You know, something I noticed as difference between Morrowind and Oblivion came recently to my mind, when I drove over Voss.

Back in Morrowind, I felt every single place as so unique, if you would have dropped me in ANY place of Morrowind (the Elder Scrolls game), I always would have known where I was in a second. Now while Oblivion was certainly beautiful, it was horribly generic. Result? I used to gaze at my world map every 3 minutes to see where I was. All places looked the same.

And now with SWTOR planets I have the same. When I played LOTRO, EQ2 or WOW, and you would have dropped me ANYWHERE in the world, I would ALWAYS have instantly known where I was. Here...? No way.

You see, I recall when the first developer videos surfaced, I always wondered why they opened the map every 60 seconds. Should they as developers not know their worlds? But now, I understand. When I drove over Voss, I realized I too opened the map all the time, but the entire planet looks the same in all spots. There kinda are no landmarks, nothing special. The starter planets have that. But think of all the many "dungeons", like the tunnels in Nar Shadda or Coruscant, and open worlds like Alderaan, Voss or Balmorra. There is nothing specific. And the size sort of adds to it. Voss and Alderaan look all the same-ish over a VAST area of land. If you take the zones in WOW, LOTRO or EQ2 as popular counter-examples, it was always easy to navigate, because the land itself was distintive enough. But here, in the dungeons and overland zones I ALWAYS need the map every few moments. It is one of those things I more feel something is amiss than right of the bat having a theory and explanation.

Hmm.

If you watch more closely you will see copy & paste in swtor  a lot when it comes to architecture...there are other games out there who use this aswell.

Originally posted by Elikal

Now while Oblivion was certainly beautiful, it was horribly generic. Result? I used to gaze at my world map every 3 minutes to see where I was. All places looked the same.

While Bioware's worlds are essentially theater sets, I would say that they aren't generic. If one pays attention one should easily be able to tell where you are.

To the above comment, I would apply the same thinking. In Oblvion it was extermely easy to tell where you were by the difference in foiliage. My guess is that some people just didn't pay attention.

IMO the worlds are stunnings and different. It's a definate positive for SWTOR

Originally posted by bossalinie

IMO the worlds are stunnings and different. It's a definate positive for SWTOR

yeah basicly theres little to no similarities besides the starports interior beein pretty copied over.

my theory is that because there are quest indicators on the map, people dont look around enough to get a feel for the world. They just keep pressing M to see how close they are to the green triangle. 

In old WoW, you didnt have that (except Thotbott, grab the locs!) so you had to remember places because you quested there.

Originally posted by 77lolmac77

my theory is that because there are quest indicators on the map, people dont look around enough to get a feel for the world. They just keep pressing M to see how close they are to the green triangle. 

In old WoW, you didnt have that (except Thotbott, grab the locs!) so you had to remember places because you quested there.

 

^^^ = liquid gooooooooooooooooooooooooold-ah

Originally posted by 77lolmac77

my theory is that because there are quest indicators on the map, people dont look around enough to get a feel for the world. They just keep pressing M to see how close they are to the green triangle. 

In old WoW, you didnt have that (except Thotbott, grab the locs!) so you had to remember places because you quested there.

 

Yes, this is just one part of the "I deliver everything on a silver plate"....

Everything is marked on your map from e-mail to shops, to quest locations and even boxes. People run around in the game world of swtor with their transparent map open looking how they get the fastes way to their next quest symbol. This is just one big point which takes away a lot of immersion of a game world.

Originally posted by Elikal

You know, something I noticed as difference between Morrowind and Oblivion came recently to my mind, when I drove over Voss.

Back in Morrowind, I felt every single place as so unique, if you would have dropped me in ANY place of Morrowind (the Elder Scrolls game), I always would have known where I was in a second. Now while Oblivion was certainly beautiful, it was horribly generic. Result? I used to gaze at my world map every 3 minutes to see where I was. All places looked the same.

And now with SWTOR planets I have the same. When I played LOTRO, EQ2 or WOW, and you would have dropped me ANYWHERE in the world, I would ALWAYS have instantly known where I was. Here...? No way.

