Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by Ysharros

 

I just hope that works out in practice. Most really good MMO improvements tend to be incremental anyway, so this is a start - if it works.

I think this is something many gamers overlook they seem to expect large strides in innovation, when that doesn't even happen in the less risky or expensive single player realm. Baby steps are just safer, when you're banking other peoples money on a game, you can't be careless, you have to think in a practicle manner.

 

 Playing it safe didn't do much for AoC, WAR, LoTRO, STO, etc.

It's all the same piece of WoW steak... but with slightly different seasoning. Sometimes I want ribs.

As for the OP: I can understand that someone isn't enthusiastic about a game, or that it isn't the type of game a person needs for enjoyment.

What I don't understand is, why does this have to be a news article, and why hasn't this been done with other MMO's? Why didn't we see a 'Rift doesn't excite me' article, or a 'FFXIV doesn't excite me' or 'FFXIV, why the current themepark features work as they do, and why different isn't always better'?

Now that last topic would really have been interesting as topic, especially with the craving for something different or innovative as the dream solution to their jadedness, well, FFXIV was different, so why did 'different' not work and what kind of different does a new MMO need to be to satisfy that wish of some groups of MMO gamers?

Instead we get an article from someone, again regarding SWTOR, why it doesn't excite her. Surprise surprise, that person was heavily into SWG and loved its sandbox mechanics So maybe the article writer should expand her view a bit further and ask herself 'do themepark MMO's in general still excite me, have they excited me the past couple of years? Or have I grown jaded regarding them over the years?'

Now that would have made a far better introspective if such was added, adding some more depth to it. Now the article is more on the level of 'I want to like that guy, but I don't'.

Besides, are we now also getting 'The Old republic excites me' from other article writers to balance it out, or 'TERA/GW2/TSW/AA/etc doesn't excite or does excite me' news articles?

If so, please add some depth and interesting details to them instead of only fueling controversy

Originally posted by Chilliesauce

Originally posted by astoria

Screw their story. If I want to passively observe someone else's story I will watch a movie or read a book as you attempt to analogize. It is a failed analogy. In an Online Role Playing game, you should be able to make up stories with your friends or even PUGs. This might not make sense to some people that want only the shallow arcade improved-split screen experience, but this is where many of us that played PnP games are coming from. It doesn't have to be fully sandbox to allow RP, but scripted RP is scripted RP and a viable MMO needs more. The 1 or  2 choices that seem to be presented in this game may be an attempt but I'm concerned about the replayability. From what I can gather, once you go through the story once, you've gone through it.

I haven't played a single MMO which does not have a story or lore. Only difference is that SWTOR story si more interactive. As far as players makign their own story well i have played Sandbox too and players are incapable of coming up with interesting stories. Unless PKing and looting other players is considered to be a good story.

 Im sorry you've had bad experiences. Have you even tried to find role players in your games?

Originally posted by depain

Originally posted by Distopia

 

 Playing it safe didn't do much for AoC, WAR, LoTRO, STO, etc.

It's all the same piece of WoW steak... but with slightly different seasoning. Sometimes I want ribs.

Actually to the contrary in AOC's case part of the problem IMO was focusing on bringing so much bling to the genre and not enough on what has been tried and true over the years.

WAR, STO etc... Wouldn't that be production value, and polish? Not to mention offering enough content to keep people interested?

LOTRO seemed to do fine, at least intially, they just eventually slacked on content additions, that's based on what I've seen anyway, your mileage may vary.

"I’m also not certain I want to play a single-player RPG that just happens to have other people in it. "

This shows me that you don't know what you're talking about.

I will say this, people all have different feelings about the game and I'm not going to try and convert someone by now everyone has made up their mind by either pre-ordering, waiting for the actual release, staying as far away as they can, or some where between.

I would like to point out that I am pretty sure they are limiting the "early access" to allow a smooth launch. So yes, by saying buy your game and get in early is a marketing ploy to get you to buy the pre-order is correct. But how about if bioware just emailed those pre-order people 2 weeks before and said thank you for pre-ordering you are allowed to download the game today 2 weeks before the release and start playing. People would be pissed and asking why didn't someone tell me I would've pre-ordered.

