Is SWTOR even a MMO?

[Vialator]

It's not really an MMO, it's an SPO

 

People will dislike this reasoning; but it's still true

 

yup- all the fanbois here bury every bit of criticism of this game and its flawed gameplay- they don't like it when you diss their star wars- well they more then welcome to it- like age of conan/rift/aion/tabula rasa/rf online/star trek online/dcuo- it will all go down the drain with the fanbois so who really cares!

[VicSkimmr]

yup- all the fanbois here bury every bit of criticism of this game and its flawed gameplay- they don't like it when you diss their star wars- well they more then welcome to it- like age of conan/rift/aion/tabula rasa/rf online/star trek online/dcuo- it will all go down the drain with the fanbois so who really cares!

 

Except that them trying to "bury" the complaints really just bumps the thread to the top of the forums again.

 

The real issue here is that all of us who like the game can't just let these threads die, because people are wrong on the internet, damnit.

[Skerry]

My definition is based on the words used in the definition. It is illogical to proceed any other way.

 

Therefore, your definition of "massive" in the context of online video games must be around ten people. I apply a different number set to "massive." Mine is in the thousands.

 

It is not the fault of the player if he or she takes information literally, or believes that what is conveyed (by developers) is legitimate. What you're suggesting is that it's the buyer's fault if he/she drives a lemon off the lot, because the car salesman told him/her that certain features of said car were functioning and adequate.

 

Blaming the consumer for an inadequate product is the first step in either denial (that a product is bad) or disillusionment (determined to like something no matter what its faults).

 

 

Well, you aren't doing that either. You are defining it based on your immediate perception. Just because you do not see them, does not mean they are not there. You, like so many trying to make points, are stretching thin and reaching.

 

There are thousands of players in the game; just because they are not all around you at this very moment does not negate the fact. Additionally, no other MMO has hundreds of people running around you at all times unless it is organized.

 

So - when you can stop reaching for validation; you may be taken more seriously.

 

I think my favorite part is the disillusionment ; the company did literally mean massive (and it is) and what was conveyed is legitimate. The only people this does not apply to are those looking for issues; those reaching for issues; and those being purposely dense about the whole thing.

[Ghaiana]

People who say WoW is a sandbox game are so utterly wrong. WoW is as linear as most MMO's.

[Shakoba]

Not to mention the city's are filled with loads of random non-talkable NPCS.

 

Are you serious, really?!

 

Who cares about clicking on npcs who spew out the same 5 lines of dialogue and never move, the background npcs in this game do a host of far more interesting things, have you seen the bounty hunter blowing up the bomb in dromund kass city, have you seen the imperials crouching as a droid begins to play a holo recording, have you actually looked around you at all anywhere but a starter planets first area, your comments just sound like ones you have heard and you regurgitated them here, like 95% of the complaint posts I have read tbh.

[DarrkLore]

I feel the same way. I feel it's a singleplayer with a co-op play online. It's definitely not an open world.

 

An open world does not an MMO make. There are over a million people playing this game already. By definition it IS an MMO. Whether or not you choose to play it as such is up to you.

Edited December 30, 2011 by DarrkLore

[The_Old_Empire]

People who say WoW is a sandbox game are so utterly wrong. WoW is as linear as most MMO's.

 

 

How is it? whats linear about WoW? you dont have a designated path in which you need to follow. There are quests in which you travel at your own free will to complete at your own free will. There are no limitations where in this game your limited. WoW is a Sandbox and is not linear at all!

[Aodren]

Swtor doesnt even have server forums, yaay for community!

[NasherUK]

People who say WoW is a sandbox game are so utterly wrong. WoW is as linear as most MMO's.

 

So true, the problem is I doubt most wow players have tried anything except wow, wow clones and TOR. They don't even know what a true "sandbox" game is.

 

WOW is the biggest themepark MMO there is, it was designed to attract casual players to the MMO genre. Before WOW did that, MMORPGs were far more complex and dymanic. MMORPGs have been dumbed down massively over the years to cater to the less intelligent.

Edited December 30, 2011 by NasherUK

[Baizak]

It's not really an MMO, it's an SPO

 

People will dislike this reasoning; but it's still true

 

Just like wow then, using your logic.

[Ghaiana]

How is it? whats linear about WoW? you dont have a designated path in which you need to follow. There are quests in which you travel at your own free will to complete at your own free will. There are no limitations where in this game your limited. WoW is a Sandbox and is not linear at all!

 

Because EvE is a sandbox, without any levels nor guidance. Oblivion was a sandbox, you could do any quest at any level and still gain xp. If you are level 49 and start questing in Elwynn Forest, that is at least a bit stupid..Most people don't want real sandboxed games, because they lack guidance.

[Scar]

Everything feels so linear and feels as if its not open-world. Each zone you teleport to via your spaceship and each of the planets you are restricted for example there may be mountains covering around the planet and thats where it ends. Theres no sense of open world where if your at a planet you cant just ride there without having to have a stupid loading screen.

 

Its basically.. * Walk to Spaceship * * Click Planet * * Loading Screen * * Your now at the planet *. So its not really open world when everythings loading. Your gonna hate me even more saying this but World of Warcraft was always open world.

