LOLDANIEL Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) i payed for a game, not a movie, a story, or a book. Edited January 2, 2012 by LOLDANIEL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnoopyDoo Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 MMO = mega multiplayer online. Unless one is somehow the only one one their server I believe SWTOR qualifies as quite the MMO. I can group up at will for pretty much anything the game has to offer on my server and see plenty of players doing the same. If you were expecting agreement or disagreement then I apologize. My point was simply redirecting the post toward the thread's topic, which is story - something TOR has in abundance. Okay so on a technicality you can call this game an MMO, but it certainly lacks features I would expect in an MMO. Hence why I described it as a single player game with MMO features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amdarius Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 I think the OP raises a very good question. I personally enjoy a story in my single player RPGs. Like Skyrim. When it comes to an MMO, the story is fine as an extra bonus, but not as the primary purpose of the game. I much prefer games like EQ where you just get a group of people together and go hunt out the nearest level-appropriate dungeon and experience thrills and chills while fighting there. I'm just not a huge fan of the current trend of MMOs towards endless quests and the endless cycle of quest hubs where you do 3-4 quests in one area and then are directed to the next area. I just feel like the game is being played for me. Frankly, my 4 year old nephew could level up to 50 in SWTOR just fine because the game directs you down a linear path from one level-appropriate planet to the next. It just doesn't feel like a MMO as much as it does a single player RPG (and not even an open world RPG like Skyrim). Hopefully someday we'll get a nice melding of a professionally produced product (SWTOR) with an open world game (SWG/EQ), that isn't all about quest hubs (EQ/SWG), that has challenge (EQ), that has a true feeling of world PVP with Imperials vs. Republics (SWG), with quality guild functionality, housing and bases (SWG), and true Star Wars quality space combat (doesn't exist, but somewhere between SWG and Eve). Can SWTOR ever get to that? I don't see it. Not with EA's bureaucracy in place. And with the game being so linear/pathed, I don't see it ever going open world. Heck, we only have chat for guild functionality at the launch of a game that has been in development for 3-4 years at the cost of over a hundred million dollars. HOW IN THE WORLD do you launch a game after all that where the only guild functionality is basic chat??? Unbelievable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ademnus Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 I can only speak for myself. I've played well over a dozen MMOs and they were great. They lacked storyline however and that became ultimately boring to me. Ive been a bioware fan since they began and came here for their rich stories -and gotten what i wanted. I'm here for the long haul. I know some folks coming here from wow just want to transform this into star wars wow but it isnt and the devs dont want it to be -and thank God. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ademnus Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 i payed for a game, not a movie, a story, or a book. so you paid for a game you knew nothing about? Not a very informed purchase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onomas Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 This game with its story line, BUT with open worlds, exploration, and a sandbox feel would have made this game EPIC. Its to limited, yeah i know its a themepark game, but you cant compete with so much coming out on the market with a limited theme park. I like the story line but could ahve been so much more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amdarius Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 This game with its story line, BUT with open worlds, exploration, and a sandbox feel would have made this game EPIC. Its to limited, yeah i know its a themepark game, but you cant compete with so much coming out on the market with a limited theme park. I like the story line but could ahve been so much more. Amen brother, amen. Makes me wish I had been born a phenomenally gifted athlete or very astute businessman who was able to build a nice nest egg that I could risk on a game like that. It might not be the cup of tea for the people who like to have their hand held through an entire game, but it sure would appeal to a large segment of the market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uruz Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 so you paid for a game you knew nothing about? Not a very informed purchase. How could anyone not know about SWTOR? Information has been trickled out for the past 2 years.