Originally posted by BioNut

Originally posted by JYCowboy

Originally posted by singsofdeath

Originally posted by JYCowboy

Originally posted by Vrazule

I'm getting really tired of nerds who depend on game mechanics to force people to socialize and I'm really getting sick of people who think grouping is the end all, be all, social mechanic.

You people are sad and pathetic and need to grow up.

 

OK, lets look at this another way.  What is in this game that requires me to interact with you?  Is there PVP? Yes  Is there Crafting? Yes (albeit what system, no one knows)  Is there an Entertainer system?  What makes interacting with you, for the games sake, at all required?

If your a Star Wars fan and I am to, great.  We have something in common and that should be enough.  If your a MMO vet, and I am to then that might have wieght also.  We then converse about our like interests.  What if you hate Star Wars and don't care for MMO players?  You then have nothing to share with this MMO community of significate note.  But, what encourages cooperative play in this game?  I can only note one mention in helping fellow players to earn quicker "progress".

 

See the two red insertions. 

 

I'd like to add that they also mentioned there will be "raids" (though in what fashion and form, no one knows yet). So there's PvP and Raiding which actually -requires- other players, no? 

 

And that leaves out the pure social aspect of people simply getting together to play together because it is fun. Not sure why everyone gets their panties in a bunch because the Dev's opted to give you a chance to do nearly anything solo. 

 

-OPTION- being the operative word here.

Singsofdeath, do you PVP?
 

If so, great, I have no prob with that.  However, the direct market that this game is trying to appeal to does not.  They want that solo play experiance without having to be exposed to negative interaction of the PVP crowd.  This is a barrier to them ever sending you a /tell.  They want thier 3 hours a night unfettered then log to sleep for work or school.  That is the general conception of the target audiance.  Anyone that devotes themselves to improving thier character beyond finishing the final Quest is deemed Hardcore.  This is a concept that is beyond the pratical PVPer.  They don't see themselves as a niche demographic because the masses never come to boards like this and post about it.  Why make themselves exposed on 2 fronts (game and forums)?

 

I think what we have here are the frustrations of SWG vets and other jaded MMO old timers coming out on a game that is obviously not their thing. They want a sandbox game so badly that it hurts but nobody will make it. And when they do (darkfall) its not good enough for them.

Honestly, BioWare is going after the community that will make them the most money, the same people that buy their single player RPGs. This is a sound marketing strategy and with their talent they will create one hell of a game. And you people bashing it why? If they did not claim it was an MMO would  you still bash it?

They have stated that each class' story line will be twice as long as a single play through of kotor. So lets say the average playthrough of Kotor is 30 hours. Thats 60 hours per class x 8 classes = 480 hours of gameplay. Now add in PvP, raiding, socializing and crafting  you can easily have 800- infinity hours. But lets say you only get 800 hours out of it and only play 8 hours a day (which is a lot if you have a job).  800 total hours/8 hours per day = 100 days or 3 and a half months.

I would think, in a story driven MMOG, that they could have new content out for you to devour in 3 and a half months as Turbine does it with LoTRO. With the way the hero engine works its possible they could add 10 hours of gameplay for each class within that time and hell, if they make it episodic, they could realease the game with new content ready for the next 6 months like TV shows do.

 

In conclusion, I am sorry that the sandbox MMO is dead (I would like one too) but the constant whining and bitching about  "theme park" MMOs is getting really old. SW:TOR looks to be something different and I, for one, am excited that SW:TOR will be an  MMO with a lot of great story content and the OPTION to group, raid, PvP, craft.....................Wait why is this not considered an MMO again?

You're a little off on the hrs. each class will have. They have said many times that each storyline for each differant class are hundreds of hrs. At that time at the end, you can either just sit back and wait for the next big content patch that would continue your story or you could raid or pvp or do whatever all other mmo's have as end game content.

The great thing about the way Bioware is doing it is , if you decide at max level to roll another toon, like so many of us do. You will not be doing the same things that you did on your origional toon. You will not have to go and grind out the same missions over and over. The story will be differant and it will be like starting over from scratch. This to me, is the most exciting thing about TOR.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Troneas

progression, as the OP pointed out, is not a pillar. progression is the evolution of the character by means of content, which is hereby represented by "pillars": such as combat, exploration, crafting (not included in bioware's "pillars"), questing (or story-telling as they prefer) and community. As such, progression is not content, but rather the result of content.

in essence then, bioware has three pillars (unless they include progressive crafting); and rather than having "an extra pillar" which they so proudly announce, they are missing two (community and crafting).

 

If you don't progress in any way the game gets boring after a while.

