How The Old Republic can compete and beat Guild Wars 2

[Fox_McCloud]

I am really enjoying SW:TOR so far, in fact I would consider myself hooked, its a great game and a lot of fun.

 

However I fully expect to cancel my SW:TOR account and shelf this game for good when Guild Wars 2 is released.

 

Guild Wars 2, if it delivers, will be the best MMO ever released. I am very much looking forward to the RvR in that game, along with all the majorly innovative and refreshing changes that is is bringing to the genre.

 

As long as it does not flop, I just do not see any game being able to stand up to it. Guild Wars 2 will be the final nail in WoWs coffin as far as being the subscription king goes.

[Fox_McCloud]

Oh right, ArenaNet is the developer, with their all of 1 game that they've produced. Tell me how that changes things.

 

The game will come out and you'll be hugely disappointed again.

 

Keep in mind that arenanet is a company made up of a lot of ex-blizzard employees. Their credentials are not in question.

[Amiracle]

Why are they competing?

 

Because both are companies that want to make money?

 

Well then every company should beware of every other company because they all want the consumers money.

 

Why just limit the sky is falling to mmo vs mmo?

 

 

And why are you playing a story driven pve MMO if you want pvp?

Edited January 3, 2012 by Amiracle

[Jett-Rinn]

Keep in mind that arenanet is a company made up of a lot of ex-blizzard employees. Their credentials are not in question.

 

A lot less than they say...many of the original crew is gone; and if you look at some of the employees Blogs it isn't the best place to work. I did a walkthough a couple years back for a interview... Most of the interview was listening to the team lead bash other developers and other people in the industry that I know. The place is a pressure cooker and I for one don't believe that is conducive to building great games.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Jett-Rinn

[VicSkimmr]

Keep in mind that arenanet is a company made up of a lot of ex-blizzard employees. Their credentials are not in question.

 

Depending on who you consult, that could either be a bad or a good thing

 

I do hope it's good because I intend to pick up a copy too, but I don't expect it to be anywhere near as good as SWTOR.

[IJoinedForDental]

Oh right, ArenaNet is the developer, with their all of 1 game that they've produced. Tell me how that changes things.

 

The game will come out and you'll be hugely disappointed again.

 

ArenaNet has many ex-blizzard devs, including the guy who headed Starcraft 1, a game you may have heard of.

 

GW2 is overhyped. It's also vaporware atm, so the thread title needs to be "How GW2 can compete and beat SWTOR."

 

I don't think you understand what the word "vaporware" means.

 

I am really enjoying SW:TOR so far, in fact I would consider myself hooked, its a great game and a lot of fun.

 

However I fully expect to cancel my SW:TOR account and shelf this game for good when Guild Wars 2 is released.

 

Guild Wars 2, if it delivers, will be the best MMO ever released. I am very much looking forward to the RvR in that game, along with all the majorly innovative and refreshing changes that is is bringing to the genre.

 

As long as it does not flop, I just do not see any game being able to stand up to it. Guild Wars 2 will be the final nail in WoWs coffin as far as being the subscription king goes.

 

This.

 

SWTOR is basically a co-op Bioware RPG. I enjoy Bioware RPGs, and I've been enjoying the co-op version so far as well. I fully expect to finish at least one playthrough of each side's storylines and quit for GW2 when it comes out.

 

But SWTOR is the last game of the current(WoW/EQ) MMO generation, and GW2 will be the first game of the next MMO generation. All of the upcoming MMOs like Firefall, GW2, TERA, etc all break the traditional mold set by WoW/EQ, and IMO that's a good thing. I'm not a fan of this style of gameplay. I only put up with it in TOR because I enjoy the story and the presentation.

Edited January 3, 2012 by IJoinedForDental

[FredeGail]

.

[Lightmgl]

I can't argue with the look and appeal of GW2. To the folks saying it is a PvP game, it looks like PvP and PvE are both large parts of it based on the video footage and blogs out there (and man are there alot of them). I like Arenanet because they are putting info about there about their plans, their gameplay, their classes, their raids, their PvP and have videos of a full scaling world event raid encounter, dungeons, quest progression, their tutorial zone, and a bunch of other things out there.

