Originally posted by eluldor

Example Spoiler! I did not bow to a Sith Lord as Imperial Agent, I was given the option again, and I refused again and the bastard killed me. That is right, he shocked me with lightning and I freakin died and had to rez. More annoying than game changing.

Didn't kill you. At best knocked you out. Just saying.

Originally posted by baritone3k

Let' try to get a list of 20 examples of choices effecting events beyond the cutscene.

 

**snip**

I'll give you a couple

1) Faction: ie. you choose Republic you can't be a Sith

2) Specie: depending on the race you want to play (but human) your are limited to the classes you can play

3) Space ship: you either choose your class or your space ship type

4) Story: if you choose a type of story you can't really choose your type of combat skills

5) Weapons: Each class is mostly limited to only one type of weapon

6) Gear: you choose your gear color palette when you choose your class

7) Companions: 1st your class has mandatory companions, then you are required to use specific companions to fit needed roles.

8) Colors: your weapons laser colors are set when you choose your side

Ok it's not events still choices matters in TOR. Maybe a bit too much ;)

Originally posted by killion81

**snip** 

They key to this is that the voice over cinematics would be used to enhance the underlying game.  They should never BE the game.

**snip**

 

Agreed. So much focus went into the voiced over cinematics that they built the game around it instead of using it as a great topping.

The other issue with the VO is most of the dialog choices do nothing more than just changing your lines. It doesn't help replayability that much.

Finally the writing isn't that great. IMHO AoC has even better writing and LotRo is far superior.

Originally posted by mrshroom89

Originally posted by MMOGamer71

Not my cup of tea of a MMORPG priority, but cool for those who use it.

Next patch Trion needs to work on divorces where the female toon gets half of your loot for life.

hahahaha this  is win in its purest form

 

New profession coming in next patch: lawyer!

BTW seems to me there's at least one AAA studio who understood fluff and social stuff keeps players in game.

Good.

Originally posted by Praetalus

Ok, so I'm in the closed beta and loving it so far. The issue came when a buddy called me to confirm lunch tommorw and my wife overheard me telling him how nice and good looking Tera was and that I would probably be beat tomorrow as I would be up all night on Tera....

 

Needless to say... My wife had a few questions as to just whom this "Tera" bitch was and what I was thinking. Worse 20 mins of my life trying to get her to understand it was a game... Lol I wish they could have named it something else...

 

LOL! Made my day, thanks for sharing.

Originally posted by nilden

Activision Blizzard is a far cry from the good guy.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252

 

Epic.

Simply awesome, thanks for sharing!

Originally posted by smh_alot

Originally posted by Deewe

99.5 up time, lol!

 

 

Man, the way you keep posting at it, I'd almost think you dislike the game or its company >.> They were talking about outside scheduled/planned/intended server maintenance, like crashes or that something has to be brought down quickly bc something is going wrong and not for planned patches, that kinda thing. Not that odd a term nor that strange figures in IT business.

It's been ages since I worked on live servers with SLA under 99.9%

Well guess maybe I became too much used to higher standards.

99.5 up time, lol!

Originally posted by iceman00

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by iceman00

Originally posted by Deewe

You can do a bounty style system even with Jedis, from a lore standpoint.  The Order seeks to put a stop to such and such.  Eliminate the threat.  Even the light doesn't frown on killing protecting others.  :)

As far as getting people to pvp, you can do two things.  One is reduce the barriers to pvp.  Right now, there really aren't any.  (Outside of the expertise mechanic and the people who sploited.)  The other thing you can do is provide incentives to get in the game.

I'd be fine with one or two additional planets.  Have open world pvp, and real tangible benefits.  Allow guild bases and strongholds.  compete for resource nodes.  Even provide an "epic" operation or FP.  The other side could still do it, but have to pay a fee, but the rewards can outweight to costs, and can work towards tipping control of the planet back.

Don't want to pvp.  Provide really hard pve missions smuggling.  Hope you got a fast speeder, because you are heading into the hornets nest, behind enemy lines, to drop off stims and medpacks (or whatever) you crafted, to help out our allies in the war effort.  Make resource convoys where people who like crafting have to work with pvpers to get a convoy through contested territory.  And make these kind of missions give pvp commendations just like going out and killign players are.  in the end, it is all for the benefit of the same war effort.