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LC-Cash Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Anyone who has played Mass Effect or NVN 1-2 series knew that Bioware was a heavy into storyline. Most seasoned players do some research of gaming companies past history to get an idea what direction they may take the game. Early on they announced that were doing a heavy storyline to introduce the first fully voiced MMO. Years before launch Bioware released trailers that showed us a heavy storyline. Bioware explained how your character would be making alot of decisions through out the game .. "Surprise!" heavy storyline alert. Maybe next time Bioware can make a Pop-up book for the slow to warn them of future heavy storyline games. When ya add it up.. how could you have not known that SWTOR was going to be heavy storyline. Far as what MMO players want, here it is..... all different things". Thats right'.. different people want different things, which is awesome cause here in 2012 we have a huge selection of games to chose from. This isn't the MMO community, this is the SWTOR community... you see the MMO community is all spread out over different MMO games. They play different games cause not all MMO's appeal to them.. so they play the one that does.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizardSF Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Doesn't sound like an MMO to me... Sounds like a single player RPG. So actually you agree with me? So, to you, "MMO" means loot&scoot boss farming power leveling? If so, the genre has gone seriously wrong, and it's good that BioWare is fighting against that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eshaye Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 I think the OP raises a very good question. I personally enjoy a story in my single player RPGs. Like Skyrim. Ah but here's the rub, Skyrim is an open world RPG. Bioware DOES NOT MAKE open worlds. I've never played Baldur's Gate or the original NWN but after those games I can't recall a single BW game that was open world. This is why I'm a fan of both Bethesda and Bioware, they make great RPGs that are distinctly different. It sucks that SWG closed down, it sucks there isn't a great open world MMO yet and hasn't been in years but I'm confident that one day there will be another. I know of a few in development but they are by small companies so we'll see if they succeed or not. I hope so. However, clearly these are not the droids you're looking for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizardSF Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 I find it endlessly hilarious how many people hold up EQ as an "open world" game with no "quest hubs" when it was filled with invisible walls, slow-loading zones (some of the cities, like the original dwarf zone in Butcherblock, had four or five zones with painful load screens between them, and, yes, I'm talking about EQ1, not EQ2.), and, of course, PLENTY of quests, hence the name EverQUEST. Just because you were too illiterate to talk to the NPCs and play "guess the word" with them to GET the quests doesn't mean they weren't there, in great abundance. People ended up grinding for XP because they were too stupid/lazy to find the quests, not because they didn't exist. SWG had quest hubs, too. They were called "mission terminals", and most gameplay consisted of gathering up five missions, all randomly generated, running to them, praying to the Force the mission wasn't bugged and your target would be where the giant glowing searchlight said it was, killing the thing standing in the giant glowing searchlight, and running back to repeat it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amdarius Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) I find it endlessly hilarious how many people hold up EQ as an "open world" game with no "quest hubs" when it was filled with invisible walls, slow-loading zones (some of the cities, like the original dwarf zone in Butcherblock, had four or five zones with painful load screens between them, and, yes, I'm talking about EQ1, not EQ2.), and, of course, PLENTY of quests, hence the name EverQUEST. Just because you were too illiterate to talk to the NPCs and play "guess the word" with them to GET the quests doesn't mean they weren't there, in great abundance. People ended up grinding for XP because they were too stupid/lazy to find the quests, not because they didn't exist. SWG had quest hubs, too. They were called "mission terminals", and most gameplay consisted of gathering up five missions, all randomly generated, running to them, praying to the Force the mission wasn't bugged and your target would be where the giant glowing searchlight said it was, killing the thing standing in the giant glowing searchlight, and running back to repeat it. Well now I understand why you're here so vehemently defending this design. Apparently you need your content force fed to you. I recall running almost no missions in either EQ or SWG. In SWG, it was mostly running around with guildies and engaging in a lot of open world PVP. Building our base, building our city, doing a lot of tradeskilling, killing rancors, etc etc. I recall getting very few quests. Just didn't need 'em. In EQ, the only quests I ever did were the epics. Don't think I ever did any others. Mostly it was running around with guildies to various dungeons and exploring the world. Edited January 2, 2012 by Amdarius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Varlak Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 it is not important for every MMO but you won,t succed if your