Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by Jimmy562

No the 200 hours is an average for class story alone. It factors in no other content be it group quests, normal quests that everyone can do, pvp, world bosses or anything else. 

Hmm, this is not how I recall it, what they said. Continuing below:

Originally posted by fadis

Let me try a different approach.

If you were to decide to play through the entire story of two classes solo - smuggler and trooper, for example - and you were to ignore time spent trying to solo flashpoints or group quests... you believe that by the end of each story, you would have 200 hours of content, none of which is the exact same as the other class.

Or, do you believe there might be 20 hours of unique content... and about 180 hours of generic quest hub content that is shared by the entire faction?

This is going offtopic, but ok, here it goes: iirc they mentioned the 200 hrs or 'hundreds of hours' referred to the gameplay hours in total, so incl World Quests you might want/need to do to level up but excluding everything else, the pure basics of Class Quest content, required combat and traveling for that and additional World Quests. They also mentioned that at the starter worlds the amount of Class Quest content ws 60-70%, afterwards it becomes 40% and only at the very end the Class Quest content amounts to 10% compared to the World Quest content.

So from this I gather the pure Class Quest content is around 75 gameplay hours of your leveling experience, or in the range of 50-100 hours of it.

Of course, that's for one playthrough, there are examples and they also mentioned where different choices lead to entirely different questlines and locations you'll visit. Not every decision you make will have such drastic different outcomes, but from the amount of examples and statements I'd say it's still a significant content variation within the same CQ class.

 

In short, I'd estimate that the Class Quest content for each class holds like 125-150 hours of gameplay with all its variations in decisions, about which you'll probably see 75 hours of on your first playthrough. the rest of the gameplay hours that you'll spend leveling will be doing the World Quests that are shared with your faction, or as alternate leveling options, Flashpoints, Heroic Group Quests, Warzones, and open world pvp.

 

Of course, even if they're estimations based on the info and facts available so far, it's still just speculation.

 

/offtopic

I think you're wrong here Mav. Just sayin. As I recall if they went with gameplay hours in total which include class quests, world quests, flashpoints etc., then the number they mentioned with that was 1600 hours. They never mentioned that number again however so I think someone just pulled that one out of a hat, but in any case the number of hours for gameplay hours in total is a heck of a lot more than 200 hours. I mean heck, DA:O averaged out at only 100 hours and I've gotten the impresson that the average of class stories in TOR is quite a bit more than that.

Originally posted by Troneas

Originally posted by bossalinie

Ready...

 

C'mon get Ready...

 

I mean really  Ready....

 

Are you ready for some HUTTBALL?!! A monday night PARTY!

We got Vader, Luke, and Han and 'bout to get thing STARTED!

Launch the X-Wings, Charge the Death Star,  that's right!

All my Force friends are here on Monday Night!

thank you. 

 

perhaps this will illustrate the point i was trying to make.

 

 

Not even alittle, sorry but mockery is always a poor form of debate. Also there's the fact that we don't have Vader, Luke or any of the others. Again this IS NOT the time of the movies. Besides are you seriously going to tell me Han wouldn't take part in this if they paid him? And Luke? The guy who used to fly around Tatooine blasting womprats for fun? Sure, there are some characters that wouldn't take part in this just as I'm sure there are some players who won't take part in this either, but it's their choice who their characters are, not yours. Not to mention the vast majority will play this game as it is, a game meant to have fun.

Edit: You know the problem with the movies and all the characters in them is that they have become so iconic that it's impossible for people to see them as human.

Originally posted by Troneas

*snipsnipsnip*

listen the jedi are a legal governmental organisation. they are part of the Judicial Department which answers to the supreme chancellor. 

 

triying to dismiss my point by pointing out that "some" members bend the rules is not good enough. it doesn't justifiy the circumstances. 

Again I question this. That may be what they are in the time of the movies, but is it what they are in the old republic era? Certainly they can't be a judicial department if they are in exile.

Originally posted by Troneas

*snipsnipsnip*

yes yes but the truce doesn't explain how a monastic peacekeeping organisation (ie the jedi) find themselves playing floatingball soccer with their historic enemies in a ganster town. 

