I think you got a point but the core cause of bad game design is that most people are very bad at putting two and two together. In a MMO, every design choice affects everything else. And things that sound great during the design phase are just not fun to play.

Game designers don't play their own games. Or rather, they do not PAY to play their own games outside business hours. The average real gamer has a day job and has to pay to play the game in the few spare hours between work and sleep. These gamers are not in the mood for design that seemed a good idea, they want good ideas.

Take the sprint example. How many games can you recall that had speed buffs interrupted by battle and requiring manual re-activation? And now the games that "fixed" this by enabling auto-sprint as it turned out that pressing the sprint button after every fight is just not as much fun as the designers thought. 

You would think designers would realize this and launch a new game with auto-sprint. But no. It is not because designers are complete and utter morons who refuse to learn from other games. They really do believe their "features" enrich the game.

And there your escalation of commitment comes into play. The designers had these ideas and they defended them and surrendering them for the sake of the players... that is hard.

Another example is money sinks, game designers are convinced MMO's need them. So you had your vehicles degrade in SWG and massive long lasting debuffs in Lotro requiring bought potions. All to get in game currency out of the game to avoid the market exploding.

Neither worked. SWG repair was so botchy that people like me just made a ton of cheap throw away vehicles and used those instead. Cheaper and more reliable. In Lotro most just sell the few potions they find because using them is near useless except for a raid bosses as the very second you remove a debuff, you get another one.

There are in the real world two kinds of designers. Artists and industrial designers. The first group are the ones currently making games and they are not very good at it. Especially MMO's. Industrial designers care less about looks or esthetics and care about usability. Simple things like when you poor tea from a kettle, that steam doesn't go over your hand and burn you. You might take that for granted but someone had to think of preventing it and then engineer the product to perform correctly.

Many a MMO feature sounds pretty neat, but is horribly broken and ends up hurting the game. Take TSW. Build any deck you want. It works to a degree, even if your deck is less optimized. You can always group up. And then the game forces you to go through hard solo content which makes it blood clear that not all deck choices are equal.

The problem is that TSW is not a stealth game or a good fight (FPS) game. It is a decent MMO but someone thought that sneak missions were nice and so you run at top speed within meters of oblivious guards. PROBABLY the designer that came up with it imagined a very pretty picture and then it got build and it kinda wasn't. But he was comitted.

SWTOR failed because the designers thought voice would save everything and it turned out it was just window dressing. It is sad that a lower budget game like TSW can do far far better story telling. But why did SWTOR story telling fail? Could it be the light/dark absolutes and the getting approval of companions most of whom don't suit my playstyle?

Three choices:

1. Player can choose story line

2. Players only get rewarded for pure light or pure dark. Grey does not give any boosts.

3. Companions are forced on the player who can't be turned to the light/dark and so you either get constant negative points or base you story line choices on what gives the most companion points.

The funny thing, Bioware DIDN'T use to force companions on you that went against your allignment. In Baldurs Gate you get to choose two bad NPC's or two good ones. But since Kotor, you practically are forced to take complete and utter assholes with you. Assholes you can't just tell to shut the fuck and deal with you being good. Early one, you could sway them a bit but in SWTOR even that was gone.

Someone thought this combo was a good idea. It wasn't. But changing it... impossible.

Same with the absolutly insane crafting. In theory the game would like you to change companions depending on your needs. But the only way to craft is to send them away for up to 3 hours. So how can I switch companions?

And what you can craft with success is based on fixed stats of your companions almost forcing all of class X to be a Y crafter. Someone thought that was a good idea. They were wrong.

But your right, once people are comitted, it is hard to take a step back and look at what all your choices mean when you put it together.

SWTOR wasn't a bad MMO, it was just fucking boring, bland looking and anti-social. The devs believed the fanboys on the forum that all their ideas were pure gold and the more they believed, the more they were comitted.

Originally posted by sfc1971

 

SWTOR wasn't a bad MMO, it was just fucking boring, bland looking and anti-social. The devs believed the fanboys on the forum that all their ideas were pure gold and the more they believed, the more they were comitted.

I'm curious as to how that is not a bad MMO.

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by sfc1971

 

SWTOR wasn't a bad MMO, it was just fucking boring, bland looking and anti-social.

I'm curious as to how that is not a bad MMO.

I take it that you've never played EVE online?

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by sfc1971

 

SWTOR wasn't a bad MMO, it was just fucking boring, bland looking and anti-social.

I'm curious as to how that is not a bad MMO.

 

I take it that you've never played EVE online?

ok that's kind of hard to argue against :)

Your wrong I went to the FATMAN but once they merged the Servers I went back to my main server and transfered all my toons there to the P5 server.

I think many people did what I did that is why the FATMAN server has declined because people went back to thier 1st server.

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by sfc1971

 

SWTOR wasn't a bad MMO, it was just fucking boring, bland looking and anti-social. The devs believed the fanboys on the forum that all their ideas were pure gold and the more they believed, the more they were comitted.

I'm curious as to how that is not a bad MMO.