 

I remember how little Bioware revealed to the world about SWTOR which to me is always a sign of development problems. Those of us in beta for a long time knew it. We read the general forums about people posting polls about how excited they were for certain features that we knew were not in the game and had no chance of being there. We also saw all the people talking about what they expected from the features and the NDA kept us from telling them "Hey its nothing like that, in fact this feature hardly has any content". I am hoping that since we have already seen many of the things that are being expected in GW2 that they are there and deliver, the company is not trying to hide what is and is not in the game.

 

I also applaud them for staying away from the monthly subscription model because so far very few games have been able to succeed with that pricing model. Why make the mistake and start with it then have to revamp your service? It just looks bad when you do that and it makes the original paying customers angry.

 

It'll be interesting to see how the game does but they are already doing way more storywise than SWTOR is by having multiple quest paths, multiple progression paths, and zone/quest altering random events. SWTOR just slapped on a bunch of voices and let you make a few decisions that have no long term consequences and called it game changing.... In reality the choices in this game are a total joke and do nothing other than change a couple of lines of dialogue.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Lightmgl

[Godsfear]

.

 

This^

 

GW2 will probably be better than SWTOR but i'm still going to play SWTOR till GW2 comes out.

 

We still have 8 months or so till GW2 hit's. It just started closed beta a couple weeks ago.

[MaverickXIV]

I remember how little Bioware revealed to the world about SWTOR which to me is always a sign of development problems.

I remember how little BioWare revealed to the world about SWTOR which, to me, is a sign that cows can secretly speak French.

[FuryNL]

Guild Wars 2 = PvP

 

SWTOR = PvE

 

This. I've played the original GW and pvp in there was really, really good (I'm talking the first GW without exp packs, I skipped those, don't know why). Less massive than the big battles in WaR and WoW but it was really well balanced. First time I had a great time in MMO-arena pvp.

 

I think story and pve wise: SWTOR. But for pvp and ''new'' stuff: GW.

 

Best thing?

 

I'm gonna play both... 1 Monthly subscription + 1 buy2play? Sure!

[Kitsunami]

Frankly, i dont see how you can compare two different genres.

 

GW2 is a free to play, pay-by-expansion model MMO

TOR is a subscripton based, monthly fee model MMO

 

The payment alone gives benefits and problems.

 

Now move onto the genre:

 

GW2 is a fantasy based world with elements of steampunk

TOR is a sci-fi based world with elements of fantasy/magic (the force)

 

And now the people.

 

GW2 is the next in a already popular MMO series, which was previously an instanced co-op game and is now becoming a proper MMO. It will probably draw in more people now.

 

TOR is a star wars mmo and the next in a long series of star wars games. It will pull in those who enjoy both the setting and traditional mmo style gameplay.

 

I will be playing both, if i still enjoy star wars at that time. Why? Because they are two entirely different settings. I will enjoy guild wars for its open world exploration and content, plus the unlimited group feature and the storyline. I will continue to enjoy star wars for its storyline content and the universe it is set in (as long as content is being provided! Note that i do not enjoy grinding the same repeated raid instance 300 times for a gear set. So that puts me off)

 

As one is a sub and one is expansion based, it seems to me fairly easy to juggle both of them. Bored of lightsabers? Time to play my charr engineer and steampunk it up for a bit. Want to get back to laser guns and pew pew? Back to my trooper for awhile. Etc.

 

Both games have their merits, neither will be the 'end all' of world of warcraft, nor will they topple each other over.

 

I know four people in my guild including myself who all intend to buy and play GW2. Of those, we are all debating whether we will stick with TOR as well. It all depends on what sort of content TOR is delivering when GW2 releases.

 

Frankly the ONLY thing i would love TOR to do, is to change the levelling system.

 

For the love of all that is holy, LET ME go help my lower level friends without penalising them! If i get even 3-4 levels ahead, their exp return drops immensely. Discouraging group play.

 

Yet, in GW2, you get auto-levelled down to your friends levels in their areas. Meaning you can continue to go back to old areas and play without hurting any game experiance.