Are they? Is that what the really are in this era? I'm not so sure about that. This isn't the movies, the jedi of this time period aren't glorified cops or stand ins for a nonexistant army as they seem to be in the time of the movies. I don't know enough of the lore to know what they may be in this time period.  A reglious order certainy, but one that has rocked the galaxy with civil wars and may not be entirely trusted because of it. They're close to the Republic certainly, but the relationship is fragile, in fact at the time of this game they aren't even allowed to stay in their temple on Coruscant. It's very possible the jedi code isn't held to quite as well in this time period as it is within the time period of the movies.

Originally posted by Troneas

Originally posted by denshing

Originally posted by Troneas

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Troneas

 

the name is still pathetically rediculous though, so is the concept. 

I imagine that "Hutt Ball" is a slant rhyme for "Foot Ball" and is just a happy coincidene that they capitalized on in order to make a game that was somewhat evocative of a sport.

doesn't speak much about their originality though does it? 

 

but then again what was i thinking? starwars was never original 

 There is no such thing as "original". It does not exist. The world to look for is authentic.

well its not even authentic.

 

how is it authentic to star wars?

 

its a bloody violation of everything star wars stands for. 

That is far far to broad of a statement. It may be a violation of what the Jedi stand for, but clearly they can't leave out one class. Not to mention the statement is rather subjective since some  people feel a Jedi, especially in this time period, may be more apt to play. As for the sport itself, I think it fits the setting quite well. I can see how some might see the jedi playing this game as something questionable, but I can see all other classes doing it without any problem whatsoever, yes inlcuding the sith.

Originally posted by Syllendale

Here is an original idea (unless someone beat me too it elsewhere), don't play it? No where in the rules of gaming does it say you MUST play this part of the game. And if your so upest thinking "Jedi's would'nt do that!!11oneone", be creative about that stattemen. Roleplay (shocking word, I know) your jedi being somewhat disqusted on it, maybe your Jedi is an older Jedi and then be like.. "The younger Jedi just finding their powers simply dont understand yet the deep honor it is to have such a gift as being force sensitve. Soon they will wear out their needless ambitions of fame and fortune and realize how worthless such things are or can be."..... Ya know, bring back the RPG of "MMO_RPG" !! :) 

Very good sir, very good indeed. It's funny how the obvious can escape us sometimes.

Originally posted by Vhaln

Originally posted by BarakIII

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Souldrainer

I think Huttball is a great concept for the overall Star Wars universe, but as far as Sith and Jedi participating, I don't see the logic there...

That's the main issue.

 

The second one is mixing factions, which are supposedly strongly opposed to each others. It's the argument they used to explain the lack of faction switching, cross faction quests and tells.

Again, just so everybody gets it, the teams aren't made up of mixed factions, instead an empire team can take on another empire team or there can be a republic team versus another republic team. An empire player  CAN NOT be on the same team as a republic player.

 

And again, when you're talking about a sport, playing against IS playing with.

Yeah, I'm sure those who are involved in bloodsports are having so much fun with each other. Sorry, but there's a big difference between playing against someone as opposed to playing with someone, especially when a bloodsport is involved.

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Souldrainer

I think Huttball is a great concept for the overall Star Wars universe, but as far as Sith and Jedi participating, I don't see the logic there...

That's the main issue.

 

The second one is mixing factions, which are supposedly strongly opposed to each others. It's the argument they used to explain the lack of faction switching, cross faction quests and tells.

Again, just so everybody gets it, the teams aren't made up of mixed factions, instead an empire team can take on another empire team or there can be a republic team versus another republic team. An empire player  CAN NOT be on the same team as a republic player.

Originally posted by Jimmy562

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by ravenclaw77

10. Or, you know, classes.  You do know there are 8 completely different story lines, yeah?  That each take about 200 hours?

Just going to pick that one: If you really think there's 200h for each class you might be really disappointed. If I remember well from the official statements class story is only about 10-15% of the supposedly (no official confirmation)  200ish hours of story per faction.

I believe that is wrong. Pretty sure I saw them say your class story is around 50-75% of the content on starter worlds dropping to 10-15% on other planets. Chapter 1 is about 3x average KOTOR length. Chapter 2 and 3 maybe smaller but with that said it won't be far from 200hrs for the class story. 

 

Yep, he's wrong, but keep in mind that 200 hours is an average, there are those who may have done it at a much shorter time while others took much longer. But yeah, it's 200 hours average per class.

Originally posted by ravenclaw77

1. They did stay away from the trinity.  Each class is capable of multiple roles.  Everyone can DPS, and everyone can either tank, heal, or control.

