Do you think story is really what MMO players want?

[Kemosobe]

With all the stuff being said about this game being too linear and not being a real MMO because of it, I am just wondering, what MMO(s) are we comparing this to when saying that SWTOR is too linear? SWTOR is just as linear as every single MMO I have every played, and I have played a good deal of them.

[LizardSF]

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!

 

But the question is.... what did you really want to do?

 

A lot of great things fell apart very quickly.

 

Dancers and medics as a necessary part of the game ecosystem collapsed as the population did after the first month or two. I began on...uhm... whatever the moon of Naboo was called, then watched it turn into a ghost town, so I had to move to Naboo. The initial game economy began strong, then started to break as hyper-inflation hit and everyone had everything they could hope to buy/need. If you *wanted* to do quests, you were pretty screwed, as a lot of the quest-givers were broken. Some of the promised "emergent gameplay", such as discovering things and having that open up quests or goals, was stillborn; the closest they got were the pirate "treasures" that led to 3 credits and 2 units of a random resource. (And you could get a broken fishing pole from Luke, or maybe Jabba... I forget.)

 

I did a lot of traveling, then realized something depressing... nothing made any world unique except the house architecture and the names of the mobs. I found more useful liquid on Tatooine than on Naboo! All the cities were basically the same with minor variations in layout, but nothing distinctive (Mos Eisley had a few unique items, but they didn't really mean anything or offer anything to DO with them.). Things that should have been amazing, like the palace on Naboo, or the Emperor's hideout, were just empty shells. Exploring them was like walking through a tomb.

 

Sneer at "Quest hubs" and "force fed content" all you like, but when I wander through the royal palace on Naboo and find NOTHING to do, nothing to hold my interest, no story to uncover, no one to interact with, nothing to make it more than empty architecture... that's not a failure of my imagination, that's a failure of the game design.

 

I've never seen another MMO with so little attention paid to making each city and zone unique and different. Many worlds had several cities on them, but there was no reason to go to one over another. Because of the procedural generation they used, terrain was pretty much identical over each world.

 

I've created more worlds than I can easily count. If I pay money to play a game in someone else's world, I expect them to do some of the work. If I show up for my Sunday Pathfinder game, I don't expect the DM to hand me some graph paper and say "Make up your own adventure!".

[Amikae]

They've said it more than once, this a RPG. If you don't like it, unsubscribe.

[freakuancy]

They've said it more than once, this a RPG. If you don't like it, unsubscribe.

 

If you don't like the game, stop playing.

 

If you stop playing, stop posting on here.

 

Then I don't have to get angry at the forum communities collective stupidity -every single morning-.

 

It would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Amikae]

If you don't like the game, stop playing.

 

If you stop playing, stop posting on here.

 

Then I don't have to get angry at the forum communities collective stupidity -every single morning-.

 

It would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

I like the game very much. And I don't want it to be ruined by retarded complaints.

 

If you don't like story and VO, go back to WoW and don't bother us.

[Torunus]

no!

 

why in the hell i have to listen 10 min a guy and press 3 times some buttons to get a quest that tells me to do same things untill lvl 50? lol

 

go kill 10 of x, colect x, bring x, etc.

 

this is one of the things that bothers me the most in this game. But since the game is based on grinding, hey you need to kill 50 of the same dam thing for the xp bar to move in the right direction- so why not make it a quest

 

 

oh yeah, I think story is really what players want, but there are many ways to implement story in a game- if this is the right way to do it- well lets see in a year how many still plays the game

Edited January 2, 2012 by Torunus

[imaslapu]

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.

 

Amazes me too. It's like some people stand in line all night just to be able to be the first to complain?

 

Weird.

 

I'm an anomaly then because after a couple of beta weekends, I didn't think I would like the game and wouldn't be buying it. I was bored a week ago, decided to buy it and sub for the free month, and have been having a blast ever since. So like, I knew I wouldn't like it, bought it, and as luck would have it, it's a completely kickass new MMO

[freakuancy]

I like the game very much. And I don't want it to be ruined by retarded complaints.

 

If you don't like story and VO, go back to WoW and don't bother us.

 

That quote was in agreement.

[SnoopyDoo]

With all the stuff being said about this game being too linear and not being a real MMO because of it, I am just wondering, what MMO(s) are we comparing this to when saying that SWTOR is too linear? SWTOR is just as linear as every single MMO I have every played, and I have played a good deal of them.

 

By linear I think people just mean in the general that there is very little you can actually choose such as where you go to level and where you class quest takes you. I find it kind of silly that the game says to players, 'choose light or dark' yet this has almost no impact on how your story progresses.