 

TOR already levels everyone to 50 for pvp, why not allow that system for partys?

Edited January 4, 2012 by Kitsunami

[dontadow]

Frankly, i dont see how you can compare two different genres.

 

GW2 is a free to play, pay-by-expansion model MMO

TOR is a subscripton based, monthly fee model MMO

 

The payment alone gives benefits and problems.

 

Now move onto the genre:

 

GW2 is a fantasy based world with elements of steampunk

TOR is a sci-fi based world with elements of fantasy/magic (the force)

 

And now the people.

 

GW2 is the next in a already popular MMO series, which was previously an instanced co-op game and is now becoming a proper MMO. It will probably draw in more people now.

 

TOR is a star wars mmo and the next in a long series of star wars games. It will pull in those who enjoy both the setting and traditional mmo style gameplay.

 

I will be playing both, if i still enjoy star wars at that time. Why? Because they are two entirely different settings. I will enjoy guild wars for its open world exploration and content, plus the unlimited group feature and the storyline. I will continue to enjoy star wars for its storyline content and the universe it is set in (as long as content is being provided! Note that i do not enjoy grinding the same repeated raid instance 300 times for a gear set. So that puts me off)

 

As one is a sub and one is expansion based, it seems to me fairly easy to juggle both of them. Bored of lightsabers? Time to play my charr engineer and steampunk it up for a bit. Want to get back to laser guns and pew pew? Back to my trooper for awhile. Etc.

 

Both games have their merits, neither will be the 'end all' of world of warcraft, nor will they topple each other over.

 

I know four people in my guild including myself who all intend to buy and play GW2. Of those, we are all debating whether we will stick with TOR as well. It all depends on what sort of content TOR is delivering when GW2 releases.

 

Frankly the ONLY thing i would love TOR to do, is to change the levelling system.

 

For the love of all that is holy, LET ME go help my lower level friends without penalising them! If i get even 3-4 levels ahead, their exp return drops immensely. Discouraging group play.

 

Yet, in GW2, you get auto-levelled down to your friends levels in their areas. Meaning you can continue to go back to old areas and play without hurting any game experiance.

 

TOR already levels everyone to 50 for pvp, why not allow that system for partys?

 

The pricing model is inconsequential when comparing the game. Does it matter if I take quarters only at a supermarket or I need only take dollars, the same investment, financially, is placed into the game. PLus, I"d say money is the 2nd biggest investment in an MMO. The biggest being time. And because time is finite to 24 hours, 8 of them you spend sleeping and the other 8 working, which game earns those hours.

 

If genres are important, yes, they are two different games. But I speak from the perspective of, I am looking for an MMO and high fantasy or space family are not important (I would never label STar Wars (or star trek) as science fiction, Oscar Scott Card would roll over in his grave).

 

Back to the game that earns the most hours, you touched on one of hte major flaws with the previous generation of MMO. The leveling system. It is archaic and a time waster. Last night, my friend gets online and, because my wife and i have been pulling 16 hour game days during our vacation, we are consderablly higher level than her now. We tried to party with her a bit and she was not gaining any HP in or out of party. We effectly can not play with her until she catches up.

 

The only problem i have bigger than that is the lack of cooperation in a game designed in which all of us are supposedly on the same side. I went into this prison to save this guy, and the guys speech hit the nail on the head. We fight like wild dogs over resources because the game forces us to not work together. It breaks immersion. There are only 5 glasses to break, we are all competing to break them. Sure you invite to party, but because players are at different stages of the quest, no one wants to team with you.

 

The more I play the more I just see missed opportunities. My wife and I love space combat, why can't we play together. Why is getting on the same ship such a hassle. A party option for ships would have been cool and brought a very star wars feeling to the game.

[CapitaFK]

Having played both SW:ToR and GW2 at PAX, my experiences with them left me underwhelmed by one (SW:ToR) and blown away by the other (GW2).

 

Like many others, I am enjoying SW:ToR, but am only playing it until GW2 comes out. I absolutely love the stories of my Smuggler and Bounty Hunter, but SW:ToR is just too much of a WoW clone. The combat, the art style, the interface, the animations, the questing, etc. They all scream WoW. My first impression of the game at PAX was, "This is a lot like WoW," which was disappointing considering I had been looking forward to the game for a very long time.