You see, I recall when the first developer videos surfaced, I always wondered why they opened the map every 60 seconds. Should they as developers not know their worlds? But now, I understand. When I drove over Voss, I realized I too opened the map all the time, but the entire planet looks the same in all spots. There kinda are no landmarks, nothing special. The starter planets have that. But think of all the many "dungeons", like the tunnels in Nar Shadda or Coruscant, and open worlds like Alderaan, Voss or Balmorra. There is nothing specific. And the size sort of adds to it. Voss and Alderaan look all the same-ish over a VAST area of land. If you take the zones in WOW, LOTRO or EQ2 as popular counter-examples, it was always easy to navigate, because the land itself was distintive enough. But here, in the dungeons and overland zones I ALWAYS need the map every few moments. It is one of those things I more feel something is amiss than right of the bat having a theory and explanation.

Hmm.

if i were to drop you into an office building in a major capital city on earth, would you be able to immediately tell where you are?  I'm guessing not, since most office buildings look quite similar.

The world of star wars is also a civilized one, so there are houses, offices and modular remote bases likely built out of similar materials.  So it kinda makes sense that one spaceport looks similar to another.  (Think of the interior of an airport, they're very similar all over the world, despite massive cultural differences).  If you're out in the tattooine desert, i doubt you'll mistake it for anyplace else, but a bar on one civlized planet probably looks liek another.  That's jsut the nature of civilization.

Originally posted by arieste

Originally posted by Elikal

You know, something I noticed as difference between Morrowind and Oblivion came recently to my mind, when I drove over Voss.

Back in Morrowind, I felt every single place as so unique, if you would have dropped me in ANY place of Morrowind (the Elder Scrolls game), I always would have known where I was in a second. Now while Oblivion was certainly beautiful, it was horribly generic. Result? I used to gaze at my world map every 3 minutes to see where I was. All places looked the same.

And now with SWTOR planets I have the same. When I played LOTRO, EQ2 or WOW, and you would have dropped me ANYWHERE in the world, I would ALWAYS have instantly known where I was. Here...? No way.

You see, I recall when the first developer videos surfaced, I always wondered why they opened the map every 60 seconds. Should they as developers not know their worlds? But now, I understand. When I drove over Voss, I realized I too opened the map all the time, but the entire planet looks the same in all spots. There kinda are no landmarks, nothing special. The starter planets have that. But think of all the many "dungeons", like the tunnels in Nar Shadda or Coruscant, and open worlds like Alderaan, Voss or Balmorra. There is nothing specific. And the size sort of adds to it. Voss and Alderaan look all the same-ish over a VAST area of land. If you take the zones in WOW, LOTRO or EQ2 as popular counter-examples, it was always easy to navigate, because the land itself was distintive enough. But here, in the dungeons and overland zones I ALWAYS need the map every few moments. It is one of those things I more feel something is amiss than right of the bat having a theory and explanation.

Hmm.

if i were to drop you into an office building in a major capital city on earth, would you be able to immediately tell where you are?  I'm guessing not, since most office buildings look quite similar.

 

The world of star wars is also a civilized one, so there are houses, offices and modular remote bases likely built out of similar materials.  So it kinda makes sense that one spaceport looks similar to another.  (Think of the interior of an airport, they're very similar all over the world, despite massive cultural differences).  If you're out in the tattooine desert, i doubt you'll mistake it for anyplace else, but a bar on one civlized planet probably looks liek another.  That's jsut the nature of civilization.

Sure if you just look at the buildings and empty walls, but what about the people?   If get to look at the poeple and work spaces in the office building I could probably guess the state and maybe the closest big city.

Not sure I could tell a planet just by the decor and/or poeple in SWTOR.

Originally posted by spizz

Originally posted by 77lolmac77

my theory is that because there are quest indicators on the map, people dont look around enough to get a feel for the world. They just keep pressing M to see how close they are to the green triangle. 

In old WoW, you didnt have that (except Thotbott, grab the locs!) so you had to remember places because you quested there.

 

Yes, this is just one part of the "I deliver everything on a silver plate"....