Well, there has been far worse, games that didn't run at ALL (not just badly, just pain didn't work at all) on ATI hardware. Launches that went so bad people couldn't play for days. Games so lacking in content it didn't even survive the first month (Final Fantasy).

Compared to the worsed, SWTOR isn't that bad. It was just soulless. Turns out I am much willing to forgive crippling bugs then blandness.

to me bad means doesn't work.

SWTOR worked, it just was no fun. But yeah, that is bad too.

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Originally posted by Creslin321

My OP was pretty clear that the voice acting was just part of

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Where are the other parts?

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Originally posted by Creslin321

For example, myself, and many others brought up the concern that BW"s strategy of making "fully voiced" a flagship feature of the game was problematic in the long-term because it would make creating additional content very cost prohibitive...and in a subscription themepark MMORPG that lives and breathes on content additions...this is not a good thing.  And now we hear that (surprise surprise) SWTOR's additional content won't be fully voiced.

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You only talk and give credit to voice overs as a feature, no word about anything else.

You even admit it yourself:

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Originally posted by Creslin321

I know I only spoke of voice overs in my OP

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Backpedaling is bad but there is no need pushing it further and making it even more ridiculous.

Originally posted by sfc1971

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by sfc1971

 

SWTOR wasn't a bad MMO, it was just fucking boring, bland looking and anti-social. The devs believed the fanboys on the forum that all their ideas were pure gold and the more they believed, the more they were comitted.

I'm curious as to how that is not a bad MMO.

Well, there has been far worse, games that didn't run at ALL (not just badly, just pain didn't work at all) on ATI hardware. Launches that went so bad people couldn't play for days. Games so lacking in content it didn't even survive the first month (Final Fantasy).

Compared to the worsed, SWTOR isn't that bad. It was just soulless. Turns out I am much willing to forgive crippling bugs then blandness.

to me bad means doesn't work.

SWTOR worked, it just was no fun. But yeah, that is bad too.

Bit harsh on "other games" but what struck me though is that as an mmo the launch was OK; I expected better tbh but it was OK. If SWTOR had been a single player game however the number of bugs would have been considered "typical of EA" - not very good in other words.

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Originally posted by DrDwarf

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Originally posted by tiefighter25

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Originally posted by Axxar The fully voiced dialogues was actually the best thing about this game, so I gotta completely disagree here. It was other stuff that made me quit the game. The world didn't feel living enough and there were too many load screens - didn't feel like an MMO.

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Many would agree woth you. What I was suggesting is that as OP suggested, the game got caught in an escalation of commitment. When they hit a doldrum in the development of the game, they powered through pilling money into the voiced dialogue part. By doing so, they ignored the rest of the game. At the end of the day, they had a neato super expensive dialogue gimmick and a broken engine, lack luster game. Even though you liked the gimmick, the ignored mechanics of the actual game were so poor it caused you to quit. What's worse. Due to the loss of subs and the conversion to FTP; the one part people liked (albeit it wa overspent on) is no longer fiscally viable to continue with. All that is left is to continue developing the part of the game which you didn't care for and a ca$h shop. I don;t think this bodes well for the game's future. But that's besides the point. I believe OP meant for this thread more to look back to try and figure out Bioware's mindset while developing the game as opposed to what the game is today or where it is headed. But I'm even more sure OP can tell you what he thinks for himself.

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Yes but to see the faces of the experts in all those pre launch marketing videos we were drip fed you just know they hadn't a clue how bad the gameplay actually was.

Despite all the feedback beta testrers say they gave they literally must have just put their hands in the ears and said la la la la.

I'd fire them too if i thought I was hiring experts and manafgers to manage those experts and I had a bunch of dribbling idiots that couldnt see the train wreck coming.

i dont buy the idea they knew but were acting either...they didnt have a clue how bad their game was for an MMO.

 

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Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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I thought the game play was exactly like the videos I saw. Most of the videos cut out the VO content to eliminate spoilers so what was left was the game play and it looked exactly like what I got.

 

I guess  you were more diligent then most people who bought the game having only seen the CGI trailers. To be fair all companies do this, to a certain extent, but SWTOR was the first company who's marketing campaign I saw in mainstream media for a new game launch. I dont recall seeing actual game play for more then a few quick seconds sliced into promo developer interviews. That's of course just my personal experience.

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by Creslin321

My OP was pretty clear that the voice acting was just part of

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Where are the other parts?

 

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Originally posted by Creslin321

For example, myself, and many others brought up the concern that BW"s strategy of making "fully voiced" a flagship feature of the game was problematic in the long-term because it would make creating additional content very cost prohibitive...and in a subscription themepark MMORPG that lives and breathes on content additions...this is not a good thing.  And now we hear that (surprise surprise) SWTOR's additional content won't be fully voiced.

---

 

You only talk and give credit to voice overs as a feature, no word about anything else.

You even admit it yourself:

 

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Originally posted by Creslin321

I know I only spoke of voice overs in my OP

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Backpedaling is bad but there is no need pushing it further and making it even more ridiculous.

