Simply because it is not meaningless grind other mmo developers have been shoveling out for the past 10 years. Years ago mindless grind was the thing to do because it was new and obviously many were not tired of it. Now we have Bioware showing us that we can still have a good mmo experience without the mindless grind. Content in The Old Republic will have a meaning behind what things we are asked to do in the game. I just don't see how many players would still rather want to do the old way of doing things. I'm bored of the old way and I look forward to the better way of doing things Bioware has made for us.

Now this game will have meaning because of what? Story?

I agree with you OP. It is not just the story, but the story in the grand scale of an MMO. Stories that are both personal and shared in an MMO format. So nothing will be missing from the themepark design, but a lot will be added for the jeorney. I am looking forward to it, but many here will not agree with you.

Whoa, hold on the game is not out yet. Its abit to early to say that "Bioware has showed us bla bla" Not yet they havent.

Story-driven content is nice and dandy but it leaves the playerbase to be somewhat like spectators. I like player-driven stories.. the ones you see in EVE, Darkfall, old SWG, etc. Story-driven isn't new, it's just BioWare's fortee in their previous titles. To me at least, MMOs are meant to be worlds you take part in, that you yourself change. That the players are something more than just pawns of the developers, but are themselves pioneers of a new world.

To each their own, but multiplayer RPGs are not what I am after. I am for MMOGs..

The story is one of the reasons why I look forward to trying this game, in alot of other mmo's the grind to end-game became tiresome and boring and more of a race to hit cap than anything. Actually being able to enjoy the road to cap would be nice, wether Bioware pulled this off in SWTOR, thinking of the multiplayer aspect and so forth is yet to be seen.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

Simply because it is not meaningless grind other mmo developers have been shoveling out for the past 10 years. Years ago mindless grind was the thing to do because it was new and obviously many were not tired of it. Now we have Bioware showing us that we can still have a good mmo experience without the mindless grind. Content in The Old Republic will have a meaning behind what things we are asked to do in the game. I just don't see how many players would still rather want to do the old way of doing things. I'm bored of the old way and I look forward to the better way of doing things Bioware has made for us.

And yet, the storylines will be spoiled for those of us not in the blessed parts of the world that are getting the game at release (the entire southern hemispher misses out and large parts of europe have been left out, which is about 49% of the registered community on www.swtor.com).

Since there is currenlty not even a plan to provide the game in those regions there will most likely be spoilers all over the internet long before we get access to the game. So they better hope the game does not hang all its success on story.

I think I've played ALL of Bioware's games (Jade Empire is also a title that went unrecognized and deserves a sequel).

Bioware does an amazing job with telling stories and also at game design as well.

I don't want to sound like a stinker but here it is...

Story isn't EVERYTHING. It will help the game a lot but a true RPG experience is in the freedom of experience and experimentation. Some of the best aspects of role playing is telling or creating the story yourself. True brilliance is providing the player with enough tools in their world (sandbox) to allow players to shape their unique experience. The story of course helps the content and experience move along, but relying on story to make this title a win spells epic  F-A-I-L. Tor will need more than story to make this game a win so don't bet on story alone.

Originally posted by zeroTonin

The story is one of the reasons why I look forward to trying this game, in alot of other mmo's the grind to end-game became tiresome and boring and more of a race to hit cap than anything. Actually being able to enjoy the road to cap would be nice, wether Bioware pulled this off in SWTOR, thinking of the multiplayer aspect and so forth is yet to be seen.

You think SW:TOR isn't going to be a rush to endgame? In every MMO you can take your time, no one is forcing you. I met a guy on WoW, and this was in Cataclysm.. that had been playing since classic and had no idea what a raid was and all he did was roleplay/explore and do quests. He just really enjoyed the game, the story, the lore, etc.

SW:TOR is going to be an endgame-first game. The question is, is the endgame linear? I think we all know the answer.

Originally posted by yodablaze

I think I've played ALL of Bioware's games (Jade Empire is also a title that went unrecognized and deserves a sequel).

Bioware does an amazing job with telling stories and also at game design as well.

I don't want to sound like a stinker but here it is...

Story isn't EVERYTHING. It will help the game a lot but a true RPG experience is in the freedom of experience and experimentation. Some of the best aspects of role playing is telling or creating the story yourself. True brilliance is providing the player with enough tools in their world (sandbox) to allow players to shape their unique experience. The story of course helps the content and experience move along, but relying on story to make this title a win spells epic  F-A-I-L. Tor will need more than story to make this game a win so don't bet on story alone.

 But that is from a sandbox players perspective. So yes, in the eyes of a sandbox player, the game may fail.

