Originally posted by Swanea

Sir! The possibility of this thread not having trolls, personal insults, and other bad things is approximately 897236498264987234 to ONE!

 LOL.  Very true.  I don't get why people keep this obnoxious debate alive.  Bioware and everyone else has copied a lot of stuff from WoW because of it's success.  It is understandable.  And they tried to place their own spin on certain things, that is where we will see if the product is succesful or not.  So I'm not really getting your whole "vs" discussion.  I don't think it will be a battle between these two games for subs.  It's a battle between all MMOs out there to pull more subs than others. 

It's too difficult to tell.  I am not going to take Bioware's spin on it because of course they have a vested interest in good marketing and we have all been promised the next best thing in MMO's only to see that it wasn't what the hype led us to believe.  Furthermore, I'm not going to take those on the Internet whose opinions aren't backed by any solid facts seriously.  That goes for the ones who believe it will be single player dominant or those who believe otherwise.  With games like this, MMOs that step slightly out of the box, you never quite know what you are getting.  That's why I'm not a big advocate on LE and lifetime subs, ect.  I've been burned plenty.  I would hypothesize that SWTOR will have many let downs as far as the single player VO content, but will also have some great content that will hook a lot of players.  I won't go so far to say that Bioware has cracked the new code of MMOs and this will dominate the market though. 

In the end the only way we know this is by playing the game.  Open beta should be a part of this release for that reason since there has been so many let downs in the market recently.  If there isn't an OB, I'd be even more skeptical as to what their version of story driven quests will look like come release.

I don't think as many people expected space combat as you may think.  I for one am in what I believe is the majority in being extremely surprised that there will be space combat in SWTOR.  Overall, I do expect more in an MMORPG genre, but this wasn't one of my expectations.  However, I welcome the attempt and just hope it's done right and not half arsed.

We'll see if these names stick all the way to release.  I feel they are a bit strange as well.  But I don't think it would be the end of my interest if it did happen to stick.

I feel like if the MMORPG was done correctly it wouldn't need to have you chose between good or bad by selecting an option.  You would just act on whichever choice you felt was appropriate for how you play your character.  It seems really lame to me that you have ot click on a good or bad choice, oppose to just acting in the manner you want.

For example, in early Ultima Online you were able to kill other players, take their loot, and even cut up their corpse.  By doing this, if it was unprompted, then your character would would develope a real reputation that others could see in your title.  It was actually hard to do the right thing a lot of times and be the good guy so that you could have an untarnished reputation.  That to me was real morality in game.  The way Bioware does it is appropriate for console gaming because you're not playing with thousands of other people.  But to do it in an MMORPG like SWTOR makes me throw up in my mouth a little.  It's almost like they want to make the games so simple that we don't have to think at all, we just get on the moving conveyer belt and click on whatever choice that gets us the result of villian or good guy.  Doesn't that seem lame to anyone else?  If you haven't played a real sandbox, open world game where morality was actually already in game by default then you won't understand my stance, instead you may just think that it is the only way to have it like Bioware or Fable in an MMO.  But trust me it isn't. 

Originally posted by SuperXero89

Originally posted by Stellos

I can't help to think that the MMO for FF coming up has something to do with the poor quality, like you said.  You would never see Bioware do that with an Oblivion/Elder Scrolls or something.  I felt like it isn't even a full game, but yet you pay full price.

Seeing as I'm not sure you can blame issues with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age on SW:ToR, I'm not sure I'd blame any problems with FFXIII on FFXIV.  Take me with a grain of salt, but I believe I even read somewhere that the head of Square Enix wanted FFXIII to appeal moreso to the type of gamer who enjoys Halo rather than a good RPG.  In short, they thought making Final Fantasy as linear as they did would make it appeal to a wider audience, and thus it would sell more copies.

Actually, if you wanted to blame its linearity on something, I'd say the biggest culprit was the time and resources porting the game to the 360 took from the game's development.

 Fair enough.  I don't want to make it sound like I think the game is a waste of time and money, because it isn't.  I suppose I just had higher expectations based on previous FFs.  I did do my research before hand, but sometimes I just got to find out for myself and the linear nature was quite bothersome to me.  Like you said though it is a different appeal factor than previous open world FF's.  I just felt like they got away from the open world feel due to the fact FFXIV is en route as an MMO and they wanted something different from their console release, as it would never live up to the freedom seen in an MMO.

I can't help to think that the MMO for FF coming up has something to do with the poor quality, like you said.  You would never see Bioware do that with an Oblivion/Elder Scrolls or something.  I felt like it isn't even a full game, but yet you pay full price.