 

GW2 is innovative. If an event comes up, I actually have a CHOICE whether I want to kill things, gather things, fix things, deliver things, or ALL of them and they'll all contribute to the event. No more being restricted to "kill X number of bad guys". The animations were fluid, compared to SW:ToR characters moving like plastic action figures. Controls were just as responsive, and the combat was much more engaging. It felt extremely polished, even compared to the release version of SW:ToR, and this was a demo.

 

SW:ToR will remain successful, but only because of the combination of the names BioWare and Star Wars. However, the truly superior game is obviously Guild Wars 2 for those who are not biased by brand.

 

Think of it this way... SW:ToR is MW3. Same old formula, same old graphics, but super popular by name alone. GW2 is BF3. Better graphics, better gameplay, more innovative, and the underdog. Most of my friends were diehard MW3 fans. All of them are now BF3 converts.

Edited January 11, 2012 by CapitaFK

[DeathStarPlumber]

Guild Wars 2 = PvP

 

SWTOR = PvE

 

More like

 

GW2 = PVP MMO

 

SWTOR = PVE single player co-op

 

Both are/will be great games but lets see them for what they really are.

[Durstilla]

Why GW2 will not appeal to people who like standard MMOs

 

By teste~~~ " "To me new MMO's like SWTOR dont really appeal to me that much, they are essentially a tweaked up version of WoW and then everytime a new game is released loads of players flock over and call it the new WoW killer"

 

You have answered your own question, but since you asked, I'll say what you said in more words.

 

MMO players don't want to have fun. If they did, they would not be playing games like WoW and all its clones, under the "carrot in front of a stick" mentality ("You may be grinding now, but when you get to the NEXT level, the fun begins! Oops, we meant the level after THAT one! Oh, so now you're at the level cap, you only need THIS piece of gear to have fun... And THAT one...").

 

MMO players:

 

1) Want to feed their addiction for grind. GW2 is not giving this to them as much as the other MMO clones out there, like TOR.

 

2) Want to see all the pointless time sinks that they were indoctrinated to believe are actually good game features, instead of just grind. This includes raids, crafting, mounts, and etc. GW2 does not have raids or mounts.

 

3) And, in short, they want WoW 2.0. That's why, as you mentioned, whenever a new MMO is released a large number of players flock there and, after a few months, leave - those are all players who foolishly believe that they will find something that is a better WoW than WoW. GW2 isn't even trying to pretend it's WoW under a new skin, or WoW with a different gimmick.

 

4) Don't care for innovations. Dynamic events, lack of a holy trinity, skills decided by weapon skills, more active combat... Who cares? Addiction is all that matters. So most of the GW2 features don't really matter to them.

 

MMO players are not going to like GW2. After the game is released, they will flood this forum and ask for every single feature seen in all MMOs to this day - grind-based progression, grind-based mounts, grind-based raids, and so on. My only hope is that ArenaNet won't bother listening to them, otherwise... "

 

After reading this I looked at ToR and cried but It does apply well to this topic.

[Jorges]

More like

 

GW2 = PVP MMO

 

SWTOR = PVE single player co-op

 

Both are/will be great games but lets see them for what they really are.

 

You are wrong that GW2 is only a PvP MMO it also focuses on Story and PvE gaming. I suggest that all who thinks GW2 is only for PvPers read this.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/09/flameseeker-chronicles-arenanet-talks-pve-vs-pve/

 

And check out thier manifesto video here.

 

Last time I checked SWTOR had Battlegrounds and World PvP, so not only are you wrong one on count but both of them.

 

Edit: Wording

Edited January 11, 2012 by Jorges

[YzenDanek]

GW 2 has a major problem, it has no monthly fee. Because of this it will not work, Im afraid.

 

Either you will not stand a chance vs. others except you pay for items or the game will be overrun by children, like BF3 currently is or Diablo 2 was etc.

 

 

Also I doubt that all the "dynamic world" stuff will really work. If a player runs through the world and there is nobody else, then how should he group? Did you all forget how Warhammer was?