 

An MMO like WoW for example does give you a lot of choice into when you do quests, in what order and where you go to quest. There are at least 2 places at each level for players to go to quest as I remember.

[adamqd]

Completely agree OP.

 

My concerns are that you dont build your own story at all, you follow their's to a T, your level is irrelevant and the end game is the end credits. I want to be able to live and breath in this universe, make my character almost completely original, stand out in a crowd. Its basically an SPRPG on rails, with a chat box.

 

There is 0% longevity in this game at this point in time. We need the complete opposite of the NGE, where it goes from this to a sandbox.

[Jxspyder]

I depends on what people mean by story. WoW has a great story but it doesn't represent it like TOR does, which is the right things to do.

 

BioWare and EA have spent all their money in creating cutscenes and offering dialogue to promote the story and sacrificed important aspects of the MMO-social-RP mechanic which makes WoW such an astonishing success.

 

TOR feels and is older than WoW in a lot of ways, which is why it won't be a success. There's no vision behind the game, unless you want to play a single player game with other people running around.

 

The fact that this game doesn't offer an expansive open world is really one of the major problems and one of the reason this feels like so restrictive.

 

Having a story and representing it this way is great, but not when it detracts from the main MMO mechanics.

 

Do you think that story will keep on coming in this game? In the same quality, voice over and custscenes? And how long will that take each time?

 

There are not even speech bubbles in this game for God's sake...

 

What did they sacrifice from an MMO-social-RP mechanical standpoint that makes WoW a success? End-game raiding and instances? World and instanced PvP? The ability to group up for quests? How does the "story" detract from MMO mechanics?

 

There aren't speech bubbles. There are fully modifiable chat tabs though, for God's sake if not for your sake.

[SnoopyDoo]

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.

 

I think this being Star Wars-wow as you call it was never really an option. What I personally wanted from this game was an MMO that met WoW's standard but had something else that set it above WoW. That was what many people wanted and sadly this game has flopped in so many areas.

[Jxspyder]

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.

 

How is the crafting system a time sink, when you spend next to no time doing it? Spend 15 seconds clicking some buttons, go back to playing the game.

[Jxspyder]

I like the game very much. And I don't want it to be ruined by retarded complaints.

 

If you don't like story and VO, go back to WoW and don't bother us.

 

Looks like he's agreeing with you. Just an FYI.

[Kenthen]

I like story and a good RPG. I just don't understand how anyone thought that would mix with an MMO, at least if it was going to be this restrictive. VOs be damned.

Imagine a Mass Effect MMO where every Alliance soldier character was Commander Shepard. He might have different names and looks but it would be Commander Shepard.

Same with every smuggler being that same douchebag that couldn't hold on to his shi-, oh but oh no, mine's totally different because I picked the flirt option once. :o UNGhsdgsdf

 

Nevermind that the story just feels poorly paced thanks to all the generic missions inbetween the actual story stuff.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Kenthen

[Fiachsidhe]

I'm an mmorpg player.

It's what I want.

[SnoopyDoo]

I like story and a good RPG. I just don't understand how anyone thought that would mix with an MMO, at least if it was going to be this restrictive. VOs be damned.

Imagine a Mass Effect MMO where every Alliance soldier character was Commander Shepard. He might have different names and looks but it would be Commander Shepard.

Same with every smuggler being that same douchebag that couldn't hold on to his shi-, oh but oh no, mine's totally different because I picked the flirt option once. :o UNGhsdgsdf

 

Nevermind that the story just feels poorly paced thanks to all the generic missions inbetween the actual story stuff.

 

It doesn't really work when an MMO says its story based because ultimately there will be several thousand people walking round all with exactly the same story as you. The ability to choose during quests should have bigger impact on how the quest actually occurs.

[Thaonnor]

TBH, I think it puts restrictions on the game that can make things difficult for them in the future. Some of these things I'm sure they are prepared for (or at least I hope they are). Things like the massive amount of work that will have to go into creating new content, voicing it all, creating back story, creating responses for each and every class, alignment, companion that is with you, creating new rewards that are class specific, etc.

 

Other things I question whether or not they have considered. Those things include:

 

A) They will never really be able to adjust the leveling speed. When the level 1-50 game is old and boring 2 expansions from now, the normal option for an MMORPG would be to increase the leveling speed and make things faster to 50 so people can work on current content. The issue in this game is that we have story which will be completely thrown off by giving more XP at those levels. Increasing the XP = out leveling content to the point where it would be a complete disaster to try and balance it all and make anything a challenge (imagine doing your level 16 class quests at level 30 and then imagine the shock have to deal with when you hit 50 and all the sudden content is level 50 again).