From my perspective, it is a different story. I could not play EVE more than about 2 hours without being board out of my mind. Darkfall was fun for a month or so with the FPS style and PvP, but political crap and building cities is meaingless to me in a game. Player stories are more of I sold X to Y to help Z. Or we zerged guild X, that was so cool. Or I havested for 2 hours and lost everything from a ganker. I hate that type of game play with a passion. It is 100% meaningless to me as a way to play a game.

I don't think sandbox games shouldn't exist. It is great for those who like that type of play. I would like to see some sandbox features in TOR as options, or any themepark really. Plenty of social areas for RP. A lot of exploration with reasons for it attached to what you find. Or a PvP planet with bases that can be controlled and are persistant on each server. Or player controlled areas in space for space battles. Actual crafting where items can be on par with everything else in the game to create an economy.

But player story only gameplay would keep someone like me from even looking at the game. So I for one am happy as hell to have a BW RPG based on story in a MMO where I can play with other like minded gamers. A story with choice attached to every dialogue sequense that effects my own personal story and others in multi-player dialogue.

Originally posted by yodablaze

I think I've played ALL of Bioware's games (Jade Empire is also a title that went unrecognized and deserves a sequel).

Bioware does an amazing job with telling stories and also at game design as well.

I don't want to sound like a stinker but here it is...

Story isn't EVERYTHING. It will help the game a lot but a true RPG experience is in the freedom of experience and experimentation. Some of the best aspects of role playing is telling or creating the story yourself. True brilliance is providing the player with enough tools in their world (sandbox) to allow players to shape their unique experience. The story of course helps the content and experience move along, but relying on story to make this title a win spells epic  F-A-I-L. Tor will need more than story to make this game a win so don't bet on story alone.

If you have played all BW games than you should see that the game design / mechanics of BW games and WoW are fairly similar. Go to XYZ -> Talk -> Do 123 or Hit button to swing sword / fire fireball.

But in BW games you want to do the quests but in WoW you don't.

Why?

*Hint, the answer is a word in your post.*

You make some points but also consider that the concept of "innovation" means doing something unconventional from what you define as normal. We expect all "real" mmos to have an "end game" being that everyone would rush to max level and utilize all of the opportunities available to max level players. What if your level cap, skill cap did not limit you to an end game experience? What if your achievements (which could be endless) would determine your universal reputation in so much it would recognizably make you stand out from other players? For instance you could be granted military rankings for space combat and military rankings for ground achievements. You could max level but still be a low ranking officer.

The game doesen't have to be sandbox to be innovative. There could be clear objectives for those looking for direction and a little opportunity for players to just explore and discover new things as they go. My point is that so far ToR isn't doing anything that will "change" the standard of mmos and we are paying them very good money to do just that.

 Yeah.. I still don't know about story focused games in the monthly sub genre.

 Wonder how many will be skipping the story entirely just because of that time=money factor (and also because everyone must race to the finish to complain lol). I know I will feel pressure to hurry some cutscenes along a bit when my paid time is on the line, especially when there are other things I'll want to do in the game with only x ammount of time each day/month.

Originally posted by yodablaze

You make some points but also consider that the concept of "innovation" means doing something unconventional from what you define as normal. We expect all "real" mmos to have an "end game" being that everyone would rush to max level and utilize all of the opportunities available to max level players. What if your level cap, skill cap did not limit you to an end game experience? What if your achievements (which could be endless) would determine your universal reputation in so much it would recognizably make you stand out from other players? For instance you could be granted military rankings for space combat and military rankings for ground achievements. You could max level but still be a low ranking officer.

The game doesen't have to be sandbox to be innovative. There could be clear objectives for those looking for direction and a little opportunity for players to just explore and discover new things as they go. My point is that so far ToR isn't doing anything that will "change" the standard of mmos and we are paying them very good money to do just that.

 That is yet to be determined. They still have a few feature releases not talked about yet that could change things. An actual PvP info release will be coming in the next couple of months. The "not seen before in a MMO" feature is still out there.

You do have a point though. I hate the raid or die of most themeparks. The gear chase as the only achievment for end game. I would like to see many more options. But story will still be my main reason for playing TOR. The SW experience with choice during the leveling process will keep me busy for a long time.

So I think we agree on end game, but greatly disagree on how to get there. I want the dev created in depth SW lore based storytelling for my questing experience. That is a must for me now. All current text based MMOs are snore fests while questing. The story will change that for me.

Originally posted by Krulos

Now this game will have meaning because of what? Story?

Welcome to new era in 2011, watch one big endless Youtube movie with story unfold, with limited interaction yourself:P

New themepark that plays for you through story hehe.

Ive watch those walkthrough videos made by bioware and what first struck me was DEJAVU its all done before only now with endless TSUNAMI of story telling you have to listend and watch how boring.

