I hate to be pessimistic, but honestly BioWare is dead. They were bought out by EA who is just looking for another WoW clone. Look at Mythic and WAR. Mythic made a much better game when they were an indie company. WAR is worse than WoW.

EA+LucasArts=Fail. There is no BioWare. Be fooled if you want. They fooled me with WAR, and it won't happen again.

This is BioWare we're talking about: they specialize in SPRPGs that ROCK. Play the hero and enjoy a kickass movie-script-quality story that you won't soon forget.

Just think, though. They may make good games, but can you really generalize and say that MMOs are just like any other genre? BioWare does single-player stuff very well, but they probably know next to nothing about social mechanics.

My prediction: I half expect this game to fail due to developer inexperience. They will likely release a single player role-playing game with multiplayer capabilities tacked on the side... at the very least. At best, you'll get AoC's player progression time line.

This information scares me; they think to give each player an experience as a hero using story-driven gameplay... in an MMOG. It's a horrible idea to teach players that they're especially unique and important to a plot in a massively multiplayer game when the very nature of this genre does not allow for heroes.

Really, if everyone's "special" in the same way, they're not really that special are they?

Every developer worth his salt knows that you can never satisfy players with raw content for more than a month without throwing in some grinding tasks to stretch it out. So either there will be a lot of heroic fed-ex missions with lightsaber in hand (still a day-in-the-life), or this game is going to last for one month and die abruptly.

Originally posted by Plasuma!!!

This is BioWare we're talking about: they specialize in SPRPGs that ROCK. Play the hero and enjoy a kickass movie-script-quality story that you won't soon forget.

Just think, though. They may make good games, but can you really generalize and say that MMOs are just like any other genre? BioWare does single-player stuff very well, but they probably know next to nothing about social mechanics.

My prediction: I half expect this game to fail due to developer inexperience. They will likely release a single player role-playing game with multiplayer capabilities tacked on the side... at the very least. At best, you'll get AoC's player progression time line.

 

This information scares me; they think to give each player an experience as a hero using story-driven gameplay... in an MMOG. It's a horrible idea to teach players that they're especially unique and important to a plot in a massively multiplayer game when the very nature of this genre does not allow for heroes.

Really, if everyone's "special" in the same way, they're not really that special are they?

Every developer worth his salt knows that you can never satisfy players with raw content for more than a month without throwing in some grinding tasks to stretch it out. So either there will be a lot of heroic fed-ex missions with lightsaber in hand (still a day-in-the-life), or this game is going to last for one month and die abruptly.

1. Blizzard had no experience making mmos prior to WOW so saying the game will fail do to lack of inexperience is way off base.

2. Bioware is listed as one of the best developers in gaming today.

Nothing wrong with voicing your opinions but really we do not even know 3/4th of the info on the game and saying it is going to fail already is just mind boggling.

Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks.  Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level.  Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story.  Call me a cynic but meh!

I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2.  No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it.  If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.

The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ).   The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.

Originally posted by eric1000

Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks.  Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level.  Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story.  Call me a cynic but meh!

 

I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2.  No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it.  If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.

 

The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ).   The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.

The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.

Originally posted by singsofdeath

Originally posted by eric1000

Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks.  Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level.  Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story.  Call me a cynic but meh!

 

I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2.  No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it.  If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.

 

The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ).   The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.

 

The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.

Actually it is.  The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way.  Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

In their interview, Muzyka says that, “It’s not a day-in-the-life of Star Wars”. Instead, he tells them that it’s about being a hero. Obviously, this puts a damper on players who may have been hoping to spend their time strictly as an entertainer or moisture farmer.

This was one of the most encouraging things they could have said about this MMORPG. This is Star Wars. It’s not about owning a shop or growing crops. It’s about fighting for the fate of the galaxy.

Bioware gets this and I expect they’ll focus first on making a fun game rather then following the insipid design choices of the SOE developers.  A wonderful, player-interdependent crafting system doesn’t help when you ignore balance and gameplay design problems.   Star Wars isn’t a story about musicians.    I'm looking forward to seeing a company who finally understands that produce a real Star Wars MMORPG.
 

Okay first of all I know what to expect from Bioware so I aint expecting some sort of world simulation MMORPG, but............

That hero thing bothers me abit , maybe it's because I am not limited to MMORPG's but play plenty of other games in different genre's, this means there are already tons and tons of games that offer you to be a hero and MMORPG use to be so much more, sure you could become a hero but all by your own doing and not because the games story is making you one as like I said we have tons of games that catter to that and MMORPG's use to be so much more then that so I am really puzzeld at to why people want to be a hero that is already written instead of creating their own hero source.

