Originally posted by Elikal

"...if your group leader decides to kill the Captain although you’ve argued against it in the dialogue, instead of getting darkside points for killing him, you get instead, lightside points for arguing against it. “The puppy is still dead,” said James to much laughter. “But you don’t take the fall for it."

 

THIS will be the main reason why people will NOT group. Just saying. Points or not. We know decisions bite back, even when you dont get bad points, we know the game memorizes decisions. Its still a huge chance for grief and pain, whateveryasay.

 

 Apparently you didn't actually watch the video for this.  These choices won't come back to bite you.  THESE particular choices are the "dungeon" runs, which can be repeated as many times as you like for whatever reasons you want, be it to see a different outcome of the "dungeon", more loot, etc.  These choices that are made in the dungeon won't have a lasting effect on your character's overall choices/path.  It's the other aspects of the game that will bite;   World Arcs, and Main story line.  And other people in your groups for the World Arcs will see your past creeping back up on you if you happen to have had an encounter with whatever area you're in.

So people will want to still group, at least I know I will, because re-running the "dungeons" won't be AS repetitive as, say WoW, which are EXACTLY the same everytime.  At least with this, it can be one of a few different outcomes, so that, at least is a refreshing take on dungeon grinding for me.

Originally posted by Lanthir

James was careful to let us know though, that darkside / lightside points will only be accumulated based on your personal choices. Which is to say, if your group leader decides to kill the Captain although you’ve argued against it in the dialogue, instead of getting darkside points for killing him, you get instead, lightside points for arguing against it. “The puppy is still dead,” said James to much laughter. “But you don’t take the fall for it.”

 

This is one of the reasons I love bioware and look forward to this game.  It should limit the amount of sith warrios grouping with jedi knights in groups.  Each faction can't group with eachother so this won't be an issue.  Infact I can see "guilds" limiting thier memberships to certian "factions."  It wil really help bring back the RPG in the MMORPG.   I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.  The game is going to make people connect with their character in a much more organic way than WoW.

 

Man, 2 fantastic info reveals at Comic-Con this year! I wish I coulda been there, my friend sat in the panel discussion and said it was awesome.

With so much gameplay possible, so much story - and they've thought through potential repercussions of their mechanics - this game really is shaping up to be an insane game. Add this to space combat, amazing potential. I've been on the SWTOR forums since Oct 08, and I'm still eagerly anticipating this game.

2 Things that do worry me still:

1) “You can be as evil as a Jedi, or as good as a Sith as you like,” Alex reminded the audience, “But you cannot really switch factions. You never cross over.” -- I understand the rationale for this, however, this could prove too limiting for people's desire for storying ONE single character. This basically makes you reroll completely if you want to switch sides - but some people have a real loyalty to their 1st char and want to just keep the continuity of that char up. Additionally, I'm sure that the Sith Empire would welcome in Dark Jedi into their ranks, and the Republic might be tempted to work with spies/converts from the Sith. I could see this being changed in an expansion.

2) "Light saber restrictions are for gameplay reasons, to make the classes visually recognizable, so the Jedi Counselor, for example, will be restricted to a single light saber or pole only." -- BAD FORM PETER. This is a horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE decision, and Bioware will realize it after enough QQing from all the players who want to be a certain class with a different lightsaber style. Come on now, this seems like a very noob mistake.

Originally posted by solocrono

Originally posted by Lanthir

James was careful to let us know though, that darkside / lightside points will only be accumulated based on your personal choices. Which is to say, if your group leader decides to kill the Captain although you’ve argued against it in the dialogue, instead of getting darkside points for killing him, you get instead, lightside points for arguing against it. “The puppy is still dead,” said James to much laughter. “But you don’t take the fall for it.”

 

This is one of the reasons I love bioware and look forward to this game.  It should limit the amount of sith warrios grouping with jedi knights in groups.  Each faction can't group with eachother so this won't be an issue.  Infact I can see "guilds" limiting thier memberships to certian "factions."  It wil really help bring back the RPG in the MMORPG.   I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.  The game is going to make people connect with their character in a much more organic way than WoW.

Well maybe sith and jedi grouping was and over simplifaction.  I do think people will be a bit more carefull about who they do group with  as someone psuhign towards max light would not necessarily want to be grouped with those trying to get as close to the edge of light and dark. 

