I forgot about the datacrons. ALthough some didn't like them, that is again, innovative. (As a side note, it is kind of funny to hear some rather aggresive SWTOR fans accuse GW2 of being a "jumping puzzle" game when one considers the datacrons.)

In particulair to the datacrons, the Jawa ballon, although mind numbingly frustrating when it bugged, was innovative in its whimsy.

Again, a matter of taste in regard to liking/disliking it, but I would consider it innovative.

Apparently I have decided to pad my post count.

It was mentioned earlier, but the Legacy system cna be considered innovative. On the other hand, it could be considered innovation gone terribly awry.

As an honnorable mention, I guess trying to fit a somewhat square peg in a somewhat round hole of adapting a Fantasy based combat mechanic into a sci-fi world presents unique challenges. Just ask the developers who worked at Mythic who worked on the never released Centurion MMO.

I think the whole issue was that SWTOR did not innovate, it's OK neither did GW2 ;)

The problem is that SWTOR was just at a bad position, it did not had umph to make people stop playing other MMO's especially WoW since it was pretty much the same thing, again nothing wrong with it but most people will have a very hard time giving up chars that they've spent years to develop for the same old thing in a new shiny skin.

And for the Star Wars(Galaxies that is) fans it was just not what they were looking for, i don't know why would they even bother with SWTOR since it was clearly not SWG and never pretended to be it either.

Too many people became way too vocal, honestly i never seen people waste so much effort to trash a game before in my life, this cascaded trough the entire community and just caused the game to implode on it self.

GW2 at least had its own established fan base go get subs from, and the fact that it was clearly PVP centric and did not had a sub-fee allows it to compete with giants like WoW with out actually having to step into the same arena with them.

SWTOR was just too little too late, or at least at too of an awkward time...

Originally posted by tiefighter25

I forgot about the datacrons. ALthough some didn't like them, that is again, innovative. (As a side note, it is kind of funny to hear some rather aggresive SWTOR fans accuse GW2 of being a "jumping puzzle" game when one considers the datacrons.)

In particulair to the datacrons, the Jawa ballon, although mind numbingly frustrating when it bugged, was innovative in its whimsy.

Again, a matter of taste in regard to liking/disliking it, but I would consider it innovative.

Only some SWTOR datacrons were jumping puzzles that one could figure out without the assistance of YouTube though.  Most Datacrons were too cleverly hidden, or required advanced knowledge of floating platforms, or hidden areas.

To be honest, I tried looking for Datacrons without any assistance and would continually get "stuck" as I searched.  It wasn't much fun.  GW2 has them beat at least, in that you can explore without ever being "stuck", to find "Vistas".  I was stuck in SWTOR 50 times, versus 0 times in GW2, for instance.

I'm not saying GW2 is the better game, but they did have a better gameplay engine.

Also I wanted to get the +10 stat datacron from the fleet but it was continually bugged when I tried.  I gave up and quit.

I couldn't count Datacrons as innovative, because it makes SWTOR look bad & buggy.

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Apparently I have decided to pad my post count.

It was mentioned earlier, but the Legacy system cna be considered innovative. On the other hand, it could be considered innovation gone terribly awry.

As an honnorable mention, I guess trying to fit a somewhat square peg in a somewhat round hole of adapting a Fantasy based combat mechanic into a sci-fi world presents unique challenges. Just ask the developers who worked at Mythic who worked on the never released Centurion MMO.

I loved the equivalent, AA's in EQ.  SOE had it right.  The AA's could be spent as a person pleased in a huge index of abilities.  AA's were hard to obtain individually, so obtaining all abilities was indeed a task.  All abilities were in no way needed, they were just "slight extras" .. like +1% mitigation or +1% evasion .. or class specific like Druids "Evacuation" to insta teleport the entire group back to the zone entrance, regardless of the situation.  There were many others.

"Premature evacuation" became a common complaint amongst people grouping with druids :-)

Innovative, although it is often used to imply progress, technically only means to introduce something new and doesn't actually connote success.

That was the tack I was taking at least. SWTOR is often described as completely derivative. I was trying to find examples of where Bioware was trying to introduce something new to the genre besides their fourth pillar.

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Innovative, although it is often used to imply progress, technically only means to introduce something new and doesn't actually connote success.

That was the tack I was taking at least. SWTOR is often described as completely derivative. I was trying to find examples of where Bioware was trying to introduce something new to the genre besides their fourth pillar.

The Legacy was cross-character though .. I can't think of any other game that carries a form of progress from one character to another (outside of Real Life Money currency denotations attributed to characters on an account, ie gems in GW2).

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Innovative, although it is often used to imply progress, technically only means to introduce something new and doesn't actually connote success.

That was the tack I was taking at least. SWTOR is often described as completely derivative. I was trying to find examples of where Bioware was trying to introduce something new to the genre besides their fourth pillar.

The Legacy was cross-character though .. I can't think of any other game that carries a form of progress from one character to another (outside of Real Life Money currency denotations attributed to characters on an account, ie gems in GW2).

As Draron pointed out, WoW's heirloom gear was created to promote alt creation and hasten the alt levelling process.

1. Very story-cutscene heavy levelling process & companions.   Well those are just copy & paste things from Bioware singe player games (and also some other s rpg's).  Sure it is made on a scale that never was in mmorpg's so if you stretch it I guess it could be called innovation.    