That is the reason I quited Guildwars, great game and played it for a year but my character was more or less stuck at the same place after a few weeks.

Sometime you do need to evolve your character and find some nice loot or the game will just start to get boring, or feel like a FPS game. Don't missunderstan me here, you shouldn't play just to get another level, skill or piece of gear but sometimes you need a reward, sometimes your character needs to change a little bit, learn something new.

I don't actually think this MMO will be great with MMO players, it will instead bring in new players into the genre like Wow did. Wow did get a lot of old Diablo 1&2 players into the genre, this game will get a lot of Bioware players into it.

I like Bioware game so I will most likely love it but others don't. If you 10 years ago hated Baldurs gate and loved Diablo you are most likely not going to like this game, no game is for everyone.

But it is all well and fine, we do need more games that differs from eachother or the genre dies with Wow. If this game is not your cup of tea, the World of darkness online or Guildwars 2 might work for you instead. No need to trash a game because you don't like it's core, just aim for something more to your taste.

i think you missunderstood my reasoning.

i do think progression is important and an essential aspect of mmo's, but including progression with combat, crafting, community etc. is like mixing apples and oranges. therefore, what i argued is that it cannot count as a pillar in the sense bioware claims.

Originally posted by Dameonk

Originally posted by JYCowboy

It sounds to me that a great portion of their resources is building multiple paths for this giant "Chooose your Adventure" book.  I'm sure it will be grand with all the cinematics, VO and unique experiances but at the cost of community building?

 

Unfortunately it seems that the majority of MMO players these days want solo content.  That's the reason WoW succeeded.  It came out at exactly the right time to capitolize on the soloing aspect of the genre.

I don't understand it personally.

But... I am way more excited than I should be about TOR because one thing I always wanted to be able to do in KOTOR was play with friends.

If this game is as good as KOTOR + playing with friends + decent PvP at end-game, I will be happy to pay the $16 a month.

Why do they want solo content? Because they don't want to group with you. Or all the other random people in the world, like FFXI and EQ1 wanted to force you to do. Community building the wrong way. They want to group with their friends, and if they happen to make more friends online, great, but FORCING the group is the most horrible thing a MMO can do to their playerbase. Sure, there is a masochistic fraction who enjoy grouping with random people, with a high likelyhood that there's at least one jerk in the mix, but for the most part, people want to group with people they know, and have fun together. And if they can't group with their friends at that moment, they want to have fun *anyways*.

I can remember the hours spent trying to form groups for the epic quests in EQ1, or whatever. Gotta have a cleric with a brain, gotta have a warrior with a brain, gotta have an enchanter or bard with a brain... and then everyone had to travel (jog) halfway across the world to get to the spot, someone dropped from the group, because it took too long to form, so time to find another person, wait for them....

Oh yeah, that forced grouping stuff is a BLAST.

Any mmo where you are forced to group in order to complete the major of the game won't have me as a player.

Why?  Look at the gaming forums.....these are the ppl I will be forced to group with!  NOPE.

Nuff said.

Originally posted by Troneas

progression, as the OP pointed out, is not a pillar. progression is the evolution of the character by means of content, which is hereby represented by "pillars": such as combat, exploration, crafting (not included in bioware's "pillars"), questing (or story-telling as they prefer) and community. As such, progression is not content, but rather the result of content.

in essence then, bioware has three pillars (unless they include progressive crafting); and rather than having "an extra pillar" which they so proudly announce, they are missing two (community and crafting).

Ehhh, you are using your own definitions, which is fine, but it is just your opinion. Their opinion is different.

I happen to agree with their definitions. Crafting by itself is a *job* not a pillar. It is a task. Something that can also have progression, but it does not move you through the game by itself.

Progression of your character from Joe Newb Jedi to Darth Joe is a pillar of this game. Whether that progression is behind the scenes (unlikely), level based (likely) or skill based (which is just level based with a more complicated cover sheet), doesn't matter. Your character has to progress, or the "RPG" has failed.

WW2 OL has characters which don't "progress" in skills. They are you. You do gain ranks (so there is a form of progression), but they do not change how good you are at the game. They do open up new units to you as you gain them, but your character as a rifleman is just as skilled at Lt Col as you were at Private (barring your own personal skill differences).

And people keep mentioning "Community" as a pillar. By this it seems "I want guild cities and banks and to be able to dominate Tatooine with my clan."

That's the wrong sort of Community for a good game to have in the long run. While I don't mind guild banks, the game should NOT revolve around guilds, especially a star wars game. Guild cities? Ugh, urban blight. SW:G was a great example of what NOT to do.