Originally posted by piotrsan

So the fans of mmorpgs are worried it wont be another "fields of monsters" game with pointless storyline and boring quest grind ? Well theres planty of these around, let the rest of us finally have a game that's not a map filled with monsters and a kill x and y missions like all the primitive "true" mmorpgs.

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by piotrsan

So the fans of mmorpgs are worried it wont be another "fields of monsters" game with pointless storyline and boring quest grind ? Well theres planty of these around, let the rest of us finally have a game that's not a map filled with monsters and a kill x and y missions like all the primitive "true" mmorpgs.

 

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

I take it story, lore and reading bores you=)

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by piotrsan

So the fans of mmorpgs are worried it wont be another "fields of monsters" game with pointless storyline and boring quest grind ? Well theres planty of these around, let the rest of us finally have a game that's not a map filled with monsters and a kill x and y missions like all the primitive "true" mmorpgs.

 

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

You know the reason behind why quests are a grind now ? No its not because they have a story , make sense , affect your environment or future choices, require your attention and their complexity goes beyond kill X rats. Speak for yourself , Ill definitely look forward to those 20 minutes of dialogs and storyline not the kill 10 rats part in a field of monsters. If all you are expecting from an mmorpg is to quickly hit "1" on quest selection screen and run off to kill those 10 rats then we have nothing to argue about, definitely different tastes.

Originally posted by maskedweasel

We will not see any major new innovations in gaming for quite a bit to come.

That sounds like fairly defeatist. Its like you've already decided that there won't be any innovation so you don't even want it anymore.

I think we will see and are seeing a fair amount of innovation, just not in the mainstream gaming. Bioware IS mainstream gaming now and right in the middle of the rut that gaming is in.

There are a ton of indie companies trying new stuff all the time. I'll gladly give up that high end graphics engine and deal with a few bugs to see some innovative gameplay. It doesn't even need to be innovative so much as deep. Add a seamless overworld onto a game like DDO and I'd be in heaven. There are no particular games that I know of in development that have exactly what I am looking for, but its just a matter of time. I can tell already that SWTOR would be nothing more than a filler for me until a deeper game comes along.

I hate it too because I know it will be a great success, then we'll have five more years of mainstream clones that don't do anything new (except adding dozens of hours of crapy dialog) and try their best to copy SWTOR's mechanics with loads of instancing breaking up the playerbase into little bits and cliques.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by piotrsan

So the fans of mmorpgs are worried it wont be another "fields of monsters" game with pointless storyline and boring quest grind ? Well theres planty of these around, let the rest of us finally have a game that's not a map filled with monsters and a kill x and y missions like all the primitive "true" mmorpgs.

 

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

Not every game can be shallow.  This one won't be.  The problem with any type of storyline on MMOs currently is that they're just so boring.  Noone reads them.... and if you try to read them, they punish you with blocky walls of text explaining mostly nothing about how this mission truly effects you.  Not to mention at the end of it all they don't even give you a choice in the matter.. which cuts out progression entirely if you decide not to do them.

In the end its a matter of opinion,  you said you didn't like BioWare games, but its not for lack of innovation, its for lack of enjoying the way they tell stories and use progression.  For you that may be a reason not to play, but for me, its every reason to play

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by Hrayr2148

The gameplay is fun, the characters matter, the dialogue is brilliant, and the story is immersive.  What else would you ever want from an mmo?

Its an interesting set of things to like in an MMOG. Aren't the 'characters' supposed to be your friends and guildmates? Isn't the 'dialog' supposed to be what happens in chat and vent? Isn't the story supposed to be YOUR story instead of one that was carefully scripted for your class? Aren't those the things that a MMOG is really about?

You're confusing a lot of terms.  There's the dialogue you have in the game as it applies to quest lines, npc's, and cut scenes, and there's the dialogue you have when talking to your friends.   You chatting with friends on vent has nothing to do with the "quality of the dialogue" programmed into the game.  For me, this matters because it adds to the immersion.  If something is written and spoken well, It improves the overall quality of the game.  I'm currently playing Mass Effect 2 and the dialogue/writing is superb. 

In terms of story, again, I feel you're playing with the words I used rather than addressing exactly what I was referring to.  There's a difference between the STORY in the game versus your EXPERIENCES with friends while playing the game.   Most MMO's just have you do things without a fully fleshed out reason, history, and relevance.  If the story in Star Wars is deep and rich, then everything else you do in the game will be more meaningful and enjoyable. 

And also, in terms of what an MMO is about, that's purely subjective.  This reminds me of a quote from the Big Lebowski.  The Dude walks into the room where Mr. Lebowski is lamenting of the potential loss of his tramp wife.  Mr. Lebowski says... "What makes a man?  Is it doing the right thing no matter what the costs." ( or to that effect).  The Dude replies, "... that and a pair of testicles."