For me in mmorpg's those don't feel like they belong in mmorpg's and in example companions even made my gameplay feel worse imo.   Very heavy cutscene with Bioware simple dialogue wheel - I don't even like those in newest BW games like DA2 / ME2 and ME3,   so kinda no brainer that I did not like it in Swtor.    Story telling imho was much better in Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 and Planescape Torment than when it is overly swamped with cutscenes with very limited dialogue options.

Aside of that creative?  Don't see much. 

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Innovative, although it is often used to imply progress, technically only means to introduce something new and doesn't actually connote success.

That was the tack I was taking at least. SWTOR is often described as completely derivative. I was trying to find examples of where Bioware was trying to introduce something new to the genre besides their fourth pillar.

The Legacy was cross-character though .. I can't think of any other game that carries a form of progress from one character to another (outside of Real Life Money currency denotations attributed to characters on an account, ie gems in GW2).

As Draron pointed out, WoW's heirloom gear was created to promote alt creation and hasten the alt levelling process.

Heirlooms .. hmm.

The recipient (wearing the heirlooms) wouldn't really advance any other character on the account.  Though, graphically they might make a person look special, and leveling would be a helluva lot easier - it affected no other character.

The WoW system isn't really like SWTOR's legacy system though.  Not that legacy was interesting or innovative.  It was boring and dumb in it's rewards.   The concept was there I suppose, although misguided.

It seemed more like SOE's AA's, but with rewards that were not well thought out, cross character.

But in any event, ya, not innovative.  Even though it's cross-character, the rewards are pointless.

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Innovative, although it is often used to imply progress, technically only means to introduce something new and doesn't actually connote success.

That was the tack I was taking at least. SWTOR is often described as completely derivative. I was trying to find examples of where Bioware was trying to introduce something new to the genre besides their fourth pillar.

Aye, carry on.  If I veered off track, it was for informative reasons, sorry!

Disclaimer:
Since this is a positive thread i will not point out the huge design flaws and implementation fails for each "Innovation" which made those said innovations range from pointless to unusable.

* Companion system
Having someone alongside yourself is a great idea, especially* if the class synergies work out. (Healer + DD, Tank + DD / Healer etc). It could make (and occasionally did!) Leveling more fun.
The opportunity to finish a 4 man group task with 2 players is a positive aspect to me.

* Multiple Player votes on story progression in cutscenes.

* Mostly Voiced Dialogues

* Creative use of a very limited animation libary covering 100 of hours of Dialogues. (Spin hand, Wave arm, grab tights)

* Change Weapon trail glow color aka Crystal Color.

* Push / Throw / Pull npcs & players from high ground into pits.
I can't think of another game which viable allowed you to use Terrain like that. (And i love pushing stuff over the edge)

I don't think you know what innovation means...

and the setting was the worst part of the game. Instead of giving me the Old Republic, they gave me Episode 4-6 but changed the names. Seriously some of the Sith places looked IDENTICAL to Imperial Starships interiors in the movies. The devs should have just made it in Vader's setting if they wanted to reuse all the art and characters and plot. 

1) indeed, story in an mmo was pretty new... but be honest, its no innovation, computer games told stories since the early 70s....

2) its amazing, for sure, but its no innovation, john williams wrote them a long time ago.. in a galaxy far away..., influenced by richard wagner as he stated himself.. no innovation, its just great, but nothing new...

3)meh cant agree, jedi knight had great graphics for its time..

4) you said it, star fox, or call it Rebel assault 2,5? nothing new. weve seen this in 1992...

sorry no innovation, its good but nothing new there.....

Originally posted by Karteli

SWTOR had an innovation or two, some more than others:

 

1) Story detailed environment.

 

2) The Music was simply hands down amazing.  I'd trade in my Darth Malgus doorstop for another disc or 2 on the soundtrack.  SWTOR had 6 hours of music in addition to previous KOTOR music.

 

3) The artwork was brilliant.  Any envirornment felt like Star Wars, even if the game wasn't Star Wars'y.  When you got close to objects they got clearer (you could read a computer screen if you walked up to it).

 

4) Added Star Fox!  Wouldn't everyone love Star Fox instead of Pokemon? (OK, but gave way to maybe other minigames?)

 

The rest is left to everyone else to fill in!

 

What made this game innovative to you?

 

edit comment: I'm trying to put a positive light on SWTOR.

Originally posted by Karteli

SWTOR had an innovation or two, some more than others:

 

1) Story detailed environment.

 

2) The Music was simply hands down amazing.  I'd trade in my Darth Malgus doorstop for another disc or 2 on the soundtrack.  SWTOR had 6 hours of music in addition to previous KOTOR music.

 

3) The artwork was brilliant.  Any envirornment felt like Star Wars, even if the game wasn't Star Wars'y.  When you got close to objects they got clearer (you could read a computer screen if you walked up to it).

 

4) Added Star Fox!  Wouldn't everyone love Star Fox instead of Pokemon? (OK, but gave way to maybe other minigames?)

 

The rest is left to everyone else to fill in!

 

What made this game innovative to you?

 

edit comment: I'm trying to put a positive light on SWTOR.

Good music and artwork is not innovation. And putting single player elements such as story and space on rails in an MMORPG is not innovation either, it's just plain stupid and shows a lack of understanding of the MMORPG genre which was what everyone said Bioware lacked and they were right.