 

I could go from Darnassus to Stormwind by walking, flying without stupid loading screens. The only time you would get loading times if you went on a boat, or went into an instance. In this game it's a linear path you follow.

 

Whats up with that?

So essentially you're not cool with loading screens from the zone to zone but are totally down with loading screens from within those zones to instances.

 

Got it.

[Ecrulis]

How in the world is someone trashing TOR as being linear while in the same post hailing wow as being Non-Linear and sandbox? what game have you been playing? Not to mention you can level from 1 to 85 numerous times on numerous characters and not once even see another player. The entire world is dead save for capitals. So if TOR is not an MMO than WoW is nothing more than the waiting area for a kiddy ride at disney land.

[BBQPorkMogul]

 

I've seen hundreds of people in Tatooine and Hutta. I've done some open-world PvP in Tatooine--where two guilds went head-to-head. It was fun to get mixed up as an intelligence agent.

 

Just realize that some of the later worlds are massive and take almost a dozen hours to complete.

 

Let me guess, If I say I am low level then I just haven't seen the larger higher level worlds and if I say I'm level 50 already then I rushed ahead of the pack and that's why the game doesn't feel like an MMO? Is it at all possible that I've experienced what you have and just disagree?

 

What I haven't seen is the large scale shared experiences that build community that i expect to see in an MMO. Like I haven't seen chat light up that guild xyz is forming up to take down some low level world boss for the first time. In a normal MMO I would head over there and with lots of other people sit back and watch the attempt while providing the required peanut gallery comments. But I can't do that here because the chat is very segregated and worlds instance with very low populations.

 

Instead what I get is 4 man heroics which I will point out is no different that what Left 4 Dead does.

 

The game is crafted to deliver the BioWare story to an individual which it does wonderfully. My hope for the game was that the famous BW story telling would be melded with an MMO to create some epic multi player shared story driven experience but it doesn't do that. It is very much a collection of single player games that occasionally intersect which is not very MMOish and it seems like a lot of people agree with that.

[Skerry]

yup- all the fanbois here bury every bit of criticism of this game and its flawed gameplay- they don't like it when you diss their star wars- well they more then welcome to it- like age of conan/rift/aion/tabula rasa/rf online/star trek online/dcuo- it will all go down the drain with the fanbois so who really cares!

 

I don't care if you like it, love it, hate it, critique it, praise it or idolize it.

 

I do care if it is done with lies, misleading statements, propaganda and ignorance.

 

There are some valid complaints and accolades- sadly THOSE get buried in the heaps of the aforementioned list. And as one other poster mentioned in another thread, it is the hope that some of it is just a lack of understanding or education on the topic that we try, and we stick around.

 

However, most it is just chest thumping and crying - and that shouldn't be tolerated.

 

Like it or Love it all you want. But if you can't do it without exaggeration, lies or idiocy - do it someplace else.

[LtDanomg]

How is it? whats linear about WoW? you dont have a designated path in which you need to follow. There are quests in which you travel at your own free will to complete at your own free will. There are no limitations where in this game your limited. WoW is a Sandbox and is not linear at all!

 

Yeah man. WoW was the best sandbox ever. I always started my level 1 toons in Stranglethorn. Oh....wait....

 

Well in swtor you can't go to any of the planets until you get your ship! In WoW I could go everywhere from level 1! Oh....wait....except The Outlands, and Northrend. :/

 

Well, I'm fresh out of things to complain about!

[Tarwaters]

Well, you aren't doing that either. You are defining it based on your immediate perception. Just because you do not see them, does not mean they are not there. You, like so many trying to make points, are stretching thin and reaching.

 

There are thousands of players in the game; just because they are not all around you at this very moment does not negate the fact. Additionally, no other MMO has hundreds of people running around you at all times unless it is organized.

 

So - when you can stop reaching for validation; you may be taken more seriously.

 

I think my favorite part is the disillusionment ; the company did literally mean massive (and it is) and what was conveyed is legitimate. The only people this does not apply to are those looking for issues; those reaching for issues; and those being purposely dense about the whole thing.

 

Legitimate in your eyes. But whether or not it remains legitimate in the realm of consumer satisfaction remains to be seen. Let's see in a year who's right.

 

I never said "hundreds of people running around me at all times." Not once did I ever say that. But now you attribute that to me, because it helps you reinforce your point. Unfortunately for you, since I never said that; nor did I ever hinge my definition upon that point; your argument falls flat on its face.

 

Keep trying, though.

[The_Old_Empire]

Yeah man. WoW was the best sandbox ever. I always started my level 1 toons in Stranglethorn. Oh....wait....

 

Well in swtor you can't go to any of the planets until you get your ship! In WoW I could go everywhere from level 1! Oh....wait....except The Outlands, and Northrend. :/

 

Well, I'm fresh out of things to complain about!

 

 

They were expansion packs and if you wanted to go there at Level 1 you could, just you had to be highly patient to get there and hope you dont get killed

[Durcbjorn]

A lot of scenery in ALL mmo's is to "simulate" large/grand scale.

