Do you think story is really what MMO players want?

[SnoopyDoo]

Story is there for those who want it.

 

Space Bar is there for those who don't.

 

That is all.

 

That said if you remove story surely this game is very similar to World of Warcraft?

 

Okay you get a space ship, companion and the light/dark side thing but aren't these just novelties that we get bored of in no time. I've played maybe 10 space battles with my ship and I think I've had about enough now. Not to mention the number of loading screens that surround that ship...

[Mannic]

Story is there for those who want it.

 

Space Bar is there for those who don't.

 

That is all.

 

Space bar leads to boredom.

 

Boredom leads to hate.

 

Hate leads to unsubscribing.

 

Unsubscribing leads to EA trimming development staff on TOR.

 

Trimming development staff leads to rare and smaller story updates.

 

Rare and smaller story updates leads to upset SPRPG fanboys.

 

Upset SPRPG fanboys leads to unsubs.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Mannic

[SnoopyDoo]

I see all kinds of potential for this game-- the problem is that Bioware has shown no indication whatsoever that anything in this game is important enough to them to rate action other than the story aspects.

 

Hence where the problem comes from.

 

It's simply naive of BioWare to think they can base an MMO entirely on story and have no consequences in the end game.

[Eshaye]

If Galaxies is proof the industry doesn't welcome sandbox, then LoTRO, Warhammer, AoC, and pretty much every game not named World of Warcraft is proof the industry doesn't welcome "theme-park" games.

 

Ahhh not a single game you listed is a sandbox MMO, they are all themepark.

 

Sandbox MMOs: Ryzom, Wurm Online, Second Life and other simulations, Earthrise, Mortal Online, Fallen Earth (partial sandbox), Ultima.

 

The industry is bigger when it comes to theme park type of games, that is what most players are comfortable with while the minority hungers for a sandbox. Not many big budget companies want to invest in sandbox so you have to look for the smaller guys for them. Perhaps a game like Amalur may change that, we'll see.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Eshaye

[DeaconX]

As a writer, of course I'm all for a great story! I think it adds a great amount of depth to the experience. That being said, where TOR shines for the story content, for me personally, it lacks in game play and game features and the design simply didn't go in a direction I enjoy very much. Edited January 1, 2012 by DeaconX

[Samy_Merchi]

as an MMO competing with WoW its got a long way to go if it wants to become the new king. And lets be honest, these are companies who are looking to make money.

 

Why do they need to compete with WoW? EVE Online doesn't and it's been a steady moneymaker and steadily growing every single year. It doesn't compete with WoW, yet it's clearly profitable.

 

if you don't like the story side of this game, you may as well play WoW

Precisely. For the people who are looking for something other than story, there's a 100 other MMOs out there catering to non-story interests. I'm sure they can find something there. Edited January 1, 2012 by Samy_Merchi

[Mannic]

That said if you remove story surely this game is very similar to World of Warcraft?

 

Okay you get a space ship, companion and the light/dark side thing but aren't these just novelties that we get bored of in no time. I've played maybe 10 space battles with my ship and I think I've had about enough now. Not to mention the number of loading screens that surround that ship...

 

The ship (when it comes to travel) actually ends up being worse than not having one, IMO. I'd rather have seamless zones and no ship, than a relatively useless ship that I have to travel to and go through multiple area-transitions and loading screens just to get to my ship, and then more area transitions and loading screens to travel from one zone to another. The ship is just a facade behind which Bioware attempts to hide the fact that you are loading a new zone.

[Mannic]

Ahhh not a single game you listed is a sandbox MMO, they are all themepark.

 

Sandbox MMOs: Ryzom, Wurm Online, Second Life and other simulations, Earthrise, Mortal Online, Fallen Earth (partial sandbox), Ultima.

 

You need to re-read what I posted. I didn't say any of those games were sandbox. I said they are all examples of failed "theme-park" games.

 

Only one game is an example of a "successful" theme-park MMO and that's WoW, and you could argue that the more theme-park it's become, the more players it's alienated.

 

My point was that if you use Galaxies as an example that people hate sandbox games, then every theme-park game that came out since WoW is an example that people hate theme-park games.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Mannic

[Phadian_gess]

compete with wow?

 

So they want to try and compete with a game that has succumbed to making itself free to play up to level 20, uses god awful and old as hell chuck norris memes and above all else...is implementing a panda race?

 

GG

[Mannic]

compete with wow?

 

So they want to try and compete with a game that has succumbed to making itself free to play up to level 20, uses god awful and old as hell chuck norris memes and above all else...is implementing a panda race?

 

GG

 

Bioware would sell its collective soul to the devil to be half as big as WoW is right now.