Guild bases also become a guild project.  make them expensive.  Make you work to maintain them.  But the best bases really become a sight to behold.  Not to mention the bragging rights from taking one down!

Right a good story can explain many things. Glad to see you didn't fall in the trap and do have imagination  ;)

A few controlable planets are good. Hoewever we must not forget PvP, especially on PvP servers should be available on every planets. 

Smuggling missions, behind enemy lines recon missions, skirmish of weak points would be great for PvP and PvE. And I really like the convoy mission too. Some kind of escort mission but with a more tangible prize/objective.

Guild projects, like building capital ships and having to defend the factory at the same time. Interesting.

 

The last one is too much like EVE.  :)  Hey, I like it, but not really feasible given current mechanics.  Bad space play and all.  Or do you mean capital ships being built on ground?

But speaking of capital ships.....  they really should've tied them into guild projects from the start.  If not, something they should add in.  Guild capital ships.  Even if you aren't using them in pvp, just make them a hub for your guild.  A hangar for ships.  On ship cantina.  Whatever.  It stays mainly with the Imperial/Republic fleet, just make it a seperate instance.  Have a holo room where you can make holocalls starting up flashpoints/operations.  Be able to have "sales represenatives" which basically function as vendors.  This actually gives something long-term for pve players to work towards.

Was thinking space but can be done with grounded factories too.

I find the idea of guild halls interesting for RP and displaying trophies still they should not compete as social hubs against the NPC social hubs. It's a bad idea to scatter the MMO population in multiple social hubs.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by itgrowls

while it is true that blizzard's next expansion is a year away and it's going to be just as boring i think we can now see that TOR didn't really get the mass exodus they were expecting simply because it's the same old boring combat and end-game model everyone's seen in WoW for 7 years now and in other games before that....combine this with serious problems in TOR and mismanagment and i think many people will be looking for the next big next gen mmo. three guesses what that will be hehe two words with a 2 at the end. :)

Probably but don't be too sure just yet.

Trion actually succeded pretty good running a game like Rift and getting back a lot more than the development cost by supporting the released game. 

If Bioware work really hard supporting their game they still can turn things around. After all was Wows endgame when it launched even worse than TORs and patched in later.

And if not, well GW2, Titan and Class 4 will probably clean up the mess.

Totally agree with you Loke666, still contrary to Trion, until proven otherwise, BioWare seems mostly clueless for now.

IMHO the games need either a new PR/Marketing guru or a producer that knows what works and what doesn't.

Originally posted by iceman00

Originally posted by Deewe

You can do a bounty style system even with Jedis, from a lore standpoint.  The Order seeks to put a stop to such and such.  Eliminate the threat.  Even the light doesn't frown on killing protecting others.  :)

As far as getting people to pvp, you can do two things.  One is reduce the barriers to pvp.  Right now, there really aren't any.  (Outside of the expertise mechanic and the people who sploited.)  The other thing you can do is provide incentives to get in the game.

I'd be fine with one or two additional planets.  Have open world pvp, and real tangible benefits.  Allow guild bases and strongholds.  compete for resource nodes.  Even provide an "epic" operation or FP.  The other side could still do it, but have to pay a fee, but the rewards can outweight to costs, and can work towards tipping control of the planet back.

Don't want to pvp.  Provide really hard pve missions smuggling.  Hope you got a fast speeder, because you are heading into the hornets nest, behind enemy lines, to drop off stims and medpacks (or whatever) you crafted, to help out our allies in the war effort.  Make resource convoys where people who like crafting have to work with pvpers to get a convoy through contested territory.  And make these kind of missions give pvp commendations just like going out and killign players are.  in the end, it is all for the benefit of the same war effort.

Guild bases also become a guild project.  make them expensive.  Make you work to maintain them.  But the best bases really become a sight to behold.  Not to mention the bragging rights from taking one down!

Right a good story can explain many things. Glad to see you didn't fall in the trap and do have imagination  ;)

A few controlable planets are good. Hoewever we must not forget PvP, especially on PvP servers should be available on every planets. 