Originally posted by knyghttearer

Originally posted by cyphers

Originally posted by Lobotomist

10 times Kotor ?! But thats nothing for a MMO.

Dedicated player can finish kotor in 2-3 days. And i mean do every damn thing there is to do in KOTOR.

So it means you can rip TOR in 30 days of semi-hc playing ?

Each class story amounts up to 200 hours of gameplay, so in total 800 hrs of class story for each side, 1600 hrs of fully unique class story content.

That is only the class story content: then added to that you have the World quests that everyone can do, the world arcs that are about the larger conflict, the exploration of the gigantic worlds that's being encouraged, the space combat, and that's only the things they have talked about, there's a lot they haven't talked about.

 

So I gather there will be enough to do. But gl trying to 'finish' SW:TOR and do everything there is to do within 30 days.

if someone's life is so pathetically empty that all they have is trying to blow through a game with 1600 hours plus of content in as short amount of time as possible, i think they have more important issues to deal with, then worry about any video game ....

 

Learn to read

I commented on previous comment that claims TOR is x10 bigger than KOTOR

Kotor was 30 hours gameplay. That puts TOR at only 300 hours gameplay. Judging from the comment i was talking about.

Alas LEARN HOW TO READ

Originally posted by Lobotomist

10 times Kotor ?! But thats nothing for a MMO.

Dedicated player can finish kotor in 2-3 days. And i mean do every damn thing there is to do in KOTOR.

So it means you can rip TOR in 30 days of semi-hc playing ?

 no , you ( word here) . It means they have way more content than they can think of.  They can't even tell you how many quests are in the game. When somebody says 10 times, it isn't meant to be taken literally, unless of course you are a person that doesn't understand that it is a figure of speech.  They could have said 100 times more content, it is all the same.  Surprised people are this dense and reading way too much into this thing.

Originally posted by Elikal

"...if your group leader decides to kill the Captain although you’ve argued against it in the dialogue, instead of getting darkside points for killing him, you get instead, lightside points for arguing against it. “The puppy is still dead,” said James to much laughter. “But you don’t take the fall for it."

 

THIS will be the main reason why people will NOT group. Just saying. Points or not. We know decisions bite back, even when you dont get bad points, we know the game memorizes decisions. Its still a huge chance for grief and pain, whateveryasay.

 Are you reading that correctly I didn't see anything in that post you quote that will make someone not group as a matter of fact it seems to alleviate more concerns than raising any if the group leader wants to be evil and you don't your actions decide how you are viewed what in being responsible only for your own choices is going to make people not want to group?

“You can be as evil as a Jedi, or as good as a Sith as you like,” Alex reminded the audience, “But you cannot really switch factions. You never cross over.”

And there's my issue with this game in a nutshell. Part of the joy of KOTOR (and in fact pretty much all Biowar RPGS) is you could make yourself to be whatever you wanted. You could be good or evil. You could customize your skills to make your character play how you wanted them. You could ally yourself with whatever side you want.

So far ToR is telling us we're faction locked and have no chance to change, What if my Sith warrior wants to redeem himself, or my COnsular is driven down a path of vengeance that can only end in turning to the Dark Side? What if my merc wants to sell out to the highest bidder, or my Smuggler wants to switch sides as payback for some slight? They can't. Too bad. Oh, and let's not forget what so fat looks like a very limited talent system and holy-trintity based combat.

I'm disappointed Bioware. I know you can do better.

Originally posted by surfsk8snow

Man, 2 fantastic info reveals at Comic-Con this year! I wish I coulda been there, my friend sat in the panel discussion and said it was awesome.

With so much gameplay possible, so much story - and they've thought through potential repercussions of their mechanics - this game really is shaping up to be an insane game. Add this to space combat, amazing potential. I've been on the SWTOR forums since Oct 08, and I'm still eagerly anticipating this game.

2 Things that do worry me still:

1) “You can be as evil as a Jedi, or as good as a Sith as you like,” Alex reminded the audience, “But you cannot really switch factions. You never cross over.” -- I understand the rationale for this, however, this could prove too limiting for people's desire for storying ONE single character. This basically makes you reroll completely if you want to switch sides - but some people have a real loyalty to their 1st char and want to just keep the continuity of that char up. Additionally, I'm sure that the Sith Empire would welcome in Dark Jedi into their ranks, and the Republic might be tempted to work with spies/converts from the Sith. I could see this being changed in an expansion.