[Greyfen]

Just to build on the point you made. I think one problem players are having is that this is supposed to be an MMO. So for someone who joins looking to experience that the game seems to offer them very little except a lot of story. If you took away the cut scenes in this game it would actually be very similar in nearly every way to WoW with the exception of a few elements such as the Light/Dark side and crafting. So basically if you don't like the story side of this game, you may as well play WoW unless you have some other preference that draws you to playing a Star Wars/ BioWare game.

 

Yeah I would tend to agree, though I still don't think the story is the problem more of the disguise. For those that want it perhaps an option to turn off all of the dialogue, or after you have heard it once you can skip it instantly, might be difficult with the way light/dark points are distributed via conversations though. At the moment the game play is looking very cookie cutter MMO, but they do have the opportunity to solve this by expanding some ideas and implementing new ones. The space missions definitely show promise, unfortunately are slightly short and railed, but that's what Dev's are for. Also now they have the main game frame in place perhaps the regular patched content will begin to build on it and make something more special, at the moment it is definitely too similar to WOW for me but I will give them some more time, they released it prematurely so I think in 6months or so we might have a better idea of what direction they want to take the game in.

[SnoopyDoo]

It's an excellent idea, because there are 100 non story driven MMOs but story driven MMOs are a completely untapped resource. It's virgin territory ready to be catered to, whereas the non story driven MMOs are competing each other out of existence. There are so many of them it's nigh impossible to get a foot in the door. But Bioware is entering the game in a region where there is no competition. An excellent idea.

 

Okay so there is no MMO out that focuses on crafting...

 

Would you say that means there is a market for some amazing game where everyone walks about crafting tons of ****. Of course not.

 

A story driven MMO isn't exactly the most genius idea in the world and its probably never been done before because most MMOs previously put important things first such as this little thing called the end game.

 

I would say BioWare has had a good idea in making a story driven MMO purely on the fact that there are ton of RPG lovers out there who are flocking to this game. But what's to stop these people just leaving after they have gone through their main story? One of the BIGGEST things that makes MMOs like WoW successful is that it is very very easy for them to make a completely new chunk of end game content. They add in a new raid nearly every patch. If this MMO is driven by story that means they have to keep updating it and if they don't, people get bored and leave. They do in WoW.

 

So acutally. No. Its not an excellent idea.

[Eshaye]

You need to re-read what I posted. I didn't say any of those games were sandbox. I said they are all examples of failed "theme-park" games.

 

Only one game is an example of a "successful" theme-park MMO and that's WoW, and you could argue that the more theme-park it's become, the more players it's alienated.

 

My point was that if you use Galaxies as an example that people hate sandbox games, then every theme-park game that came out since WoW is an example that people hate theme-park games.

 

You need to re-evaluate what 'fail' means then... SWG suffered for years, the games you listed are quite successful, if you're going to say they failed because they went F2P you need to head over to those discussions and understand that the market simply has changed over time. It's not an indication of failure by any means.

 

And I won't go into that here sorry.

[SnoopyDoo]

Why do they need to compete with WoW? EVE Online doesn't and it's been a steady moneymaker and steadily growing every single year. It doesn't compete with WoW, yet it's clearly profitable.

 

Precisely. For the people who are looking for something other than story, there's a 100 other MMOs out there catering to non-story interests. I'm sure they can find something there.

 

If you went to the designers of EVE and asked them 'you wanna be as big as WoW' of course they would say yes. They are always competing because they are all in the same market, a market for MMOs. They must compete, what would happen if WoW suddenly announced a massive plan to make story more exciting in the game. You think that they could just let that happen? No. BioWare would have to act, which is why they constantly keep track of each other. They need to make sure they are always going to have that share in the market. Same thing would happen if SW:TOR suddenly went big on raiding and pandas.

[SnoopyDoo]

The ship (when it comes to travel) actually ends up being worse than not having one, IMO. I'd rather have seamless zones and no ship, than a relatively useless ship that I have to travel to and go through multiple area-transitions and loading screens just to get to my ship, and then more area transitions and loading screens to travel from one zone to another. The ship is just a facade behind which Bioware attempts to hide the fact that you are loading a new zone.

 

/Agree

 

Nuff said

[Samy_Merchi]

Okay so there is no MMO out that focuses on crafting... Would you say that means there is a market for some amazing game where everyone walks about crafting tons of ****. Of course not.

No, but crafting games don't have a proven playerbase of millions of singleplayer copies sold. We do know from previous Bioware and other games that there *is* a big audience for story based games, unlike crafting games. So that means there are millions of people out there that you can potentially sell a story-based MMO to. It's a wide open niche if you can grab the singleplayer audience to the MMO side. Crafting doesn't have any such established audience.

 

So yes, it's an excellent idea to make a story based MMO.