The Bioware MMORPG however probebly will be good, it will be nothing like SWG but will be everything Bioware is known for.

Overall only time will tell what the game will be like, maybe it will become awesome to me, maybe not.

Originally posted by eric1000

Originally posted by singsofdeath

Originally posted by eric1000

Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks.  Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level.  Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story.  Call me a cynic but meh!

 

I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2.  No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it.  If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.

 

The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ).   The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.

 

The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.

 

Actually it is.  The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way.  Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.

That's why I said if your choices -MATTER-. In Mass Effect, your choices didn't matter so much, as in, they always led you down the same path, while they had interesting variations to the linear story.

However if the choices MATTER, as BioWare said they would in this game, that's a different story. I don't know if they will, but after all they HAVE said that they have more Story-Content in this game than in all their SP games combined. So it might work. I am positively hopeful.

Originally posted by singsofdeath

Originally posted by eric1000

Originally posted by singsofdeath

Originally posted by eric1000

Sooner or later MMO's will come full circle, but not this time methinks.  Reading between the lines, which of course means that I could be completely off track, I can see the main story arc as a series of special objectives or quests liberally sprinkled in with the other more mundane tasks on the players linear route to max level.  Go and collect twelve Womp-Rat tails, oh and while you are out there perhaps nip along to this little side valley and bump off this bloke for your level 10 part of the story.  Call me a cynic but meh!

 

I have no doubt that Bioware will make the story something very special and most likely the best that we have seen so far from an MMO as that is afterall what they are good at, they may even throw in the combat mechanics from Mass Effect, although we are more likely to see something along the lines of Kotor 2.  No matter how you dress it up though a major storyline is a linear thing that would only work well in a linear game, and even then only if you didn't need other players along to complete it.  If the story requires co-op play and there is nobody around to get it done with then sooner or later you will out-level that part of the arc and bang goes the immersion.

 

The idea of a truly great sandbox MMO isn't dead, it will just take a little longer for developers to realise that there is no more of Blizzard's pie left to take a bite from, and by making a quest or story driven linear path all you are doing is throwing your game into the melting pot alongside the big hitters, and when you do that you had better be damn good or get badly bitten ( see AoC ).   The next great sandbox game will not come out of a big studio with limitless wealth, but from a small independant that needs to find it's own niche.

 

The storyline would be linear if your choices in it didn't matter. According to BioWare however, they will. Your choices in quests and how you treat your "Companions" and so on have an effect on how "YOUR" story plays out. So it's not that linear anymore, I would think.

 

Actually it is.  The Kotor games, Mass Effect etc. all had this feature but the story always leads to the final battle in the final room no matter how many little variations you throw in along the way.  Your ending may appear a little different, good or evil, saviour or villain but that final battle still awaits you.

 

That's why I said if your choices -MATTER-. In Mass Effect, your choices didn't matter so much, as in, they always led you down the same path, while they had interesting variations to the linear story.

 

However if the choices MATTER, as BioWare said they would in this game, that's a different story. I don't know if they will, but after all they HAVE said that they have more Story-Content in this game than in all their SP games combined. So it might work. I am positively hopeful.

I love your optimism

To create the kind of story that you are talking about though would require more than a dozen writers and many years of development, not to mention quantum computers that could intelligently react to the players decisions.  A non-linear storyline by definition would have an infinate number of possibilities and the hardware just does not exist yet that can deliver that.  The story as is would need to be much larger and longer than all the SP games as it has to keep people playing for a lot longer in an MMO, 80 hours or so just wouldn't cut it in the MMO genre.  That said however it is still impossible to stay ahead of the players as some will still power through it at breakneck speeds, reaching level cap in a week or so as with all other MMO's. 

They want you to be the hero but again this idea falls flat on it's face because when you reach the end there are a few thousand others that have already done the same thing you just completed.  The only way around this is to have a unique story for each player and again, that's impossible as you would need an army of writers or hardware that could think and produce content on demand like an electronic and superfast GM.  In the future maybe but it doesn't exist yet

Originally posted by eric1000

 

I love your optimism

To create the kind of story that you are talking about though would require more than a dozen writers and many years of development, not to mention quantum computers that could intelligently react to the players decisions.  A non-linear storyline by definition would have an infinate number of possibilities and the hardware just does not exist yet that can deliver that.  The story as is would need to be much larger and longer than all the SP games as it has to keep people playing for a lot longer in an MMO, 80 hours or so just wouldn't cut it in the MMO genre.  That said however it is still impossible to stay ahead of the players as some will still power through it at breakneck speeds, reaching level cap in a week or so as with all other MMO's. 