 

A lot of the areas in SWTOR they did this with great artistry and scenic views (like big buildings in cities you can't get to like in dromund kaas and nar shada).

 

Also they did their best simulation of a space galaxy, with the galaxy map, and the current way you travel between worlds. I like that you can walk around your ship and see your crew, and the hold you can store stuff in.

 

However I think a lot of mmoer's want to be able to interact with that grand scale. I like how they did it in SWTOR in some ways, but my imagination makes me want to imagine if they had done some of the below.

 

Rather than the current way you travel between planets of going to the hanger, loading into your ship, clicking on the map, and "traveling" to the other planet, and then clicking exit your ship.... I think a lot of people wish they could actually get in their ship, and steer it to the other planet. I wonder if that's even possible in this game. Maybe some kind of transition between the normal world environment and the space minigame environment. So you walk into your ship, and actually pilot it away into space... the trick is, then how do you navigate between worlds? without that galaxy map it would be confusing I think. Think about space for a moment. It's pure 3d. You could fly in infinite directions, and it all looks the same LOL.

 

Maybe there would be some creative way to travel yourself between the worlds. How long would it take though? and would it be any more immersive than the way it is now? I mean there's nothing in space between planets, so it would probably just feel like a big time drain. Plus you'd have to know what direction to go. A 3d map in game would be hard to implement.

 

Plus everyone else would be flying around out there. What kind of travel times should be implemented, and what kind of interaction between players would be allowed. Could you dock with other people's ships and walk around? LOL

 

 

This would all make the space stuff way more than minigame, and almost the focus of the game. This is an mmo, not a space-shooter type game.

 

I mean they could invest all that time/energy into developing that side of the game, but it would take time away from development of the actual mmo gameplay we're all here for.

 

In terms of planetary scale/size, I'm happy with the size of the planets we can explore so far, but I see what you mean about feeling boxed in, and wow feels more open. However wow is the same way, you just don't realize it. Each continent is surrounded by "water" instead of impassable mountains. Is that really any different except in your mind? Maybe those are the same mountains, and the ones you see in the west are the same ones you see in the east, its just the map is 2d and you're not thinking in 3d.

 

I mean with my example above about what if you could travel manually yourself from planet to planet through space, theoretically you could land anywhere on a planet, so they would have to have content on the whole planet.

 

Obviously these game designers aren't god, and they aren't going to create an entire galaxy of fully populated planets for us to explore. Maybe in 50 years in this industry LOL. If they were to try to do something like this now, my guess is there'd be a lot of empty space/terrain on each planet, with faster travel around. So really it would be a lot of empty feeling worlds because there's so much space between players. Right now you bump into other players and feel the world is populated because you're doing quests in close proximity. In a real massive planetary system, if quests are all over the planet, you'd have to get extremely lucky and be doing the same quest at the same time, and be at the same location to bump into another player.

 

I dunno, I think there are some cool ways they could make you feel more immersed in a galaxy of planets, and I see what you mean about feeling like you just click, cinematic, click, cinematic, and you don't actually do anything. You want to feel like you actually piloted a ship, took off, landed, on static planets in a galaxy. It sounds cool, but is a lot harder to implement. I think they did a great job of simulating that, without taking away too much from the actual play experience.

[LtDanomg]

They were expansion packs and if you wanted to go there at Level 1 you could, just you had to be highly patient to get there and hope you dont get killed

 

I'm pretty certain you couldn't go through the Outlands portal until 58ish. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Scar]

I don't care if you like it, love it, hate it, critique it, praise it or idolize it.

 

I do care if it is done with lies, misleading statements, propaganda and ignorance.

 

There are some valid complaints and accolades- sadly THOSE get buried in the heaps of the aforementioned list. And as one other poster mentioned in another thread, it is the hope that some of it is just a lack of understanding or education on the topic that we try, and we stick around.

 

However, most it is just chest thumping and crying - and that shouldn't be tolerated.

 

Like it or Love it all you want. But if you can't do it without exaggeration, lies or idiocy - do it someplace else.

You rock.

[The_Old_Empire]

My bad your right, but remember they were expansion packs.

[Bubba_Jett]

I think one of the problems is visual. Lets look at Corsucant. The background shows this massive world, yet the amount you cover is really a small fraction. So it does have a very caged feel. But again, sand boxing multiple planets would be near impossible.

[Riotus]

 

I could go from Darnassus to Stormwind by walking, flying without stupid loading screens.

 

Whats up with that?

 

 

Your post lost all credibility here. you obviously have never made the trip from darn to sw..... either that or your jesus... but even jesus would still have to load from one continent to another....

[Ukucia]

actually massively refers to the game world not the population.

No.

 

"Massively" in MMO indicates that many people may play together simultaneously, that there isn't a small, hard limit on the number of players.

 

At the time the term was created, "multiplayer" games would allow somewhere between 4 and 16 players. So massively multiplayer was created to indicate that the limit was much, much higher.

 

With modern FPSs being able to handle much, much larger teams, "multiplayer" games look much more massive than they used to. MW3 can do what? 64 players per match? (don't play it, so IDK). That many players in a relatively tight map makes some people think an MMO should have even higher density. They're wrong, but it's how they're thinking.