An MMO is nothing more than a "computer role-playing games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world." (Definition from Wikipedia).

So the objective definition of MMORPG is clearly met in SWTOR.  If the company chooses to incorporate deep story, meaningful choices, rich dialogue.. which all contribute to an immersive experience... then there's nothing more than I could hope for.

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by piotrsan

So the fans of mmorpgs are worried it wont be another "fields of monsters" game with pointless storyline and boring quest grind ? Well theres planty of these around, let the rest of us finally have a game that's not a map filled with monsters and a kill x and y missions like all the primitive "true" mmorpgs.

 

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

I take it story, lore and reading bores you=)

LOL the irony is killing me! The #1 thing SWTOR is doing is providing a way to NOT read and instead you get to spend hours listening to someone else read for you. I would prefer to just read it myself, at my own pace, like I do every day when I read books.

Any time they add speech to a game the first thing people ask for is a way to skip it. That isn't necessarily because they don't want to have a story, its because having someone read to you is slow and boring when you can read it yourself in 1/10 the time. Bioware games have always felt designed to force the player to actually sit and listen to ALL of it. The 'skip dialog' option in DA felt tacked on and discouraged compared to other games that have speech. Its pretty clear that Bioware is expecting you to spend a LOT of time listening to someone read to you. That is boring to me. I read books and read them pretty quickly after all these years of reading books. Most of them have better stories than Bioware has produced.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by maskedweasel

We will not see any major new innovations in gaming for quite a bit to come.

 

That sounds like fairly defeatist. Its like you've already decided that there won't be any innovation so you don't even want it anymore.

I think we will see and are seeing a fair amount of innovation, just not in the mainstream gaming. Bioware IS mainstream gaming now and right in the middle of the rut that gaming is in.

There are a ton of indie companies trying new stuff all the time. I'll gladly give up that high end graphics engine and deal with a few bugs to see some innovative gameplay. It doesn't even need to be innovative so much as deep. Add a seamless overworld onto a game like DDO and I'd be in heaven. There are no particular games that I know of in development that have exactly what I am looking for, but its just a matter of time. I can tell already that SWTOR would be nothing more than a filler for me until a deeper game comes along.

I hate it too because I know it will be a great success, then we'll have five more years of mainstream clones that don't do anything new (except adding dozens of hours of crapy dialog) and try their best to copy SWTOR's mechanics with loads of instancing breaking up the playerbase into little bits and cliques.

I don't think you understand, there is no innovation... anything that will be done has already been thought of before. A seamless overworld in a game like DDO... thats not innovative..   putting them together in one isn't innovative either.  No indie company is creating anything that is genre changing.  The only thing innovative now is just hybridizing the genre.  What bioware is doing has never been seen to this extent in this genre... but it doesn't make it innovative.. it just makes it a good idea.  DDO combat in an open world.. thats not innovative, thats just putting two things together that already exist into something that suits your tastes.

Make an MMO where rockbands run around and play music to eachother in online combat in an openworld with jetpacks and a  motion capture system... none of it is innovative.  Its just applying different systems to different situations.

That doesn't mean I don't want to see innovation, but nothing you've said makes me feel like what you want is innovative either...

Originally posted by Lobotomist

I mean sure they can write wicked good story.

But will the STORY be the reason you are playing SWTOR ?

Is the story reason you are playing MMO ?

Than why play online game at all ?

 

I played MMORPGs for the coop hack-n-slash (i.e. dungeon crawls & fights). However, I am willing to give TOR a chance to see if they can make a coop story good.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by piotrsan

So the fans of mmorpgs are worried it wont be another "fields of monsters" game with pointless storyline and boring quest grind ? Well theres planty of these around, let the rest of us finally have a game that's not a map filled with monsters and a kill x and y missions like all the primitive "true" mmorpgs.

 

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

I take it story, lore and reading bores you=)

 

LOL the irony is killing me! The #1 thing SWTOR is doing is providing a way to NOT read and instead you get to spend hours listening to someone else read for you. I would prefer to just read it myself, at my own pace, like I do every day when I read books.

Any time they add speech to a game the first thing people ask for is a way to skip it. That isn't necessarily because they don't want to have a story, its because having someone read to you is slow and boring when you can read it yourself in 1/10 the time. Bioware games have always felt designed to force the player to actually sit and listen to ALL of it. The 'skip dialog' option in DA felt tacked on and discouraged compared to other games that have speech. Its pretty clear that Bioware is expecting you to spend a LOT of time listening to someone read to you. That is boring to me. I read books and read them pretty quickly after all these years of reading books. Most of them have better stories than Bioware has produced.