Second point on the pre-order. I am not 100 perent on this but the way I understood it from gamestop is I get my code from them but I haven't paid for the full game. Same with amazon who I have a "pending" order with. I have my code and use it for the early access. Play two weeks and don't like the game. I won't be going to Gamestop to pay for my copy. Why would Bioware risk this without knowing they have something solid to release. Seems like a huge risk to me. Not only that the backlash of horrible reviews in the first 2 weeks that would cause those on the fence to not by the game when it is actually available. I am sure Bioware is aware that their success lies it box/suscription sales after the game release and not from pre-orders. Maybe someone can shed more light on how that works but it seems to be the idea to me.

"Then there’s the fact that it’s really just fantasy with fricken’ laser beams." I love this comment bc you can use this type of rational with almost any game. Its just fantasy with FILL IN BLANK HERE.

There is so much information out about this game, yet there is so much unknow information as well.

Again, everyone has the right to their opinion and I actually enjoy reading peoples views on games I like, be it negative, on the fence or agreeing with how I feel.

Happy gaming.

@MMO.Maverick - Sorry you were disappointed! I've covered a lot of what you mention in some of my older columns, and I don't like to rehash too much. Besides, there's only so much you can get across in ~1000 words. I'm constantly surprised at how short that really is, when I'm used to the freedom of going gigantic walls of text on my blog.

And again... this isn't news. It's opinion. It's what I do here. For news go kick Bill, he's the one with his finger on the pulse! :D

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

As for the OP: I can understand that someone isn't enthusiastic about a game, or that it isn't the type of game a person needs for enjoyment.

What I don't understand is, why does this have to be a news article, and why hasn't this been done with other MMO's? Why didn't we see a 'Rift doesn't excite me' article, or a 'FFXIV doesn't excite me' or 'FFXIV, why the current themepark features work as they do, and why different isn't always better'?

Now that last topic would really have been interesting as topic, especially with the craving for something different or innovative as the dream solution to their jadedness, well, FFXIV was different, so why did 'different' not work and what kind of different does a new MMO need to be to satisfy that wish of some groups of MMO gamers?

 

Instead we get an article from someone, again regarding SWTOR, why it doesn't excite her. Surprise surprise, that person was heavily into SWG and loved its sandbox mechanics So maybe the article writer should expand her view a bit further and ask herself 'do themepark MMO's in general still excite me, have they excited me the past couple of years? Or have I grown jaded regarding them over the years?'

Now that would have made a far better introspective if such was added, adding some more depth to it. Now the article is more on the level of 'I want to like that guy, but I don't'.

 

Besides, are we now also getting 'The Old republic excites me' from other article writers to balance it out, or 'TERA/GW2/TSW/AA/etc doesn't excite or does excite me' news articles?

If so, please add some depth and interesting details to them instead of only fueling controversy

 

 Excellent post as always.  I laughed when she said it was overhyped. Do you guys not read your own forums?  If it wasn't for some of the more informative posters like yourself I wouldn't even visit this site.

Originally posted by Ysharros

@MMO.Maverick - Sorry you were disappointed! I've covered a lot of what you mention in some of my older columns, and I don't like to rehash too much. Besides, there's only so much you can get across in ~1000 words. I'm constantly surprised at how short that really is, when I'm used to the freedom of going gigantic walls of text on my blog.

And again... this isn't news. It's opinion. It's what I do here. For news go kick Bill, he's the one with his finger on the pulse! :D

 But it is in the News Discussion Forum...

As for SW:TOR… I want to be excited about it, I really do, and for a number of reasons. But I’m just not. I’m kind of ‘meh’ about it, to tell the truth. When I got the email exhorting me to “Come, faithful follower, and shell out a fair wodge of cash so you can be among the FIRST to experience the game (if you’re quick enough), so get your wallet already!” I looked inward and realized I didn’t really want to do as I was told. Meh.