MMO is like every other ones. Personaly I wouldn't be playing SWTOR if it wasn,t for the main storyline. The grinding just feel less boring especialy since every MMO but EQ is all about solo grinding sadly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amdarius Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Ah but here's the rub, Skyrim is an open world RPG. Bioware DOES NOT MAKE open worlds. I've never played Baldur's Gate or the original NWN but after those games I can't recall a single BW game that was open world. This is why I'm a fan of both Bethesda and Bioware, they make great RPGs that are distinctly different. It sucks that SWG closed down, it sucks there isn't a great open world MMO yet and hasn't been in years but I'm confident that one day there will be another. I know of a few in development but they are by small companies so we'll see if they succeed or not. I hope so. However, clearly these are not the droids you're looking for. That's like saying the only thing Blizzard makes is RTSs and 3d-isometric dungeon crawlers. Just because a gaming company has made one type of game in the past doesn't mean it's only capable of making that type of game. Did anyone think Blizzard would make a MMO back when it was making Warcraft III or Diablo? There's no reason that Bioware could not have made an open world game. They just chose not to because they made the game about story. Just because a game is about story, though, doesn't mean it needs to be very confined and played on rails. The story can be the underpinning for a great open world game. I will definitely hunt out the open world games coming out and subscribe to at least one of them. Love those style of games. Will probably stay subscribed to TOR here for another month or two unless there are significant improvements to the guild mechanisms and world PVP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHeadCapper Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 10000000000 Times yes a story is what i want as an MMO player Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erethrian Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) I won't play a MMO without a good story. That's all. There're lots of opinions and this doesn't mean that one of them is worst than the other one (not at all) but, yeah, I think that a great story can make a great MMO. As someone said (I can't find the post right now) story wasn't important before in other MMOs and BioWare changed that, and I love it. Erethrorn Edited January 2, 2012 by Erethrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHeadCapper Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Well now I understand why you're here so vehemently defending this design. Apparently you need your content force fed to you. Can't you have a discussion like an adult and realize people want different things from games? Or do you assume if someone has a different opinion than you they are an idiot? Grow up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizardSF Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Apparently you need your content force fed to you. I recall running almost no missions in either EQ or SWG. In SWG, it was mostly running around with guildies and engaging in a lot of open world PVP. Building our base, building our city, doing a lot of tradeskilling, killing rancors, etc etc. I recall getting very few quests. Just didn't need 'em. In EQ, the only quests I ever did were the epics. Don't think I ever did any others. Mostly it was running around with guildies to various dungeons and exploring the world. "I didn't use the feature, so it didn't exist!" I could grind random mobs for XP in almost any game. That doesn't mean I can then claim the game was "open world" and "quest free". Hell, I could probably level to 50 in TOR just by shooting things. It would just be boring as hell. I never saw any open world PVP in SWG, but I wasn't on a PVP server, and I played it very early on its life... I quit after the first "Life Day" when everyone got holocrons and started mindlessly grinding classes they hated because they'd been convinced you could "win" the game by unlocking the Jedi slot. From what I can tell, the only difference between your playstyle and the mission terminal playstyle was that we killed the same number of womprats, I just got more credits for it. Sorry, dude, but "I ran out and killed 50 womprats because... uh... OPEN WORLD!" is not some great triumph of imagination and immersion. It differs NOT AT ALL from "I ran out and killed 50 womprats because the mission terminal told me to!" In both cases, we're grinding mobs to get XP and loot... I just got a little more loot than you for the same amount of womp-rat killin'. (We won't even discuss how much time I spent making guns no one wanted in order to make other guns no one wanted in the hopes of, someday, making guns some people WOULD want. Then I discovered how much money there was in surveying and mining, which was cool, got my house, got my speeder, got mining towers all over Naboo... but there was, ultimately, nothing to SPEND all that money on. Another house? Another speeder? Then the cities died when everyone went mad over holocrons, like I said, and I gave up.) Did plenty of camping/grinding in EQ. It got annoying. "So, why are we here, in this