2) "Light saber restrictions are for gameplay reasons, to make the classes visually recognizable, so the Jedi Counselor, for example, will be restricted to a single light saber or pole only." -- BAD FORM PETER. This is a horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE decision, and Bioware will realize it after enough QQing from all the players who want to be a certain class with a different lightsaber style. Come on now, this seems like a very noob mistake.

 Wholeheartedly disagree with your second point which is much the same as the poster above.  For one this is nothing new (unless you guys are basing your mmo experience on SWG) there simply are not alot of games that allow you to switch factions whenever you feel like it so I wonder why there seems to be such surprise at this decision.  And I think the last poster is the one who mentioned players getting attached to their characters and getting to be anything you wanted etc.  I honestly have missed some of Biowares newer games like Dragon Age (just haven't installed it) and Mass Effect (only played mmo's around it's release) but other than that you cannot chose to be who you want in Bioware games KOTOR yes you could chose evil actions but that didn't change the story line or the fact that your character was a jedi maybe a falling one but a jedi none the less, same with Baldurs gate yes you could be evil as you wanted but it didn't change a players faction as in opening up entirely new possiblities unaivalable at your last alignment.

Terrant not sure if you are an original SWG player but you are really pushing a wrong sounding agenda with your post as I stated most Bioware games didn't even change with your choice because you used the more evil companions and made the evil decisions didn't change the gameplay of KOTOR at all again maybe the last few games they made did this but the gameplay you seem to be describing simply has not been a part of Bioware or any mmo ever with the exception of SWG, which actually from where I stand was a bad idea there was so much faction switching and screwing people over it wasn't even funny.

Originally posted by jaxsundane

 Wholeheartedly disagree with your second point which is much the same as the poster above.  For one this is nothing new (unless you guys are basing your mmo experience on SWG) there simply are not alot of games that allow you to switch factions whenever you feel like it so I wonder why there seems to be such surprise at this decision.  And I think the last poster is the one who mentioned players getting attached to their characters and getting to be anything you wanted etc.  I honestly have missed some of Biowares newer games like Dragon Age (just haven't installed it) and Mass Effect (only played mmo's around it's release) but other than that you cannot chose to be who you want in Bioware games KOTOR yes you could chose evil actions but that didn't change the story line or the fact that your character was a jedi maybe a falling one but a jedi none the less, same with Baldurs gate yes you could be evil as you wanted but it didn't change a players faction as in opening up entirely new possiblities unaivalable at your last alignment.

 

People are surprised because it's Bioware, who all-but-invented the idea of the Open World "sandbox" RPG. And one of my fave MMOs ever, the original EQ< allowed you to switch factions. It's something I've missed for years now, since games like WoW have us all stuck in 2-3 stagnant faction contests.

Originally posted by terrant

“You can be as evil as a Jedi, or as good as a Sith as you like,” Alex reminded the audience, “But you cannot really switch factions. You never cross over.”

 

 

And there's my issue with this game in a nutshell. Part of the joy of KOTOR (and in fact pretty much all Biowar RPGS) is you could make yourself to be whatever you wanted. You could be good or evil. You could customize your skills to make your character play how you wanted them. You could ally yourself with whatever side you want.

 

So far ToR is telling us we're faction locked and have no chance to change, What if my Sith warrior wants to redeem himself, or my COnsular is driven down a path of vengeance that can only end in turning to the Dark Side? What if my merc wants to sell out to the highest bidder, or my Smuggler wants to switch sides as payback for some slight? They can't. Too bad. Oh, and let's not forget what so fat looks like a very limited talent system and holy-trintity based combat.

 

I'm disappointed Bioware. I know you can do better.

I don't get some of you people.

How many Horde players could defect to Alliance, or Alliance players defect to Horde? How many Asmodians can switch to Elyos side in Aion? Or in DAoC or Planetside switch to one of the other factions?

All MMO's where you're faction locked too.

What the Bioware devs made clear was that you still have freedom in your morality choices, only that you're stuck with the faction that you chose.