 

They want you to be the hero but again this idea falls flat on it's face because when you reach the end there are a few thousand others that have already done the same thing you just completed.  The only way around this is to have a unique story for each player and again, that's impossible as you would need an army of writers or hardware that could think and produce content on demand like an electronic and superfast GM.  In the future maybe but it doesn't exist yet

Actually, they -HAVE- more than a dozen writers working on content for this game. There#s a link somewhere to an interview about that.

I agree that -complete- freedom of choice is something you can't have in the games of today, not in the setup that we're talking about, but at least you can have a long long list of variables. Choices leading to different choices leading to more choices. Maybe each time you choose you only have three options, but even then, progressing from zero to top will lead you through many choices and the combinations of those are maybe not infinite, but at least offer abroad variety.

True freedom of choice is something reserved for the future, at least in MMO's. But hey, variety will be good to begin with.

The same blabla as Age of Conan .... You're a hero ... story driven .... bla bla bla ...

Half the AoC players i spoke told me that questing for them in AoC is pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 The only reason they love the main story line quests is for the rewards.

I think only few people have the interest or attention span to read the quest text, all the rest doesn't care and only wants to kill and loot. A "day-in-the-life-of" so to speak.

Originally posted by MarlonB

The same blabla as Age of Conan .... You're a hero ... story driven .... bla bla bla ...

Half the AoC players i spoke told me that questing for them in AoC is pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 The only reason they love the main story line quests is for the rewards.

I think only few people have the interest or attention span to read the quest text, all the rest doesn't care and only wants to kill and loot. A "day-in-the-life-of" so to speak.

Sorry I laughed out loud at your horrible attempt to bundle SWTOR with AoC. I agree most people(including my self) just pushed 1 over and over,  but that was only because it did not matter what line you chose. The fact you say people only did the stories for the loot is the funny part though. I will give you the benefit of the doubt but you obviously never played the game to 80 if you think loot did anything in this game. The loot from the destiny quests gave nothing but garbage and a tiny amount of permanent stat boosts.

 No one did the destiny quests for loot, no one did the quests for loot, hell you barely even needed armor to begin with. How can you possibly put SWTOR in the same catagory as AoC knowing this? Please, next time try use something other then your biased opinion.

Originally posted by pandrax

Originally posted by MarlonB

The same blabla as Age of Conan .... You're a hero ... story driven .... bla bla bla ...

Half the AoC players i spoke told me that questing for them in AoC is pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 The only reason they love the main story line quests is for the rewards.

I think only few people have the interest or attention span to read the quest text, all the rest doesn't care and only wants to kill and loot. A "day-in-the-life-of" so to speak.

 

Sorry I laughed out loud at your horrible attempt to bundle SWTOR with AoC. I agree most people(including my self) just pushed 1 over and over,  but that was only because it did not matter what line you chose. The fact you say people only did the stories for the loot is the funny part though. I will give you the benefit of the doubt but you obviously never played the game to 80 if you think loot did anything in this game. The loot from the destiny quests gave nothing but garbage and a tiny amount of permanent stat boosts.

 

 No one did the destiny quests for loot, no one did the quests for loot, hell you barely even needed armor to begin with. How can you possibly put SWTOR in the same catagory as AoC knowing this? Please, next time try use something other then your biased opinion.

You are correct ..... it is my opinion :) and it might  even be biased, which is not that rare on a forum.

I thought i editted my previous post from rewards into stat-rewards, but it seems i didn't. Indeed armor, and itemisation in general was not that great in AoC. Those epic quests were fun... but the story telling part was 1,1,1,1,1,1,1.  Heh, the number of times i've seen people complain on the forums because  they selected the wrong stat reward because they were bashing 1 proves my case ;)

What i'm comparing here btw  (not categorising, that's your opinion) is the story driven element heroic part , not the game as a whole. In my opinion the few people that care to read the quest, will loose there interest soon ... only a few hardcore readers might actually read it all.

Ps: I'm pleased i could amuse you, i always like to make people laugh

No, we do not know a lot about the game yet, but we do know what we are getting reported.

And those reports indicates strongly that the major focus is on the individual player (you are THE hero) and not on interaction of players (your involvement with other players determine your success). Based on the information given it seems SW:TOR will be another "theme-park" MMO with fancy rides and stories being to told you, and not a virtual universe where stories are what the players make them to be.