Smuggling missions, behind enemy lines recon missions, skirmish of weak points would be great for PvP and PvE. And I really like the convoy mission too. Some kind of escort mission but with a more tangible prize/objective.

Guild projects, like building capital ships and having to defend the factory at the same time. Interesting.

Originally posted by iceman00

Originally posted by Deewe

#2: Let's make PvE shady

In every PvEr lies a great PvPer.
Most PvE players don't know, yet, they can too enjoy PvP on major scale. Let them taste the adrenaline of epic fights and they'll ask for more. Make it so the PvE content gets shades of PvP in all zones. Pretty soon you'll find out most PvE players are really enjoying it and (sorry for the words) going to kick many of the PvPers butts as more organized. ^_^
But for sure ganking shall be seriously looked at and AoE should not trigger PvP flag on PvE servers if a player did not flag him/herself as PvP. 

Sadly, that just isn't true.  I love pvp.  Yet I know most people DO NOT want to pvp.  They play solo most the time.  They can't stand the epeen stroking that comes with the territory.  They find the AI challenging as it is in pve, which means they would probably get roflstomped in pvp.  This isn't a negative thing.  For some people, it just isn't their cup of tea.

What can be done is to create more incentives for open world pvp.  Let's face it, right now, there aren't any, unless you were around for that short time after the 1.1 patch and you wanted your BM tag that bad :p  Let's see more pvp centric missions.  Develop a strong player bounty system.  A real one, for starters.  And you need to give an overall goal to work for.  It might not be full blown rvr (though the lore was made for that kind of stuff!) , but more factionwide objectives.  Taking a planet (or establishing a stronghold on the planet so as to not completely break pve continuity) gives an XP bonus, supply bonus, etc.  Allow societies to place faction style outposts  (though given the fact the world isn't very open right now, easier said than done.)  There needs to be a real reason to join a guild outside of convienent raiding mates.  If you don't have this stuff in place, it won't bring people to pvp, even those who are inclined to do so.

Of course you'd also have to seriously rework the CC mechanics, so pvp is more than a CC fest causing massive lag once enough people get there.

You are 100% right saying most people want to solo and can't stand the epeen stroking that comes with PvP.

However I'm not sure PvE players would be that owned in PvP. Maybe I'm delusional but I still think while in the current MMO wide implementation PvP isn't their cup of tea, it can be improved to bring them to the genre and have them enjoy it a lot.

The bounty system has an issue as, lore wise, it would not  be fitting to have Jedis doing it. But a good BH system would go a long way to improve the PvP for sure.

I don't think there's world PvP in TOR, yet. Still you might have an interesting idea here. Taking planets and establishing strongholds. The PvP fans could fight against others players while on the same planet, at the same time the PvE players would do missions, crafting, instances to help support the war effort. I call it shades of PvP ;)

And yes, the CC do nead some rework.

(Good post BTW)

Originally posted by Kuinn

Originally posted by Deewe

Hope you guys enjoyed the ride (wall of text).

Have fun!

 

First of all, thanks for a thread that does not eat brains of the reader like most of the "critizism" here.

 

You have good points more or less over the post imo, but I dont agree with the "forced" grouping. I like the current model where you can solo your story if you so wish but then there is also harder encounters where you need a group. What I would ask is to make more open world heroics and turn them into public quests, but dont twist the foundation into "forced" grouping.

 

I agree with the minigames completely, I was actually under the impression a few months before the launch that this game would have more than the space game, the space game is a good engine for POD/swoop racing imo, just add multiplayer to it too. Pazaak, oh yes, asap!

 

Good thing is they are working on mechanics like LFG, UI etc already, I just hope they dont stall too much with adding actual new/should-have-been-at-launch stuff into the game.

I read you on the forced grouping, you do have a very valid point.

In a way MMO are more like living worlds (more on that later) in which you can evolve and encounter others player's managed characters.

However if too much of the game is soloable the game ends as and only as you with player's animated toon around you.

It all depends how you envision MMO. Still grouping while not mandatory should IMHO be the core gameplay of MMO.

[Repost for those who don't lurk on SWTOR forums]

Would TOR have been advertised as a co-op game, mostly everyone would agree it's innovative and a great game. Thing is we all know it's supposed to be more than that.