 

Yes at the first days you could do all those dynamic quest´s there, but after? You couldnt, because you never had enough people. It does not help to have such a system, it will always only work with other players around and at the end of the first month of War, nobody did even bother to do these dynamic events anymore.

 

 

How will G2 adress these problems? Do people really think that the guys who get payed for making such games are dumb? If it would be so easy to have an open world, where millions of people participate and you never feel alone but always can easily group to do your personal lvl content, which also is always different and something you cant prepare for then they would implement such features.

 

Every MMO be it Rift, AoC, War or GW 2 does or did promiss a lot but none of these games worked well. To not have a spec is also a big problem, if I can be everyone all the time - then why bother playing at all.

 

An RPG needs a class system, talents to choose from and all this. It will not work if you pick a char like at BF 3 for instance.

 

I can easily see you didn't play GW1 enough to have formed these opinions in an informed way. This is now the third post in which I have identified you as someone with more opinion than experience. That's a bad habit.

 

GW1 had a class system. It just didn't lock you down beyond that.

 

What the Guild Wars franchise is about is purely cooperative gameplay. It focuses less on world development, persistent gaming worlds, economy, worldbuilding, and the like, and more on group-level PvE and group-level PvP, with a SEVERE de-emphasis on time sinks. In some ways, it is also as story-driven as any game out there, to the extent that you can no longer group with friends once you have passed through world-changing events until they also get onto the other side of the event. It comes in second after SWTOR in terms of number/hours of cutscenes in the history of these games.

 

And it does those as well as anyone, without the monthly fee.

 

It is the MMORPG franchise for people that prefer to lie in bed at night thinking about the amazingly close match they just had against a highly ranked Korean or European team, rather than how proud they are to be the owner of a level 85 raid-geared tanking character who just got a new tanking weapon off Professor Putricide or his ilk after 12 weeks of grinding out the same raid instance.

Edited January 11, 2012 by YzenDanek

[TheHeadCapper]

Two very different games. After playing the first one i would never pick up GW2, hated the game.

[Nanomancer]

Honestly lets just wait and see with guild wars 2. They are trying a lot of new things and new things don't always work out. Due the the risk it could be a bad game.

 

Or of coarse it could be freaking amazing.

[Chomag]

GW2 would have to be pretty horrible to be beaten by swtor.

[ApesAmongUs]

SWTOR is an average PvE game, so I can see playing it for a while as a time waster.

GW2 sounds like a PvP game with amazingly drool-worthy design ideas, but as a PvP game I will never spend a single second playing it.

 

I don't really see how they are in competition at all.

[DjVybz]

For sure Swtor can beat any Single player Mmo out there....oh wait theres like no comp for that,

[TheHeadCapper]

GW2 would have to be pretty horrible to be beaten by swtor.

 

Well the fist one was god awful, so they are well on their way.

[MrTijger]

I can easily see you didn't play GW1 enough to have formed these opinions in an informed way. This is now the third post in which I have identified you as someone with more opinion than experience. That's a bad habit.

 

GW1 had a class system. It just didn't lock you down beyond that.

 

What the Guild Wars franchise is about is purely cooperative gameplay. It focuses less on world development, persistent gaming worlds, economy, worldbuilding, and the like, and more on group-level PvE and group-level PvP, with a SEVERE de-emphasis on time sinks. In some ways, it is also as story-driven as any game out there, to the extent that you can no longer group with friends once you have passed through world-changing events until they also get onto the other side of the event. It comes in second after SWTOR in terms of number/hours of cutscenes in the history of these games.

 

And it does those as well as anyone, without the monthly fee.

 

It is the MMORPG franchise for people that prefer to lie in bed at night thinking about the amazingly close match they just had against a highly ranked Korean or European team, rather than how proud they are to be the owner of a level 85 raid-geared tanking character who just got a new tanking weapon off Professor Putricide or his ilk after 12 weeks of grinding out the same raid instance.

 

Hell, solo'ing in GW1 was a major accomplishment, I mean really solo, so no heroes.

 

Personally I loved GW, I will definitely buy it and dont see any reason why it has to be one or the other.