My spider sense is not tingling over this one.

is there going to be any crafting, or open professions aside from fighting, player housing, a starwars mmo seems nice, but I dont want it to just be running around and killing stuff, hopefully it will have some more playing options other than fighting.

Don't know why everyone seems to have an issue with the graphics. Reminds me a lot of the "Tales of the Jedi" comics put out by Dark Horse which is where this entire era of SW got it's start.

Originally posted by pandrax

Originally posted by MarlonB

The same blabla as Age of Conan .... You're a hero ... story driven .... bla bla bla ...

Half the AoC players i spoke told me that questing for them in AoC is pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 The only reason they love the main story line quests is for the rewards.

I think only few people have the interest or attention span to read the quest text, all the rest doesn't care and only wants to kill and loot. A "day-in-the-life-of" so to speak.

 

Sorry I laughed out loud at your horrible attempt to bundle SWTOR with AoC. I agree most people(including my self) just pushed 1 over and over,  but that was only because it did not matter what line you chose. The fact you say people only did the stories for the loot is the funny part though. I will give you the benefit of the doubt but you obviously never played the game to 80 if you think loot did anything in this game. The loot from the destiny quests gave nothing but garbage and a tiny amount of permanent stat boosts.

 

 No one did the destiny quests for loot, no one did the quests for loot, hell you barely even needed armor to begin with. How can you possibly put SWTOR in the same catagory as AoC knowing this? Please, next time try use something other then your biased opinion.

Actually it is quite easy to put to tie this game in with Conan.  It is exactly what the game will be, spoon fed questing.
 

This game will attract a lot of initial players until they figure out that it is another lead you by the hand theme park and then, just like Conan the playerbase with rapidly dwindle.

All those Bioware is great posters are now eating a lot of crow.

if Muzyka does not understand that "It’s not a day-in-the-life of Star Wars,  it’s about being a hero" in a MMO context is a paradoxon, then Bioware is more f**ked than i thought. Being a hero works fine for solo games, making everybody a hero in an MMO is just crapp cause the demotes the hero status to an average-joe.

after seeing the rise and fall of SWG and this annoucement my conclusion is the following, the SW-background is simply incompatible with the concept of a successful MMO.  If you want to make a SW-MMO Lucasarts forces you to opt for the current mainstream market, as a consequence there is no chance for the development of content that is appealing for mature gamers but you are forced for addressing the needs of the average 14 to 25 year old star wars 2nd generation fans, which maybe have played WoW but no complex MMO and are used to have all the easy to achieve blinky blinky.

The result is a flavor of the month pseudo-storydriven mass product with astonnishing peak sales during release and the same astonishing decay afterwards.

Originally posted by Jowen

No, we do not know a lot about the game yet, but we do know what we are getting reported.

And those reports indicates straongly that the major focus is on the individual player (you are THE hero) and not on interaction of players (your involvement with other players detemins you success). Based on the information given it seems SW:TOR will be another "themepark" MMO with fancy rides and stories being to told you, and not a virtual unniverse where stories are what the players make them to be.

My spider sense is not tingling over this one.

Not necessarily, I think the main focus of the developers is to make you feel like A Star Wars hero, which does not rule out grouping and socializing at all.

Originally posted by Hrothmund

Originally posted by Jowen

No, we do not know a lot about the game yet, but we do know what we are getting reported.

And those reports indicates straongly that the major focus is on the individual player (you are THE hero) and not on interaction of players (your involvement with other players detemins you success). Based on the information given it seems SW:TOR will be another "themepark" MMO with fancy rides and stories being to told you, and not a virtual unniverse where stories are what the players make them to be.

My spider sense is not tingling over this one.

 

Not necessarily, I think the main focus of the developers is to make you feel like A Star Wars hero, which does not rule out grouping and socializing at all.

Indeed. They even made an example of Luke and Han, who both have completely different stories yet still come together to battle for the good of the galaxy (of course, you can be evil as well, so clearly you don't have to be a Han or luke clone.).

If any of you guys have read EU novels, there is TONS of room to make epic stories for individual characters, without dramatically affecting the entire galaxy. If Bioware says they are putting more writing effort into this game than all of their other games combined, then damn it, I'm excited. And if they say they think they can make storytelling work in an online atmosphere, without the need to replay the same quest you did a week ago for you but this time for your buddy, I believe them.

They made a conscious choice to take the franchise to the online space, when they could easily have turned out another massively selling single player game. Honestly, I don't think EA had a whole lot to do with that decision either. If they think it can be done, I think it'll be better than what we have on the market now, at minimum.