Umm - I love you

Hah, so it is. Not my doing. I don't navigate to the comments via the forums, so I had no idea. But at least it makes some of the comments here a lot clearer to me. ;)

Ummm so what? 

Self centered article, who cares what excites one partiular individual.

Y'know what doesn't excite me?  Hamburgers.  Hamburgers don't excite me isabelle.  I still eat them,  and usually after eating them, I'm content.    

I mean basically the idea behind the opinion was a nice topical overview of what most of the people who want to dislike the game are saying.   Thats fine, seeing as how there are many people that aren't that interested in finding information on something,  and even more that wish to hate anything that happens to be popular.

So, whats this about hamburgers?  Well,  even though I'm not excited about eating hamburgers,  I still do.  I never really stop to think of why I'm eating said hamburger, when its not exciting to me like, say,  some new kind of french indian fusion would be,  or 10 lbs of lobster.  In the end though, sometimes just liking something for what it is should be good enough,  even if hamburgers are popular, even if there are a lot of places who make ones with slight similarities,  or if its not as good as the one you ate at "that place you went to that one time".

And truly, at the end of the day,  you'll still be eating SWTOR.  Er....  well,  okay, what you do with it is up to you,  but my premise behind it is simple,  its really hard for anyone interested in RPGs,  MMORPGs,  SWRPG, and SWMMORPGs, to completely stray away from this title.  Even in its most basic form of a "single player" title,  people would still flock to it.    I think people want to set themselves up to remove any hype they could have, simply because of the popularity of the title.   In that end, I think they may also be setting themselves up so theres a chance to be pleasantly surprised.

So many critics (eventhough there aren't that many after actually trying the game, but I digress)  that say that SWTOR is "just this"  or "just that" always end with the caveat that they're still going to buy and play the game,  regardless of the loss of excitement,  regardless of the mixed feelings,  regardless of the hype train.  If there are so many red flags you'd imagine people wouldn't still be interested in buying the game.   Maybe those flags aren't as red as people want us to believe...

I think people are less upset about it being in the News section than they are transparently complaining about one thing while on the other hand they're not happy about their most anctipated game being lambasted without so much as a trial-play from the author.  In a way, it makes sense.  Articles and videos are not gameplay experience, any way you slice it.  I enjoyed the article and found myself agreeing with most, if not all of it, but it's not out yet, and some people appear to be afraid more game journalists will knock a promising title down a peg with front page opinions like this.

I'm meh about SWTOR too, but I'm going to wait until I see more before I judge whether or not it's good or bad.  "Meh" could lead some to believe it's already failed.  

Speaking of which, why are they taking pre-orders now if it's not to be released until Spring?  Is this normal?  Seems a bit far off to me.

What we've got here is the typical stereotypic battle between those who see and those who are blind on atleast one eye.

Star Wars: what a great IP this is, having a huge fanbase that will play the game nevertheless. Bioware doesn't even have to think about it being a profitable game... it simply will be because of the SW-fanbase.

Being excited for SWTOR isn't exactly how I feel. I'm looking forward to it tho, as it's atleast something new to have a MMO completely with VO and atleast a little of choices during the story. Oh, and the story is different for every class, so it doesn't get boring that fast to reroll another class.
This alone is good enough for calmed down SW-fans like me to get some 3-6 month of gameplay, given that we roll three toons (tank, heal, dd).
I wouldn't call this game anywhere perfect tho, as it lacks tons of features that I'm looking for.

There's a big discrepancy between players and forums. 90% of the usual MMO-players never enter the forums and only play until the next big MMO is released. It's been this way ever since.
The vocal 10% enter the forums and discuss about the games and as most of these people are old-school players the question for sandbox, PvP and RP is dominant. That doesn't give the right picture tho, as the other 90% of the MMO-players couldn't care less.
Now, with this discrepancy, there's a totally wrong picture about MMO-players and developers. Developers only look at numbers and follow the route of the 90% of silent players. If a game like SWTOR sells 3 Million boxes it's a success allready and the costs for development are covered (3 Mil x $50 = 150 Mil). That's how developers do engage the whole topic... very straight up from an economical POV. Every subscription after the box-sales is profit, and there'll be atleast 500k subscriptions for a few month.