 

B) They cannot really offer incentives for faction balancing. What can they possibly do? Give more commendations? Commendations are already easy to get. People are running around in full PvP gear at the moment. Giving it to them a day early isn't enough to keep them from rolling Empire. They cannot give XP (see A). There is no real good way to give incentives.

 

There are more I'm sure that are going to be roadblocks to what they can do. Honestly, I find a lot of people I talk to and in my guild simply space bar through the conversations... and it scares me when I think about the future of this game and the way it was designed.

[Thaonnor]

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!

 

The problem that I'm seeing in my guild at the moment is that no one CARES about this Star Wars story. George Lucas' story was epic... the "kill womp rats because we need the meat" or "kill the slaves" quests are not that epic... the semi-childish writing of half of the lines in this game don't help either.

 

People love the Star Wars story... but listening to 150 hours of Star Wars story that isn't that epic, and that is MOSTLY content that you are redoing every time you roll a new character (with the exception of a new class quest line of course).

 

Overall, I am pretty disappointed in the "fourth pillar" - and that isn't a jab at Bioware. Props to them for trying something new, no one has ever done this before. I just don't think heavily story based content is what works in an MMORPG and I think most people will turn back to other games when something more interesting comes along.

 

Also, (and this is a jab at Bioware) it doesn't help that there are major issues with the combat systems, major bugs, etc. I know "its launch" but at a point where the story is getting dull already, and people are quickly reaching the higher levels, not having a good system to keep PvP and PvE viable options doesn't help. I figured they would be rolling out some major bug fixes the first few weeks after launch, and so far we have seen the most minuscule of bugs being fixed and no comments on the other very major bugs (I do believe there is even a class who cannot complete their class quest all the way to 50... so effectively they have to stop playing their character...)

[Darren_Kitlor]

MMO players are not a monolithic bloc.

 

MMO players are a diverse group with many different interests.

 

• Some want sandboxes and others want themeparks.
  
• Some want stories while others want emergent gameplay.
  
• Some want sweet loot and others want to socialize in peace.
  

[Thaonnor]

It doesn't really work when an MMO says its story based because ultimately there will be several thousand people walking round all with exactly the same story as you. The ability to choose during quests should have bigger impact on how the quest actually occurs.

 

Right, the only issue is that it takes a lot of manpower to create those unique impacts that each conversation and quest has on your character. I feel like that is what Bioware originally planned, and then they got into it and realized "Hey, there is no way in hell we are doing this!"

 

It works great in a single player game because you are the only one, you are the epic hero and no one around you is even close. In an MMORPG the very definition is that there are thousands of you all running around. At least when doing quests in a normal MMORPG, you understand that it is a quest. In this MMORPG, you get immersed, then remember while doing the quest "hey, they just tried to make me feel epic... and now there are 13 of us killing things for the same quest... how epic". It is like a constant reminder of how unepic you are, rather than a normal MMORPG which doesn't plant the idea of epicness as much, and you don't realize as often how unepic you are.

[PowerElectronic]

I said this in September.

 

MMO is not about levelling, its about endgame.

 

Anybody who has played any MMO for any length of time knows this.

[PowerElectronic]

[quote=Darren_Kitlor;1077956 want to socialize in peace.

 

[/size]

 

dont make **** up.

 

socialize on skype. Why you need an MMO?

 

MMO "social" groups are such a joke. Its only a matter of time before somebody gets jealous of the loot somebody else got and the guild implodes.

[RollingDeep]

In response to the OP, before Steve Jobs came a long no one wanted an iPod, we all had cd players. To me that simply says that people don't always know what they want.

 

I like the added story. The thing that impresses me the most about this MMO is that I'm never pushing myself to play. I really am just experiencing my story. And that's fun. I think that it'll be hard for me to play another MMO that doesn't have that story because I will feel like I'm pushing myself to play. That's been my past experiences with other MMOs.

 

At 50 it's been slightly different. While my class story is done I still have bonus series and other story lines to complete. Just like any other MMO thou there is a gear grind at the top. But I think that's just how MMOs operate as I havn't played an MMO that didn't have that.

 

So yes I do think story is something MMO players want if only to get from 1-max level without feeling like a grind. One you complete all the companion quests and bonus stories on each planet you are left in the place every MMO leaves you.

 

The catch with this game is that your story will continue whenever BW releases the next chapter. I think it will work out in the end in a positive fashion for bioware.

[shooterguy]

If you aren't playing this game for the story, quit now.

 

I am absolutely loving the IA story line and fully engrossed in this game. I'm notifying my doctor because I have had an erection lasting more than four hours.