got new employees from a Bioware game that was canceled, though we only heard about Pokket getting laid off after the cancellation in terms of faces and names. Anyways, I didn't bring up Battlefront as competition, because it's a FPS. We're not going to see a mass exodus of MMO players run over to FPS and stay. It didn't happen with Planet Side II. It's Planetside II that is in major serious trouble of seeing a decline in players over BF, not us. We may be gone for a week, but we'll all come back to SWTOR, if most of us have to choose between two stores - and it's EA so there is probably going to some kind of kind of micro transaction store, parents need to be weary of.

 

Last thing about BF, I have a very bad feeling its not going to be this major ground breaking game. It was only shown to major corporate retailers, not any video game reviewers, in a super secretive meeting. That was all I needed to hear to lose complete faith in SWBF3. They are about to show a new trailer with supposed game play footage at an upcoming event this week. I just have a feeling its a Battlefield copy and paste commercial for the new movie. Im sure it will be fun, but hardly the same dedication and love and marketing SWTOR development got between 2008-2012. All we have seen from BF is a really awesome trailer of their devs, a real long time ago and a bunch of major corporate retailers hoping to make allot of money off of this, saying their corporate product is great from their secret corporate meeting without any single professional reviewers invited. I'm sure the game will serve its purpose and be fun for a bit, but its by far no SWTOR killer. SWBF3 isn't going to be as big as SWTOR in 2017, unless BF turns out to be a real savior of the FPS world, which I don't feel like they are bringing anything new, even if you get to shoot your way to an X-Wing and fly it into space, you still can't fly it to another planet like it's peer space sim fps games can, also coming out around the same time. Can SWBF3 keep FPS players and Space sim players away from Star Citizen or Planetside II? I don't have high hopes there.

 

SWTOR has been safe because its a "space" "mmo" and a real damn good MMO. MMO players love it here. Other MMO's can't get out of the ancient history/dark ages realm, and allot of MMO players are finding that theme to be a bit overdone, dating back to Dungeons and Dragons dice games, Multi-User Dungeons, Everquest, WOW, etc. Its the Space themed ones that come into SWTOR territory. But STO don't have anything on us except for Star Trek fans, the ones that came out later like Wild Star lack the fun we have. They don't have GSF for example.

 

GSF can't be compared to Star Citizen. That's just not fair. But GSF can be compared to their space combat, though both are unrealistic as pointed out earlier on this thread by Ramalina. And like I said earlier, SC has really great and innovative space combat. But none of these new players and upcoming ones have the quick fun that GSF has in its small fast paced maps. Their fun is different. And this difference is where SWTOR has an advantage because its the only one doing small maps.

 

That is why I started the thread. How can Bioware utilize this key advantage to keep SWTOR competitive? By making more small GSF maps, and making them more innovative, because no one else can.

 

Its why COD was big for so long, unlike Battlefield, COD"s maps were small making the action more quick paced. The problem with COD, is that other games started emulating it. And now COD is barely breathing. GSF doesn't have competitors!

 

This is why, I believe it is not just innovative but also business savvy, for investors to start pushing Mr Hickman towards this area more. Bioware has something here. It's a good solid investment. As new starfighters, paint jobs, and maps were coming out for GSF, gamers were all over it, even starting Twitch channels just for it. Once that stopped, we lost so many players.

 

We want new maps. We want maps that are innovative with NPCees, integration with the Flagship and dueling. Some of us want a better tutorial. Personally I think its good as it is, if it was accompanied by dueling and free flight. Most players are scared of GSF, Mr Hickman.

 

They shouldn't be. That doesn't mean make it less scary. Maybe make it even more scary. And the scary might end up be very inviting. We just need more! Bottomline.

Edited April 16, 2015 by HiddenPalm