Pretty sure by now, everyone is aware of the game issues and design flaws. If such is your mood, you might want to jump to constructive posts like theses: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7

Still with us, good. Welcome aboard then!

Allow me to start with a statement:

In every coach potato lies a great Football/ Baseball / Basketball / Soccer... player/trainer!

Guess you see where I'm going: In a way every MMO players is certainly a great game designer with years of experience 
Thing is it's easy to criticize something/someone, especially when it looks easy. Still when confronted with the reality check it's another game.. As such I'd ask people to, please, try to give constructive feedback in a way of, not only saying what works and what not, but more importantly explain how it could be improved.

Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seat belts. Time for departure, let's dive in!

Disclaimer: Hopefully everyone aboard is looking forward playing MMO, otherwise you might have booked the wrong trip.

Without going as deep as suggesting SWTOR needs a total revamp, we're still going to experience very high pressures adventuring to some of its core elements.


In SWTOR you play, almost, alone.

Companions, zones design and chat UI are hindering the multiplayer pace of the game.

Question is: how improve multiplayer game play?
That's the million $ question, still may we suggest a few directions?

1. Make the game harder.
2. Incentives for socialization.
3. Grouping tools

#1: Make the game harder.

In modern society, humans does not look towards others unless they do need them.
As long as most of the game is soloable, players first reaction won't be to group nor interact with others.
Now if you tweak the game in a such way that players do require others to be successful their behavior will change drastically.
One way to do this would be to have "more intelligent" NPCs and mobs. For example there won't be anymore creatures not reacting when they see their friends being slaughtered by players. 
Then make death more meaningful or would I say needing the care of others to fix you.
Not only it would make combat more realistic but also more challenging and IMHO more fun. The difficulty here is not to go to far making things tedious, for most.

#2: Incentives for socialization

Nobody talks anymore in MMO. Long gone the time of tells hell in SWG...
Being confronted to a difficult enemy is one way to make players socialize but there are more subtle ways.
Who said multiplayer mini games?
Pazaak, Sabacc, Pod/swoop racing, PvE/P arenas, all that with spectator modes and in game leaderboards with character's titles.
We're just scratching the surface here. Just a note: make it so all these have single player mode too but be sure to have the multiplayer parts only available in the social hubs.
RP tools and live events are also great ways to help players mix together.
Allow players to make a name of themselves this way.

#3: Grouping tools

Everything should be made to make grouping easy and rewarding.
Fist drastically reduce time sinks to meet with group mates. It shall not take more than 5 minutes for anyone to group with anyone else. As soon as meeting others becomes a time sink, you loose much of the appeal to group.
LFD/LFGLFM tools should be made by Apple like engineers. Players should be able to select any quests they want to group for and, not only advertise them, but also be able to browse through a list of players with matching quests.
As example DDO ineterface is a good start but needs the selec/browse feature.
Social points are a good idea but they lack a more interactive feature. Players should be able to score (karma?) a player after grouping with them.
Also /ignore should work on all characters of the selected player, servers wide and also on the forums. Just make sure players are obliged to enter a reason for ignoring the player and time stamp the entry. Might sound strange but make it so you loose a few points/karma if you /ignore a player too.

How about World PvP?
Let's be honest here, PvP isn't bad but too limited to specific zones.

#1: This is WAR!

There is no such thing as a safe zone during war.
PvP should not be limited to very specific area only, be it war zones or even large planets.
The game core design of remote and faction locked planets, can still be mitigated allowing players sneaking there, passing the blockades or breaking through the prisons walls after being captured by the opposite faction.
Make it hard for players to land on the most defended planets but make it possible and rewards them for doing so.

Catering players in 2 opposed factions was supposed to help players identify themselves with a greater and shared identity. That is if and only if the factions have something tangible for the players to be opposed upon. Bringing the WAR in SW, involving the players in it with real objectives tied with tangible rewards shall do the trick.

Also do restrain from doing same faction PvP, it's going to hinder seriously the eventual feeling of belonging to a specific faction by players. Maybe look at RIFT mercenary system, for example enhancing it by allowing players to flag themsleves as mercenaries.

One thing is certain, massive PvP battles do make players feel like they are in a MMO.