They may be capable of multiple roles but you can only choose one of those roles, or go with a hybrid. I still think they have something of a soft trinity, but just exactly how soft is the question. Part of the reason for companions originally was to fill those roles and they did want to avoid going with a trinity system, however it's clear that through testing it wasn't really working out the way they hoped. I much prefer they pay attention to the info that comes out of testing instead of sticking to an idea that doesn't work.

Originally posted by nobottters

I like how the fanboys quote 3 million pre orders sold.. So the game must not be fail.

 

Let's do the math.

 

3,000,000 pre-orders (assuming this is true)

10% will cancel before actual launch, for whatever reasons such as want beta access to resell the beta account. Not care, play beta and hate it or realize BF3 was the right game for them.

2,700,000 pre-orders.

10% wil cancel because of system compatibility, unplayable problems

2,430,000 pre-orders

10% of the bulk credit cards will fail upon charge date

2,187,000 pre-orders.

15% of the pre-orders were for gaming review and media companies needing to cash in on the hype thus need copies

1,755,675 pre-orders

5% of the pre-orders are those looking to resell sold out hard copies of the collectors edition game, in hopes to cash in on a hype market

1667891 pre-orders

Already lost about a million.... ship is sinking? j/k :D

This is Star Wars, not War of Stars..... Star wars has what 30+ years of story telling and exploiting brainwashers pounding their way at kids and fans worldwide... 3 million is  a small number compared to that. It has nothing to do with Bioware....

 

I believe those who are saying there are 3 million pre-orders are mistaken. The deal is that based on pre-orders and how other games sold based on pre-orders they are estimating about 3 million games purchased upon release. I can't recall who exactly calculated this but it was one of those accountant type organizations, I'm sure you know the type.

Originally posted by BadSpock

Looks to me like crafting in TOR will be a lot more like hybrid of KOTOR 1, ME1+2.

Not much in common with your "standard" MMO-type crafting.

Actually it seems to have a lot in common with Eve's crafting. The most basic explanation is that you gather your mats, get your hands on a blueprint or in TORs case a schematic, then set up the production run in a factory, or in TORs case with your crew skills. Of course Eves industry goes a bit deeper, but the basics are pretty much the same.

Originally posted by Gibbonici

Originally posted by BarakIII

I have the feeling the grind will still very much be there in terms of crafting if you want to be a hardcore crafter, which I do. You're going to have to work to get the materials you need and I can't think of a good way to take the grind out of gathering mats for crafting. It's always the same, go kill stuff for drops, gather from nodes, and buy stuff from other players. The gathering missions will help, but only for those who plan to craft only for themselves, these gathering missions won't get a player enough mats to do more than that.

There's a thread somewhere with a recent announcement about how crafting will work. It sounds pretty different to what we're used to in other games, although I'm not sure how mob-grindy it might be.

But you can always send a companion to do your gathering for you, which has to be an improvement ;)

Yes, I mentioned that in my post if you read it. I've known the basics of how crafting will work for sometime now, all they've done lately is fill in the blanks. But the way the developers have talked about it the gathering missions aren't going to be nearly enough if you want to do some hardcore crafting. The best it will do, if even that, is to get you enough mats to craft for yourself. It's not meant to do all the work for you, it's simply meant to be a supplement to your own gathering efforts. Oh, and they may pick up some nice surprises along the way, that's all.

Originally posted by Latella

Don´t get me wrong, i still think the game will be awesome.

I just don´t see this system being any better than others, whatever comes i will accept it, but people are generally talking of it ( not only in this thread ) as if it was the panacea to conventional questing when it´s just a diff way to do the same.

It may be a different way to do the same, but the difference may be huge in how it 'feels'. I think there will always be a certain amount of grind in any MMO, it's just the nature of the genre, but there are ways to diminish how grindy it actually feels, and I believe TOR does that.

I have the feeling the grind will still very much be there in terms of crafting if you want to be a hardcore crafter, which I do. You're going to have to work to get the materials you need and I can't think of a good way to take the grind out of gathering mats for crafting. It's always the same, go kill stuff for drops, gather from nodes, and buy stuff from other players. The gathering missions will help, but only for those who plan to craft only for themselves, these gathering missions won't get a player enough mats to do more than that.

Originally posted by svann

I think it opens the door for future cooperation between the opposing factions.  Since in this zone both sides can be on the same team there can be future zones where both sides group up.