LOL I'm really not going to bother anymore.  Almost every single person in this thread disagrees with you, that should tell you something.  Either we are all morons, or maybe you are wrong.

Originally posted by Creslin321

First, a definition.  Escalation of commitment occurs when a group is working on a project, and at some point in the project it becomes clear that things aren't going well or maybe even the project's original direction is fundamentally flawed, but instead of stepping back and rethinking things, the group just throws more resources at the project in the hope that things will just "work out."  This may sound stupid, but it's a relatively common problem.  When a group has worked on a project for a long time and invested a lot of resources, sometimes it's tough to admit that mistakes were made early on and rethink things...it can be much easier in the short term to just try to "power through" your difficulties by escalating your commitment to the project.

Now onto SWTOR....

The more I look at SWTOR, the problems it's having, and the solutions that its devs are proposing...the more I think that it was a victim of escalation of commitment.  For example, myself, and many others brought up the concern that BW"s strategy of making "fully voiced" a flagship feature of the game was problematic in the long-term because it would make creating additional content very cost prohibitive...and in a subscription themepark MMORPG that lives and breathes on content additions...this is not a good thing.  And now we hear that (surprise surprise) SWTOR's additional content won't be fully voiced.

I really think that at some point during SWTOR's development, its management had to realize at least on some level that this was a big potential problem.  But instead of stepping back and rethinking things, they just threw more and more resources at the game and plowed forward.

The same can really be said for many of SWTOR's shortcomings such as the single player space combat, the gameplay that apes WoW just a bit too much, and the really half-assed open world PvP.  I really feel like at some point in the middle of the project, the devs probably realized that these ideas were all not as good as they seemed at the onset of the project, but basically just chose to plow forward with a flawed concept instead of stepping back and rethinking things.

In the end, I really think SWTOR would have been better off with a more iterative development process.  All of these systems and ideas should have been prototyped and thoroughly tested, with the knowledge that if it doesn't work, it will be scrapped.  And I think this is important...devs really need to be willing to scrap their ideas if they turn out to not work once you see them "in game."  But I feel like with SWTOR, the developer just plowed forward with their original ideas regardless of if they "worked" or not.

Thoughts?

Problem gets really exacerbated when your dealing with executive management, especialy at public companies. Those folks are put in the positions they are because they are supposed to know how to lead the companies to success. The dirty truth is most of them are actualy pretty clueless about many of the things which are central to what the company does. They are often even pretty clueless basic leadership skills. They may have some expertiese in a specific area like finance, marketing or sales.... but thier primary skills tend to be self-promotion.... i.e. selling thier own self image to others like stockholders, investors and board members. In terms of design,  most of them wouldn't know a quality design from a piss poor one if it dropped on thier head.....even if the company only makes one product.

That would be ok in itself...the person at the executive level doesn't really  need to know the details of designing something. For the ones who have REAL leadership skills, they can easly work around that. They know thier limitations, they put together a team of people who they trust and trust each other and they delegate to decision making to people who have the experiese to make it. They get the team working together toward a common goal. That's real leadership.

The problem is that real leadership is actualy pretty rare at the executive level. The ones who have it, are definately worth alot. What's far more common at the executive level...again especialy at public companies...is expertiese at SELF-PROMOTION. Contrary to the leader...the self-promotion expert CAN'T acknowledge thier own limitations. It runs CONTRARY to thier nature.... contrary to how they got in the postion in the first place. By nature, they are adverse to ackowledging areas of deficiency in thier own knowldge, lapses of judgement or mistakes. This extends also to not allowing thier TEAMS to back-track, admit mistakes or rethink direction.... because they believe that reflects poorly on THEM as leaders, as they were the ones who picked and managed the team afterall.

This can lead to a pretty fatal situation....as such executives often try to intefere in much lower level decisions (micro-manage)  which they aren't equiped to make.... because they need to try to establish the PERCEPTION that they are experts in all areas of the organizations functions.....and when things do start to go wrong, they are unwilling to admit it...even internaly among thier own TEAMS.....and especialy they are unwilling to allow anything that might foster the PUBLIC perception that the TEAM is back-tracking on a decision or changing course because there is something wrong. That often leads to just the situation that Creslin described..... throwing more and more resources at something which clearly isn't working well in the hopes that brute force and expenditure of resources will get it to work, rather then admit the problem. Of course, that only reinforces the motivation to avoid acknowledging the problem or changing course...because now there is even more invested in the existing course.

I honestly think ALOT of failed projects/designs/products can be attributed to that factor.

What Bioware is doing now shows the inherent contradiction in SWTOR.  So much focus is put on the class storyline but most of the game is grinding the same quests alt after alt (because why wouldn't you play out all 8 storylines?), ridiculous PvP areas, solitary space missions  and flashpoints.  So is it a storyline based MMO or a glorified solofest?  If it is about storylines, then why not have race-based quests too?  Have your Twi'lek discover the truth about the forced migration.  Have your purebred Sith get involved with throwing off their human oppressors. Instead, BW is about adding more of what we don't want in the game.