For all of STOR's potential issues not being able to switch faction is not one of them. This is a MMO, where you fight other players, you can't just switch sides because fo a story option.

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by jaxsundane

 Wholeheartedly disagree with your second point which is much the same as the poster above.  For one this is nothing new (unless you guys are basing your mmo experience on SWG) there simply are not alot of games that allow you to switch factions whenever you feel like it so I wonder why there seems to be such surprise at this decision.  And I think the last poster is the one who mentioned players getting attached to their characters and getting to be anything you wanted etc.  I honestly have missed some of Biowares newer games like Dragon Age (just haven't installed it) and Mass Effect (only played mmo's around it's release) but other than that you cannot chose to be who you want in Bioware games KOTOR yes you could chose evil actions but that didn't change the story line or the fact that your character was a jedi maybe a falling one but a jedi none the less, same with Baldurs gate yes you could be evil as you wanted but it didn't change a players faction as in opening up entirely new possiblities unaivalable at your last alignment.

 

 

People are surprised because it's Bioware, who all-but-invented the idea of the Open World "sandbox" RPG. And one of my fave MMOs ever, the original EQ< allowed you to switch factions. It's something I've missed for years now, since games like WoW have us all stuck in 2-3 stagnant faction contests.

 I still challenge the assertion that switching alignments/factions is a Bioware staple since when?  The last three games they made which are the ones I haven't played but they are all within the last five years I'd say not much of a staple if that's the case.  So because EQ1 did this we are holding Bioware to that standard?  I'm just not buying it out of one hundred percent of the games created with factional content maybe two percent allow a player to change factions so to me this is just looking for something to complain about.  And WOW weren't first etc to do this it's been that way for quite some time and as a former SWG player (no suprise EQ1 and SWG made by SOE) I am glad they are not allowing people the chance to switch factions with the same toon it creates a whole crap load of drama I'd rather avoid internet gamers are fickle enough without giving them the opportunity to screw up the game play for hundreds of other players.

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by jaxsundane

 Wholeheartedly disagree with your second point which is much the same as the poster above.  For one this is nothing new (unless you guys are basing your mmo experience on SWG) there simply are not alot of games that allow you to switch factions whenever you feel like it so I wonder why there seems to be such surprise at this decision.  And I think the last poster is the one who mentioned players getting attached to their characters and getting to be anything you wanted etc.  I honestly have missed some of Biowares newer games like Dragon Age (just haven't installed it) and Mass Effect (only played mmo's around it's release) but other than that you cannot chose to be who you want in Bioware games KOTOR yes you could chose evil actions but that didn't change the story line or the fact that your character was a jedi maybe a falling one but a jedi none the less, same with Baldurs gate yes you could be evil as you wanted but it didn't change a players faction as in opening up entirely new possiblities unaivalable at your last alignment.

 

 

People are surprised because it's Bioware, who all-but-invented the idea of the Open World "sandbox" RPG. And one of my fave MMOs ever, the original EQ< allowed you to switch factions. It's something I've missed for years now, since games like WoW have us all stuck in 2-3 stagnant faction contests.

 switching factions or changing classes will cause you to miss out on the story. They don't want that, and really it's not the best thing in a game to be able to do.  Seems like people want to be able to do whatever they want and if there is something they don't like they complain about it instead of except it for what it is. Bioware has a reason not to allow this, they made the game they want you to experience every aspect to the fullest. You will not like everything, but this is the game they have invisioned. They probably will not change it. I hope they do not.  When you listen to a select few people on the forums , alot of times you get mixed ideas and mixed feelings, and sometimes you get people that don't even like the game and hoping it fails and just want to complain for the sake of complaining.

I would like to add that SOE caves in way too easily to the trolls on the forums. They wanted everything easy mode and now that is what they got.  Perhaps they are trying to make up for the NGE disaster, but I think that was also started by a few trolls on the forums crying about the game mechanics.

Originally posted by cyphers

Originally posted by Lobotomist

10 times Kotor ?! But thats nothing for a MMO.

Dedicated player can finish kotor in 2-3 days. And i mean do every damn thing there is to do in KOTOR.

So it means you can rip TOR in 30 days of semi-hc playing ?

Each class story amounts up to 200 hours of gameplay, so in total 800 hrs of class story for each side, 1600 hrs of fully unique class story content.