#2: Let's make PvE shady

In every PvEr lies a great PvPer.
Most PvE players don't know, yet, they can too enjoy PvP on major scale. Let them taste the adrenaline of epic fights and they'll ask for more. Make it so the PvE content gets shades of PvP in all zones. Pretty soon you'll find out most PvE players are really enjoying it and (sorry for the words) going to kick many of the PvPers butts as more organized. ^_^
But for sure ganking shall be seriously looked at and AoE should not trigger PvP flag on PvE servers if a player did not flag him/herself as PvP.

This ain't Clone Wars™, or is it?
Limited/restricted character look only fits single player games because you are not confronted with clones of yourself.

#1: Identification, uniqueness

In a MMO players need to identify themselves with their characters, be it Wookiees or even Hutts (sic!).
When mostly everyone is a clone due to the fact they are wearing the same gear of having the same haircut, players loose the appeal of theirs characters. For example gear stats should not decide how a character's look but the player's liking should be the decision criteria. Players should be surprised by others characters look, both in good and bad ways. A MMO should empower the players with the ownership of their characters look not otherwise.

#2: Belonging

While players do want to look cool and unique, showing off the belonging to a faction, a group, a guild is much looked after. A MMO should allow players to set up uniforms, wear guild emblems, paint their gear with a specific color palette. It's unique to MMO but also very poorly implemented in others MMO.

Hope you guys enjoyed the ride (wall of text).

Have fun!

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Have they given any estimates on when a flashpoint finder will be implemented?  Hopefully they also consider increasing and scaling flashpoint sizes to 6 people to make it easier for dps to find groups.

Nope and I would not expect that either.

"Hello, Ascended!

**snip** 

If you’re reading this, chances are you already know that we think about MMOs differently than everyone else. To us, everything is about the quality of the service, the speed of meaningful updates, and the relationship that combination creates with you. We never forget that you are the reason we do everything we do. 
 

**snip**

As always, we will continue to listen to you. You have given us some of our best ideas and we are looking forward to what lies ahead. 

On behalf of all of us here at Trion: Thank you very much for being a part of RIFT. Here’s to a great 2012 and beyond!

Scott Hartsman

Executive Producer, RIFT"

No wonder Rift is doing well when even the producer has a clue.

/bow.

Originally posted by noncley

Originally posted by dubyahite
Looks like 4 new operations and flashpoints.

That sounds pretty awesome.

I wonder where the heck they got this stuff.

Do we need more Operations and Flashpoints?

I'd personally prefer a LFG function, a combat log, a skill based crafting system, a proper space combat sim... etc.

The list in the OP might certainly comes from data mined infos from the actual build.

For example did you know the devs already have more than 5 companions per characters and are holding them back? In fact these companions should have been available at launch. Someone decided 5 was enough and delivering others fast after launch would be considered as great by the fans and so would buy some time for BioWare.

So what you are looking at is only "content" not fixes nor even features.

(Edit) Exactly Eludor

Originally posted by wraith808

Originally posted by Deewe

Incentives for socialization = SWG

Extended body customization: SWG, AoC

3 factions: DAOC

All at launch.

And, once again, never said any MMO implemented all of them but: none lacked all of them but TOR.

Common features means... well, common features.  Not implemented in one or two MMOs.  Sort of fails the definition of common, no?

Originally posted by sammyeli

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by forumtalker

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Originally posted by Struggs
It is pretty good. This is missing digital sales correct? or am I mistaken?

---

Good question, retail only sales?

---

VGChartz is box sales only, and do not include digital distributions directly from the manufacturers unless otherwise stated. They have some kind of proprietary magic formula to get the box sales. Nobody has disputed their numbers officially that I'm aware of (for instance, EA has never said the numbers were wrong).

Also, that 350,000 online at the same time was also a 'magic formula guess' so we don't really know how many are on at the same time and we don't really know how many accounts were started until Bioware tells us.

 

350K is not a magic formula guess

 

http://www.swtorarena.com/statistics/

What's sad is they went from roundly 550k players to 250k.

Whatever estimates or not it looks like they lost 50% of players in the first month.

And that's what seems to have happened as only a handful of servers are either heavy or full at peak time.