You can read it at your own pace.. you can click through all bioware dialog in all of their games that I've played if you prefer to not listen to them talk.  I've played through KoToR 1 a few times now, (and currently playing through it again) and I click through a lot of whats going on because I can read faster then they can talk, and I know the story pretty well by now.  

The thing is, is they make the dialog in a story fashion because some people are actually interested in it.... YOU may not be, but that doesn't mean everyone isn't.  When I first played through KoToR I listened to all of the dialog. I did so because it conveyed how the players felt and thought, and the alien languages added immersion to the gameplay.  Being able to skip it is good.. and kind of invalidates your point that the game couldn't be beneficial to those that don't want to sit and listen to the story.

Its not all about what they're saying, its about your reaction and the choices you make.  If thats not the kind of game that interests you then this obviously wouldn't be your kind of game.. whether you could skip the voiceovers or not.

Originally posted by maskedweasel

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by piotrsan

So the fans of mmorpgs are worried it wont be another "fields of monsters" game with pointless storyline and boring quest grind ? Well theres planty of these around, let the rest of us finally have a game that's not a map filled with monsters and a kill x and y missions like all the primitive "true" mmorpgs.

 

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

I take it story, lore and reading bores you=)

 

LOL the irony is killing me! The #1 thing SWTOR is doing is providing a way to NOT read and instead you get to spend hours listening to someone else read for you. I would prefer to just read it myself, at my own pace, like I do every day when I read books.

Any time they add speech to a game the first thing people ask for is a way to skip it. That isn't necessarily because they don't want to have a story, its because having someone read to you is slow and boring when you can read it yourself in 1/10 the time. Bioware games have always felt designed to force the player to actually sit and listen to ALL of it. The 'skip dialog' option in DA felt tacked on and discouraged compared to other games that have speech. Its pretty clear that Bioware is expecting you to spend a LOT of time listening to someone read to you. That is boring to me. I read books and read them pretty quickly after all these years of reading books. Most of them have better stories than Bioware has produced.

 

You can read it at your own pace.. you can click through all bioware dialog in all of their games that I've played if you prefer to not listen to them talk.  I've played through KoToR 1 a few times now, (and currently playing through it again) and I click through a lot of whats going on because I can read faster then they can talk, and I know the story pretty well by now.  

 

The thing is, is they make the dialog in a story fashion because some people are actually interested in it.... YOU may not be, but that doesn't mean everyone isn't.  When I first played through KoToR I listened to all of the dialog. I did so because it conveyed how the players felt and thought, and the alien languages added immersion to the gameplay.  Being able to skip it is good.. and kind of invalidates your point that the game couldn't be beneficial to those that don't want to sit and listen to the story.

 

Its not all about what they're saying, its about your reaction and the choices you make.  If thats not the kind of game that interests you then this obviously wouldn't be your kind of game.. whether you could skip the voiceovers or not.

Lore in MMO's doesn't interest me. Why? Because it's meaningless.

Go kill 10 rats because....

Why do I care what comes after because? It changes nothing in the game.

However, in SWOTOR they have multiplayer dialog. How you answer determines what your mission will be based on a majority vote.

That might actually be fun.

Bio ware going with EA is kind of sad but im an ex wow raider and ive played allot of bio ware games and well i think swtor will bring wow down. I think it has a good shot going up against  catacalysm and as long as there will be pve endgame content which is what bio ware does best il be pre ordering the biggest collecters edition of swtor i can find.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Lobotomist

It will give good fun to average MMO player for month or two. Until they reach end of storyline.

Each storyline is, (last I read), supposed to be "hundreds of hours".

TOR has 8 classes, each with unique storylines.

There's also the moral choices to consider; each class storyline offers branching content based on whether the player makes light-side or dark-side choices, further increasing the replay value.

Given an average hour-per-week of 22 and a low-end estimate (assuming that the "hundreds of hours" quote is accurate) of 200 hours per storyline, that's ~9 weeks to complete each storyline, and ~144 weeks to complete all class storylines and explore all light/dark choices.

That's a minimum of 2 and a half years worth of Bioware RPG content, before one even looks at traditional MMO staples such as PvP, RvR, crafting, RP and updates/expansions.

I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Intelligent well crafted and thought out posts like this are what fuel my hope for the future of MMORPG communities.

I am looking forward to it as well my friend.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by piotrsan

So the fans of mmorpgs are worried it wont be another "fields of monsters" game with pointless storyline and boring quest grind ? Well theres planty of these around, let the rest of us finally have a game that's not a map filled with monsters and a kill x and y missions like all the primitive "true" mmorpgs.

 

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

God I love over dramatization.......excellent...heheh...got drama?