That is only the class story content: then added to that you have the World quests that everyone can do, the world arcs that are about the larger conflict, the exploration of the gigantic worlds that's being encouraged, the space combat, and that's only the things they have talked about, there's a lot they haven't talked about.

 

So I gather there will be enough to do. But gl trying to 'finish' SW:TOR and do everything there is to do within 30 days.

There is some massive inconsistencies here. There is no way in hell a Bioware game is any were even close to 200 hours and they have only described the class stories to be a bit bigger than a normal bioware game that not 100-150 hours bigger. Either that is refering to completing the world arcs and maybe world quests as well or there are some large differences to that statement than what they're currently saying.

Now lets assume that 100 hours of that is class story and 100 hours is world quests/arc which seems most to be true. That means since world quests/arcs are shared by faction there would only be about 1000 hours gameplay. That in itself means absolutely nothing at all since we have no idea if that 100 hours completely world arcs, or world arcs and some world quests or every single possible world quest/arc in the game which a very very small amount of people will even bother to complete.

They're vague advertising numbers from the developers. Even more specific information should be taken with a grain of salt since it's express purpose is to show the game in the most positive light possible.

Numbers like that could be generated in any number of ways and still technically be true. Come on people analyse the numbers before you quote them as anything close to fact.

Originally posted by terrant

“You can be as evil as a Jedi, or as good as a Sith as you like,” Alex reminded the audience, “But you cannot really switch factions. You never cross over.”

 

 

And there's my issue with this game in a nutshell. Part of the joy of KOTOR (and in fact pretty much all Biowar RPGS) is you could make yourself to be whatever you wanted. You could be good or evil. You could customize your skills to make your character play how you wanted them. You could ally yourself with whatever side you want.

 

So far ToR is telling us we're faction locked and have no chance to change, What if my Sith warrior wants to redeem himself, or my COnsular is driven down a path of vengeance that can only end in turning to the Dark Side? What if my merc wants to sell out to the highest bidder, or my Smuggler wants to switch sides as payback for some slight? They can't. Too bad. Oh, and let's not forget what so fat looks like a very limited talent system and holy-trintity based combat.

 

I'm disappointed Bioware. I know you can do better.

But you can have an evil character or a good character within your faction.

At some point, you the player, has to make a decision and go with it. You then have choice within that original choice and it seems that you can move back and forth within that faction.

Otherwise, as they stated, it starts becoming ridiculous. Every time a developer or writer adds a fork in the road it then creates more things that need to be tracked. At what point do they create a roof that the foundations, the walls, can't support?

Just pick a side that feels right and move within that side. If you think about it, you might have more choice within the parameters of your side than most games.

I don't recall one being more "evil or good" in any mmo. At least where the game world recognizes it. Of course in games like Dark Fall or Lineage 2 or "insert your ffa pvp game here" your actions iterate throughout the world.

Originally posted by Ripclaw

Originally posted by Elikal

"...if your group leader decides to kill the Captain although you’ve argued against it in the dialogue, instead of getting darkside points for killing him, you get instead, lightside points for arguing against it. “The puppy is still dead,” said James to much laughter. “But you don’t take the fall for it."

 

THIS will be the main reason why people will NOT group. Just saying. Points or not. We know decisions bite back, even when you dont get bad points, we know the game memorizes decisions. Its still a huge chance for grief and pain, whateveryasay.

 

LOL, well me personally, that is one of the exact reasons I WILL be grouping up with others. I for one love and welcome the idea of unpredictible story turn out for my characters.

 

 Ditto my friend.  This concept is awesome and will cause me to create at least three toons, one light, one dark, and one that will randomly go through the game based on the individual events as they unfold.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

10 times Kotor ?! But thats nothing for a MMO.

Dedicated player can finish kotor in 2-3 days. And i mean do every damn thing there is to do in KOTOR.

So it means you can rip TOR in 30 days of semi-hc playing ?

Dude, you are seriously running out of ways to troll this game. Now that there is space combat  1600 hours of class quests, world quests, pvp, raiding, crafting, repeatable flashpoints, compainions that you can level and equip, etc.

After just reading his comments on it being 10 times longer than KoTOR for the class quests alone your latest attempt sounds feeble and week. Are you out of material troll?

lol this is gonna be so good! =D