As much as I hate it, but the whole discussion is really getting tiresome. Aslong as the majority of MMO-players is still buying and playing those EQish MMOs, aslong the developers won't develop more MMOs like EvE or SWG. It's that simple.

Originally posted by Ysharros

@MMO.Maverick - Sorry you were disappointed! I've covered a lot of what you mention in some of my older columns, and I don't like to rehash too much. Besides, there's only so much you can get across in ~1000 words. I'm constantly surprised at how short that really is, when I'm used to the freedom of going gigantic walls of text on my blog.

And again... this isn't news. It's opinion. It's what I do here. For news go kick Bill, he's the one with his finger on the pulse! :D

Ah, you're the article writer? Sorry, I thought that every mmorpg.com staff or article writer had an alias resembling their name or a recognisable forum tag to it, I didn't recognize you without it.

I often have to do movie reviews with a 300 words limit because that's the space a review gets in some mags I write for, an opinion piece can be done thoroughly with 1000 words by rigorous editing and focusing on the most interesting main points and angles. And if not possible, a reference or link to former blog articles where a point is more elaborated upon is a handy option to save words but still clarify your stance as well.

2)  Well, it's in the news department, so that's how it's regarded

I just find it odd that SWTOR is singled out in this particular way again, particularly because it's a viewpoint regarding a themepark MMO from someone who favors SWG and sandbox oriented gameplay. Like asking an expert and reviewer of horror movies to give an opinion about a historical costume drama, the kind he's indifferent about or even dislikes.

Well, it'll be interesting to see articles regarding the other upcoming MMO's from writers, like from a themepark favoring gamer about AA or someone who dislikes or is sceptical about TERA or GW2 or TSW or upcoming expansions from current MMO's. Or why those upcoming MMO's (including SWTOR) excite them.

But an advice to opinion article writers on this site, add some interesting twists or reflections in them, just summing up a few features or a feeling without digging deeper - whether it's by linking your viewpoint to a meta topic and discussions or by deeper introspection - makes it kind of dry and needlessly shallow. No offense intended, just a suggestion

Originally posted by Nazgol

 

 Excellent post as always.  I laughed when she said it was overhyped. Do you guys not read your own forums?  If it wasn't for some of the more informative posters like yourself I wouldn't even visit this site.

Thanks

Originally posted by depain

This is why I'm bummed about SWTOR:

I was born during the release of the original Star Wars: A New Hope. Thus, I was raised within this precedented sci-fi realm. It's something that you just don't grow out of.

HOWEVER, this doesn't mean that I haven't mentally evolved with the genre. I'm older. Pure simplicity doesn't sustain my interest. I yearn for a certain degree of depth and complexity. SWTOR doesn't seem to offer that. It seems to be more geared toward the new blood of Star Wars - those who grew up with Episode 1, 2, and 3 (the young).

I'm not asking for SWG 2.0. I do, however, wish that the game contained some on-the-side forms of social-sandbox elements, e.g., planets spefically made for housing, cities, player shops, incentive to hangout in the cantinas, etc.

The game, in my opinion, would be a sure win had it contained the perfect blend of Sand Box and Theme Park elements.

 

This was me during the Empire Strikes Back Days (look at the couch!):

Holy crap!!! Underoos. I loved my underoos. My favorite ones were the Superman and Spiderman ones. I remember wearing the Superman ones and tying a sheet or towel around my neck and flying around the house. 

Back in the day when I kicked the crap out of my dad and my uncle on our Pong machine. Combat on Atari was probably the most played game in our house but asteroids was a close second because me and uncle were always trying to beat each other's scores. Freakin' good times.