I'm getting close to the end of the story, but I find it pretty average and feel like I have to force myself to keep pushing on just so I can say I beat it.  I have loved the visuals, music and the new combat system.  But I find the weapon upgrade system is just tedious and irritating.  The story is boring and the names they chose for the creatures, areas, characters, weapons, ect are just rediculous.  This is the English version, but it feels like a foreign game to me.  What's going on with the FF series?  What do you guys think of this FF?

With a game that has voice over and "choices" I HIGHLY doubt that they believe in the seamless, open world philosophy of MMOs.  As much as I wish this was true I would bet a lot of money that you are wrong and are jumping to conclusions based on limited, skewed information. 

I loved this system in the game.  Sure it was annoying at times, but it made the player plan a head, and think, not just click click click.  It brought strategy to the game.  It also brought risk because if you died with a lot of regs on you, you had to replace them:(  I personally stocked a lot of regs in my house and bought them whenever I was in town and found them to be available.  I loved the system, it was actually one of my favorite parts of the game.

You have an interesting theory on the lifetime sub.  I think you're right.  For example, if WoW would of offered a lifetime sub think about how much money they'd be losing with these people that have been playing since release.  So hopefully we don't see that offer made by Bioware lol.

The MMORPG genre has definately evolved into a WoW type genre, I'll give you that.  But obviously there is a market out there for those who want this type of genre.  I think back to early Ultima Online or EQ and I don't remember hearing those terms like tank and DPS.  But now every MMO that comes out people want to know what characters are the tanks, healers, DPSer's, ect.  Why do there have to be these categories?  It's odd to think about it this way, but I don't think anyone can go back to the concept of a MMO world that is open to roam and has a real feel of danger.  I feel like characters are started out in MMOs with way too much power from the get go.  But that's what people want.  I don't get it.

Not enough information here to really make any type of prediction.  I will anxiously be awaiting some solid information though. 

Interesting post.  I suppose if it wasn't Star Wars I wouldn't be giving it too much attention either.  But I don't know if that is because I was just originally drawn to it because of the SW factor or the gameplay concepts don't interest me.  I'm not a huge fan of choice RPG anymore so I suppose it is the SW factor for me.

I agree that it would be a great game, however I don't see the relavance with SWTOR.  SWTOR will hardly resemble either one of those games. 

Originally posted by Dibdabs
 

Nope, not me.  I played a lot of RTS games over the years, starting in the early 90's, and I really enjoyed them.  I must have played so many that they just don't interest me any more.  Good genre though.

I feel the same way.  I really enjoyed RTS in the early-mid 90's.  But anymore they just don't keep my interest and the multiplayer was ruined with the No matter how you slice it the zerg is still alive in all multiplayer RTS.  However, I mainly play for the single player content in this genre.  I didn't like the beta much of starcraft 2, but that was only beta so I don't take it too seriously.  Overall, I think it is safe to say I won't be picking up this one. 

Like every MMO that has come before it, the proof will be in the pudding.  I've heard so many promises from MMO developers that haven't lived up to the hype.  SWTOR is no different.  I will play it with the same scrutiny that I would any other MMO.  My expectations are high for MMOs and if it doesn't live up to them, I will simply not play it.  I won't go out and buy some lifetime membership or something like that based on hype.  We'll see if their theories actually work in an MMO environment. 

Originally posted by Panther2103

If the game is designed to be played solo only, then it would be bad. But most of these new MMO's that come out with solo friendly paths, that's a great idea IMO. It doesn't take any of the MMO out of MMO, it just lets you decide when you want to interact, instead of forcing you to play with other people. Some days I just feel like I want to progress, but really don't want to talk to other people, just play the game on my own terms. If the game is designed to be solo and group oriented, that gives you the option to do what you want and options should be what gaming is about. Nothing forced.

 Exactly.  Sometimes I don't have the time to group up and play for over an hour.  Sometimes I would like to just log in and play for an hour and solo some quick progress.  Why is this such a bad option to have in the game?  I feel that if you are too far either way the game will fail.  I think it's great to have both options to be able to fully advance your character.  Not everyone can spend 30 hours a week raiding for epic loot ;)

Nice idea on the poll.  I was curious on this stat as well.  I would make a hypothesis that the younger crowd will be leaning towards the republic and the older crowd toward the empire.  I don't think your poll differentiates enough to see which one has the older crowd.  I think a lot of the 17 y.o.'s probably vote as 18+.  You should of done more age groups like 18-25, 25+ ect.

As far as space combat, I like to keep it simple.  Space combat is a blast, but if it is overally complicated I don't see too many people spending much time with it.  I think it should be more of a mini-game than large portion of the combat in SWTOR.