Originally posted by yodablaze

You make some points but also consider that the concept of "innovation" means doing something unconventional from what you define as normal. We expect all "real" mmos to have an "end game" being that everyone would rush to max level and utilize all of the opportunities available to max level players. What if your level cap, skill cap did not limit you to an end game experience? What if your achievements (which could be endless) would determine your universal reputation in so much it would recognizably make you stand out from other players? For instance you could be granted military rankings for space combat and military rankings for ground achievements. You could max level but still be a low ranking officer.

The game doesen't have to be sandbox to be innovative. There could be clear objectives for those looking for direction and a little opportunity for players to just explore and discover new things as they go. My point is that so far ToR isn't doing anything that will "change" the standard of mmos and we are paying them very good money to do just that.

If 'innovation' means actually making MMO players give a damn about quests than SWTOR would be the most innovative game in the market. The only story line related quest I can think of in my 5 years of WoW is 'Missing diplomat' and 'Darrowshire (due to the music video that came of it).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dTxcHulFBI

All the complaining about 'easy quests' and 'big arrow on map' are game mechanics introduced because players do not like quests in MMO. This partially why 'get to max level now!' theme pops up as well. Because no one like the actual journey to get to the destination.

SWTOR has always been what it is. At the very start it was touted as 'KOTOR3 and beyond' by one of the BW guys.

To the above poster, do you find heavily story driven games like Planescape:Torment, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age: Origins boring?

whether it succeeds or not depends entirely on implementation.

Right now GW2 and SWTOR both have it although to varrying degrees and differing in implementation. Idea itself is interesting to explore but i wouldn't go on saying "will succeed". That is to be seen. It may fail for one game and be good for the other.

Sure it will succeed, it is exactly the kind of feature to please the mass. But you know what, in 2 or 3 generations it will make no difference what so ever, just like questing. Its not hard to understand, this kind of feature are just about nicely warped package. But it doesn't fix the core problem at all. To make a game less grindy you need to put diversity in the gameplay, and story, just like quest just don't do that at all. Clearly they could be a mean to do that for sure, but will they be use to do that in SWTOR? i seriously doupt. Because neither questing was used to bring gameplay diversity, neither will story. To code diversity you need a lot of work dev are not willing to do for many reasons. The only diversity they actually code is in the raiding system, the rest is just left untouched. Personally i don't care about story or quest or sandbox or whatever if they use that as a mean to bring diversity rather than stale gameplay. But you know what they just don't, look all the last gen mmo, what kind of diversity they brought? none, themepark, sandbox, they are all the same stupid grind over and over and i bet SWtor is just the same, the first month of the "new mmo" feeling will just try that much for most poeple. And the funny part is that some of the game studio seam to think it is a good thing in fact, they even use it as an adverstising model, "we will keep the tradition guys, the tradition is good", let all defend the tradition guys, which is pretty ironical, for me at least because it just sound like "we don't want to make a lot of coding work so we will do the same crap every mmo have".

So ye story will be awsome if they use it to bring some good coding for sure, but if it is nothing than blablabla kill 10 rats with shitty coding then i can bet it won't have any use to the genre, just as questing was.

Originally posted by Requiamer

Sure it will succeed, it is exactly the kind of feature to please the mass. But you know what, in 2 or 3 generations it will make no difference what so ever, just like questing. Its not hard to understand, this kind of feature are just about nicely warped package. But it doesn't fix the core problem at all. To make a game less grindy you need to put diversity in the gameplay, and story, just like quest just don't do that at all. Clearly they could be a mean to do that for sure, but will they be use to do that in SWTOR? i seriously doupt. Because neither questing was used to bring gameplay diversity, neither will story. To code diversity you need a lot of work dev are not willing to do for many reasons. The only diversity they actually code is in the raiding system, the rest is just left untouched. Personally i don't care about story or quest or sandbox or whatever if they use that as a mean to bring diversity rather than stale gameplay. But you know what they just don't, look all the last gen mmo, what kind of diversity they brought? none, themepark, sandbox, they are all the same stupid grind over and over and i bet SWtor is just the same, the first month of the "new mmo" feeling will just try that much for most poeple. And the funny part is that some of the game studio seam to think it is a good thing in fact, they even use it as an adverstising model, "we will keep the tradition guys, the tradition is good", let all defend the tradition guys, which is pretty ironical.

So ye story will be awsome if they use it to bring some good coding for sure, but if it is nothing than blablabla kill 10 rats with shitty coding then i can bet it won't have any use to the genre, just as questing was.

If we took away 'go here -> talk to NPC -> Go here to do XYZ' quests for all games even Planescape: Torment will be bad 'game'.

Heck, all RPGs made during the last 20 years would be and we had some absolutely amazing ones, like Baldurs Gate.

Not sure why you think the mechanics are the issue?