dungeon, in Camp 2, fighting these monsters?" "Because this is the optimal XP gain/minute according to my spreadsheet", replies the party leader, or words to that effect. I got past "Kick in door, kill monster, get treasure, repeat" when I was 14 or so with my first D&D game, then got into worldbuilding and campaigns over blind dungeon crawls. So why are we calling that very primitive playstyle "freeform" and "immersive" when it's anything but, when it is, in fact, simply contextless button-mashing? Trying to present yourself as a Daring Free Spirit Who Is Not Bound By The Rules when you are advocating a complete lack of any context for your actions or any purpose beyond making some numbers go up is, to say the least, disingenuous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnoopyDoo Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 so you paid for a game you knew nothing about? Not a very informed purchase. Lol I don't think you have interpreted his post at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnoopyDoo Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 So, to you, "MMO" means loot&scoot boss farming power leveling? If so, the genre has gone seriously wrong, and it's good that BioWare is fighting against that. That is not how I personally would define an MMO... What I mean is that if a game is so heavily focused on story it doesn't really work as an MMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NephilimNexus Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 SWG had quest hubs, too. They were called "mission terminals", and most gameplay consisted of gathering up five missions, all randomly generated, running to them, praying to the Force the mission wasn't bugged and your target would be where the giant glowing searchlight said it was, killing the thing standing in the giant glowing searchlight, and running back to repeat it. Ah yes, Mission Terminals... and Artisan terminals, Entertainer terminals, Explorer terminals, Bounty terminals, Faction terminals... and the terminals were just a supplement to the classic NPC quest givers. And even that is just assuming that you even bothered with them in the first place. I never did. Neither of them was truly needed to succeed in, well, whatever you wanted to do. Hmmm, I like the sound of that: Whatever you wanted to do. Ah, nostalgia! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparklefrost Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) Do you think story is really what MMO players want? In most MMO's , the answer would be no. But this is Star Wars. It is quite possibly in the top ten of epic stories ever created and, because of that, story is THE most important thing in a Star Wars related game. So for this game, the answer is most certainly YES! Edited January 2, 2012 by Sparklefrost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amiracle Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 VO on the main class quest would have been plenty and left BW about 50 million dollars to put into things like ....oh I don't know....a fully functioning game. They could have cut the VO by 50% and everyone would have still loved it. I don't care to read why some no name npc needs 6 computer parts and I most certainly don't want to listen for 5 minutes while she tells me why she needs 6 computer parts. I'm sorry but if the sidequest dialogue actually keeps you entertained than I might suggest you have no idea what quality story is. I don't care how you gussy up getting 6 "droid chips" it's still not important to my character or the world at large. The main story at least has some validity to my character. I feel like some of you are arguing for Mcdonalds and how great crappy food is. ME2 or Whitcher 2 are good story games. The Founain head is a good novel. Local milk will be better than factory milk. Organic fruit tends to be sweeter. Quality cheese is worth it. Terminator movies maybe be "entertaining" but they are not in fact "good" Burger King may taste like money after drinking all night but that does not make Burger King "good" food. I just don't see how anyone can honestly sit through whiny npc's who you'll never see again tell you a long drawn out story about why they need to you run and fetch computer parts or kill 30 ravenous dogs. This game is exactly what is was advertised as. It amazes how many still bought it knowing what they were getting. Its even more amazing that they fully knew what they were purchasing and then come to a public forum to complain that they made the choice to purchase something they didn't want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluejayoo Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) It's what I want most. It's the only thing that is keeping me from cancelling given: 1. Massive bugs 2. Crafting system that wasn't thought through properly and is mostly a time sink 3. A pathetic joke of a PVP system (seriously, how did a group of intelligent game developers sit around a table and come up with Ilum? I shake my head in utter disbelief). The story and the VO elements are the only things that kept me from cancelling during early access. I can't speak for anyone else. Edited January 2, 2012 by Bluejayoo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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