Originally posted by Lobotomist

with random encounter of archer bandits being more challenging than end game archdemon.

 

Haha, yeah. In the updates archer hordes just got nasty.

Originally posted by lttexxan

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Lobotomist

It will give good fun to average MMO player for month or two. Until they reach end of storyline.

Each storyline is, (last I read), supposed to be "hundreds of hours".

TOR has 8 classes, each with unique storylines.

There's also the moral choices to consider; each class storyline offers branching content based on whether the player makes light-side or dark-side choices, further increasing the replay value.

Given an average hour-per-week of 22 and a low-end estimate (assuming that the "hundreds of hours" quote is accurate) of 200 hours per storyline, that's ~9 weeks to complete each storyline, and ~144 weeks to complete all class storylines and explore all light/dark choices.

That's a minimum of 2 and a half years worth of Bioware RPG content, before one even looks at traditional MMO staples such as PvP, RvR, crafting, RP and updates/expansions.

I'm certainly looking forward to it.

 

Intelligent well crafted and thought out posts like this are what fuel my hope for the future of MMORPG communities.

I am looking forward to it as well my friend.

I don't believe in the "storyline" behind mmorpg's. The success of an mmorpg lays beyond this.

In a good mmo players create their own adventures and stories and the world is just a stage setting.

Some examples: down a boss against all odds, win a PvP fight unexpectedly, find something after searching - working for it for years on end.

Putting the individual storyline in an mmorpg is the worst you could do.

People are not playing MMO's for the story telling, they are playing them to advance their avatars... and have individual goals.

The more goals and options to arrive at those goals, the better the mmorpg.

Fixed storylines (no matter the different outcomes) limit these goals and options in mmo's.

People will only play them marginally longer than off line RPG's: 2 to 3 months max.

Originally posted by lttexxan

Originally posted by Aganazer

 

If you think quests are a grind now just wait until each quest comes with 20 minutes of dialog to sit through. You won't just be killing those 10 womp-rats, you'll also have to listen to Jabo-One explain to you about a womp-rat's mating rituals for 15 minutes before you can even start. You'll be dying to get to that 'field of monsters' after sitting through a few hours of pressing '1' every 30 seconds to continue the dialog.

God I love over dramatization.......excellent...heheh...got drama?

I agree with the above. Players these days play to create their own goals and achievements.

AoC already proved that players just "skip - skip - skip - skip" through long dialogues in today's mmorpg's. Quests with12 lines of text is already far too long to read through.

I am quite convinced a CoD type MMORPG which targets missions and which advances its avatars against a "world at war" setting will be far more succesful than wading through pages and pages of spoken text of why someone should down 10 rats in a sewer.

You "listen" to these quests once or twice and the moment you are on your 10th quest you just skip the pop-ups and move on.

It is the mission that counts and that gives the gaming pleasure, not the spoken text of an NPC.

I don't believe in the "storyline" behind mmorpg's. The success of an mmorpg lays beyond this.

In a good mmo players create their own adventures and stories and the world is just a stage setting.

Some examples: down a boss against all odds, win a PvP fight unexpectedly, find something after searching - working for it for years on end.

Putting the individual storyline in an mmorpg is the worst you could do.

People are not playing MMO's for the story telling, they are playing them to advance their avatars... and have individual goals.

The more goals and options to arrive at those goals, the better the mmorpg.

Fixed storylines (no matter the different outcomes) limit these goals and options in mmo's.

People will only play them marginally longer than off line RPG's: 2 to 3 months max.

 

Why in the world would you think that SWTOR won't have the things you mentioned AND a good story to go along with it.  In fact, from what we know, SWTOR WILL HAVE EXACTLY what you listed.

I actually find myself enjoying the quest dialog in Fallen Earth.  The stories are interesting and well written; generally well thought out for the world.  I remember finding that man in sector 1 who was pumping out zombie clones of his dead wife or somesuch... that was cool.  ;)

Aion's quest dialog bored me to tears.  Warhammer Online has some pretty cool quest dialog for those who actually PvE there.  From what I have seen of Star Trek Online's quest dialog it's...  meh is about the best I can say so far.  Admittedly, I haven't gotten very far into the game.  The missions remind me a lot of the City of Heroes style missions though, of constant running around to kill the next Bad Guy Base (usually Borg) with little to mix it up.  Maybe time will tell and they'll add more interesting dialog as the game grows, but considering a small indie company like Icarus was able to create a really compelling storyline in Fallen Earth, I find it difficult to believe that Cryptic paid much attention to the story and potential of the IP overall since right now there isn't much "depth" to the stories.

It's all subjective, of course.  This is one man's opinion.

to the OP,

DAMN I HOPE SO...