Now that I've sufficiently dated myself:

I'm pretty excited about The Old Republic. The voice acting seems solid and engrossing unlike DCUO's horrific, lackluster voice acting. It's a stretch to call DCUO's voice overs acting. It's like they stuck their heads out of the office and flagged down the cleaning staff and asked them if they wanted to make an extra 5 bucks. Even Gina Torres' stuff is unemotional and bland. Mark Hammill had an awesome delivery for the vault in beta but they raped it and either used a different take or cut out the pauses which effectively neutered the delivery. 

Anyway...

The Old Republic looks set up to have a nice engaging story and that will keep me occupied for much longer than grinding through the tired, redundant, standard MMORPG fare that is kill y and retrieve x number of entrails or repeating the same handful of dungeons over and over and over.

You've got the over-arching story and each class has it's individual class story. The companions will add more diversity to repeat playthroughs as will playing through making Lightside or Darkside decisions. There is a lot of potential for replay of different and same classes. Plus, if they extend the story arcs through additional content, which I fully expect, it adds that much more to the game.

The only thing the game seems to lack is non-combat social aspects. Pazzak or other such games added to Cantinas would be great. 

I understand that a lot of MMORPG enthusiasts are not too fond of change, eventhough they clamor for it and complain, but the genre needs something more than just quest hub NPCs, fetch quests, and dungeon running. The Old Republic isn't reshaping the genre but they definitely seem to be enhancing the enjoyment of the game by putting time, effort, and polish into the story and I think that will make all the difference. 

That being said, it would have been nice to see old school SWG's influence in the gameplay. It was unique and engaging and I don't think we will ever see anything like it again. Creating non-combat classes that interact with the combat classes set the stage for players to experience and live in a sort of virtual Star Wars world. With the homogenization approach to the genre that's become so popular recently, every player can do everything... and that's the problem.

Awesome article Isabelle, and I have to thank you very much for writing about what many of us feel but are muffled out by... well we all know the type.

If ToR kept its yap shut it would have launched and could have grown respectfully from there, but nope huge advertising budget and way too many have hyped the game into something it's not and so many others i dunno you'd think their whole life is riding on this game or something, the fallout is going to be epic.

A truly great game would not be concerned with pressure sales tactics, and getting the most it can at launch because an awesome game will sell itself on epic proportions.

What the industry knows now is that if you got a stinker you need to hype it out, apply sales pressure and get what you can at launch, because after that the truth it out and its all down hill from there.

Thanks again Isabelle.

Originally posted by rt33

Awesome article Isabelle, and I have to thank you very much for writing about what many of us feel but are muffled out by... well we all know the type.

(snips the bla)

What the industry knows now is that if you got a stinker you need to hype it out, apply sales pressure and get what you can at launch, because after that the truth it out and its all down hill from there.

Thanks again Isabelle.

I really, truly hope you'll be here 3 months after launch. We'll talk then about your 'predictions', and then we have a nice little chat about how someone personally feels towards a subject doesn't need to be indicative towards everyone else's feelings and tastes, that's why a game like WoW might be such huge success to the surprise of those who disliked it or were indifferent towards its gameplay. So please be there, it'll be fun

Originally posted by Eir_S

Speaking of which, why are they taking pre-orders now if it's not to be released until Spring?  Is this normal?  Seems a bit far off to me.

? It's supposed to be released in Q4 of this year, at least that's what they're aiming for at the moment.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by rt33

Awesome article Isabelle, and I have to thank you very much for writing about what many of us feel but are muffled out by... well we all know the type.

(snips the bla)

What the industry knows now is that if you got a stinker you need to hype it out, apply sales pressure and get what you can at launch, because after that the truth it out and its all down hill from there.

Thanks again Isabelle.

I really, truly hope you'll be here 3 months after launch. We'll talk then about your 'predictions', and then we have a nice little chat about how someone personally feels towards a subject doesn't need to be indicative towards everyone else's feelings and tastes, that's why a game like WoW might be such huge success to the surprise of those who disliked or were indifferent towards its gameplay. So please be there, it'll be fun

Maverick, he won't be here 3 months after launch. He's going to be in game then.