Both sides can't be on the same team, this has been misunderstood. However an Empire team can take on another Empire team, or Republic versus Republic. This has the chance of reducing queue times if a server happens to be stacked heavily with one faction or another.

Originally posted by Latella

This is so cute.

So according to you,  the fact that the x mobs to kill appear AFTER you picked up the quest as opposed to when you pick up the quest, it somehow is less grindy than killing them knowing what to kill from the start.

It´s just too cute <3

No, not according to me, but according to the developers and the videos I've seen. The number to kill is generally low and you're likely to kill that many on the way to whatever the story quest has sent you on to begin with. What game testing info has been released suggest that it does indeed feel less grindy than other MMOs.

I still see people insisting that your typical quests in TOR will be the "go kill 10 rats" kind of quests, but this simply isn't true. However, what will happen is this: you pick up a quest from an npc and maybe along the way you kill something, when you kill it a bonus quest will pop up to kill x number of that mob and when you kill the number mentioned then you'll get another pop up telling you you've finished the bonus quest. There will be no voice overs associated with such quests and they are meant to be as unintrusive as possible. Also you are likely to kill whatever number of mobs you need to kill on the way to doing what your main quests ask you to do, this makes questing to feel less grindy than in other MMOs.

This was explained at E3 and has been repeated, and shown via gameplay videos, multiple times; but people are still insisting that your standard quest will be the kill x number type of quests. This thread and post is meant to set the record straight. Your main quests will always be story based and the bonus quests just sort of happen along the way. You don't talk to a quest giver to get the kill quests nor to turn them in, they work seamlessly with whatever you happen to be doing at the time.

Originally posted by stayontarget

Off-Topic but is it me or does that guy in the video look & sound like the dad in "American Pie"  O_o

There may be some very slight similarities...like maybe with the hair or something, I dunno, but mostly I think it's just you.

Originally posted by hayes303

Originally posted by Fratman

I hoped ToR was gonna be garbage when they revealed the space pvp minigame.

fixed

You didn't correct it quite enough. There's no pvp involved.

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by tawess

Originally posted by Deewe

• Initially the game was supposed to stay away from the holy Tank-Healer-DPSer trinity.
• Then Combat was supposed to feel epic... to end with Wow like Boss kiting.
• LS and force powers are now being used in Hutt Ball games.
• All classes in solo mode are pet classes.
• Space combat is a point and click minigame.
• Heroic crafting ends as having NPCs do it for us.
• On paper SWTOR has less features than games years older.
• Not even KOTOR core features at launch: Pazaak and Swoop racing.
• Story lines doesn't look that epic and it seems doesn't really have an impact on the outcome, but maybe a few times.
• Replayability seems to be there only if you switch factions.
• Some gear looks like coming directly from Wow: mage/warlock robes, epic shoulderpads.
• Character heroic proportions look silly.
• Game looks on rails or at least very directed

 

And that is with a budget even bigger than Tabula Rasa one.

So... what went wrong?

Apart from the ones marked... the rest is just opinions.. So i guess... You (the OP) had to high expectations

Honesgtly i am very dissapointed by this post.... I expected some well versed brain food. Instead i got.... Bhwaaaaaa.... They did not do my dream game so now it is rubbish.

 Glad to see there's someone that remembers the facts there.

 

Please let me insist on a few things: they kept saying how crafting would be heroic. It isn't.

They also over hyped the space feature. It's balls.

Playing with/out a companion was supposed to be totally optional. It's not in single player and very restricted in multiplayer.

Did I mention the game was supposed to be innovative? Apart the totally VO thing it doesn't look like it.

You can insist all you want, but you'd be wrong. Yeah they used, and still use, the word heroic a bunch. It's a marketing ploy, get over it. However they never used it in conjunction with their crafting. And don't sit there and tell  me how long you've been following the game, I've been doing it at least as long along with thousands of other people all who are quite capable of coming up with their own opinions.

As for the space, initially they never even intended to have any sort of space combat but added it due to all the outcry. They would have been better off sticking to not having it at all.

Companions had always been meant as an important part of the game, they have said all along you could play without them, but that you would be doing so at a severe disadvantage.

The only innovation they have ever really touted is story. It has been their angle from the very start.

The previous poster is right, those things marked in yellow are the only things in your list that has any validity, the rest is just your own perceptions which are highly subjective at best.