Everything is marked on your map from e-mail to shops, to quest locations and even boxes. People run around in the game world of swtor with their transparent map open looking how they get the fastes way to their next quest symbol. This is just one big point which takes away a lot of immersion of a game world.

Problem is, you level so fast and can easily find missions all around you that once you do find discover a hidden mission it is almost certainly going to be green and not rewarding. Only thing there is to get you to want to look around is datacrons. The process of finding and reaching them on your own is more of a reward than the stat bonus.

Worlds- not very generic. So far Belsavis has been the only planet that I've been to that was underwhelming. The others are very well done and often have beautiful backdrops.

Isn't this a problem for Star Wars in general? As parodied in Robot Chicken: 

"What kind of cruel god would create a whole planet defined by just one topographical feature? It would be just as ridiculous as a whole world made of nothing but ice, lava, or forest! No, sometimes you just have to dig deep down inside yourself and find the courage to say: Look out world! Here comes Krayt Dragon!"

Originally posted by bossalinie

IMO the worlds are stunnings and different. It's a definate positive for SWTOR

Then why does every planet have the same selection of trees?

i wish they were a bit more explorable but Hoths is fricken amazing especially the ship graveyard.

Its not just the worlds, when i found that the imperial spacedock is exactly the same as the republic one, right down to the placement of the vendors and npcs ... yeah it just didn't give me that warm fuzzy feeling in my belly the devs probably intended. Spacecombat missions, companions, buildings, trees, ground/vegetation texture, ambience sounds ... its a long list and thats just the stuff i noticed.

Also the mirrored classes, yeah it does help balance, but:

1. In a game thats already heavy on copy paste(f.e. in VO, there are some lines i literally have heard many dozen times now, and many classes have extremely similar abilities with different skins even outside mirrors) you can't help but wonder how much behind that mirroring was for balance reasons and how much was about cutting corners.

2. If they cared about cross faction balance so much, why did they create an open world PvP area with two factions if they know damn well from experience in Warhammer that there will be numerical faction imbalance which will screw it over. I mean it has never worked, not even one single time in the whole history of damn gaming. Its not rocket science, boring good faction vs cool evil faction = faction imbalance ...

They cut alot of corners imho, and sometimes its showing. Only bothers me with the characters though, i would like some unique abilities, stuff that no other class has ... for a wow analogy, mages had blink, frostnova and iceblock. Those where totally unique abilities that defined the class to me, gave it identity. Even if you played a different ranged nuker it had completely different gameplay because it had different defining abilities. Here two different ranged nukers play rather similar, sic pet on mob, spam biggest nuke/AoE, rinse and repeat.

Even the companions are the same, you have generic healer, generic ranged tank, generic melee tank with weird gear problem(needing aim on melee ftw), generic melee tank without gear problem(wookie or monster where gear doesn't show or jedi/sith), ranged droid tank, generic melee and generic ranged. The rest is cosmetics.

Most of the world's areas are inaccessible. That's the difference between open worlds like Oblivion and SWTOR. Sure, you'll get pretty backgrounds but what's the use if you can't actually go there? It is a game and not a movie after all...

If you want to take a hike and explore the scenery play LotRO, its on the "free to walk around"-play model and you can probably wander around for days. Also i can't help but ask myself where the difference is between upgrading the innards of your equipment, and just having a cosmetic apperance tab where you can wear whatever and just hide the ugly real items forever ...

Is it just me or is the cosmetic clothing thing better? You could wear anything vs having to find orange gear which appearance you like in order to upgrade ...

Originally posted by Rocketeer

If you want to take a hike and explore the scenery play LotRO, its on the "free to walk around"-play model and you can probably wander around for days. Also i can't help but ask myself where the difference is between upgrading the innards of your equipment, and just having a cosmetic apperance tab where you can wear whatever and just hide the ugly real items forever ...

Is it just me or is the cosmetic clothing thing better? You could wear anything vs having to find orange gear which appearance you like in order to upgrade ...

wait what??!?!?!? LOTRO has open enviornments you can wander for days AND is a themepark MMO.. AMAZING didn't think this concept was even possible!!!!

also yea I like rifts appearance tab better was nice simple and worked great