 

A story driven MMO isn't exactly the most genius idea in the world and its probably never been done before because most MMOs previously put important things first such as this little thing called the end game.

End game is nonsense. Story is millions of times more important. I'd rather have one story MMO than a million end game MMOs. And Bioware are betting I am not alone.

[Eshaye]

Okay so there is no MMO out that focuses on crafting...

 

 

Yes it's called Ryzom.

[Uben]

Ahhh not a single game you listed is a sandbox MMO, they are all themepark.

 

Sandbox MMOs: Ryzom, Wurm Online, Second Life and other simulations, Earthrise, Mortal Online, Fallen Earth (partial sandbox), Ultima.

 

The industry is bigger when it comes to theme park type of games, that is what most players are comfortable with while the minority hungers for a sandbox. Not many big budget companies want to invest in sandbox so you have to look for the smaller guys for them. Perhaps a game like Amalur may change that, we'll see.

 

THAT was his point.

[Mannic]

You need to re-evaluate what 'fail' means then... SWG suffered for years, the games you listed are quite successful, if you're going to say they failed because they went F2P you need to head over to those discussions and understand that the market simply has changed over time. It's not an indication of failure by any means.

 

And I won't go into that here sorry.

 

LoTRO had to go F2P to be "quite successful." Warhammer was a flop within 3 months of release and is down to like 4 servers now. AoC and Warhammer are both at SWG level population pre-NGE. In fact, both of those games almost certainly have smaller populations than SWG did pre-NGE. And AoC was down to 100K members 6 months after release. It was widely considered one of the biggest flops of all-time. Oh, and by the way, TOR is WAAAAAAY more theme-park than ANY of those games were.

 

Eve is more popular than any of those games and has been for years, and it's as open-sandbox as a game can be.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Mannic

[SnoopyDoo]

Yeah I would tend to agree, though I still don't think the story is the problem more of the disguise. For those that want it perhaps an option to turn off all of the dialogue, or after you have heard it once you can skip it instantly, might be difficult with the way light/dark points are distributed via conversations though. At the moment the game play is looking very cookie cutter MMO, but they do have the opportunity to solve this by expanding some ideas and implementing new ones. The space missions definitely show promise, unfortunately are slightly short and railed, but that's what Dev's are for. Also now they have the main game frame in place perhaps the regular patched content will begin to build on it and make something more special, at the moment it is definitely too similar to WOW for me but I will give them some more time, they released it prematurely so I think in 6months or so we might have a better idea of what direction they want to take the game in.

 

Yup agree with you here.

 

I'm personally cancelling and giving the game a few months to get some more content out. They are using the story to try and mask certain features of the MMO. I admire them for trying but it clearly hasn't worked.

[Alphasgimaone]

So like, where's the essay?

[Samy_Merchi]

If you went to the designers of EVE and asked them 'you wanna be as big as WoW' of course they would say yes.

Who'd turn down free money? Sure, they'd take 10 million subscribers if they could get it. But they're not sacrificing their game and turning it into WoW to do so, and neither should SWTOR. They have unique ideas and a unique vision, and maybe cloning WoW would get them 10m subscribers but they're not going there. They're following their own vision.

 

And thank god for that, because otherwise every game in the world would be WoW with a different skin.

[SnoopyDoo]

No, but crafting games don't have a proven playerbase of millions of singleplayer copies sold. We do know from previous Bioware and other games that there *is* a big audience for story based games, unlike crafting games. So that means there are millions of people out there that you can potentially sell a story-based MMO to. It's a wide open niche if you can grab the singleplayer audience to the MMO side. Crafting doesn't have any such established audience.

 

So yes, it's an excellent idea to make a story based MMO.

 

End game is nonsense. Story is millions of times more important. I'd rather have one story MMO than a million end game MMOs. And Bioware are betting I am not alone.

 

Then I don't think MMOs are for you.

 

Play this for a single player game and once you've done the content you will be bored.

Believe me, its in BioWare's best interest to make some big changes sharpish.

[Samy_Merchi]

Then I don't think MMOs are for you.

You're assuming all MMOs have to be like WoW.

 

WoW style MMOs aren't for me, that's sure as heck.

 

But SWTOR style MMOs are *so* for me, and I'm loving the heck out of this game.

 

Don't think that just because I hate *one* style of MMO, I have to hate them *all*.

[Uben]

Then I don't think MMOs are for you.

 

Play this for a single player game and once you've done the content you will be bored.

Believe me, its in BioWare's best interest to make some big changes sharpish.

 

They always say the same thing. Are savagely against End game because they think it means the 'end of the game'. They are the first ones to let the sub lapse when they consume the static content.

 

No use in trying to tell them.