Once you fight your way through to the captain you go into a interactive cinematic with that captain. Now if you are by yourself and your choice will be the only deciding factor of how the quest or dungeon plays out. In this instance the dungeon is quite predictable and you are always in complete control
However, if you group up with others in that flash point and you choose to kill the captain, that action may take place or it may not. If say 3 people kill the captain (what you choose) and the fourth says save the captain. That fourth party member could still win out and send the quest (flash point) in a different direction. Thus making the game play more chaotic and thus more interesting.
This really sounds like a downside to grouping honestly. I'm not in complete control = good? That's quite an upside-down way to think about it... I'd rather be in control than let people I don't know decide what's gonna happen. That would piss me off, and trivialize the whole "dialogue choices" concept.
Games being unpredictable makes the content more interesting, it's like a movie if you can guess what happens then the movie loses some of its excitement. If however you don't know whats going to happen your excited because your trying to figure out what is going to happen next. Same thing here. If the quest always plays out the same way it becomes boring, however if you throw in the X factor of the quest not always playing out the same way, you get a more chaotic feel to the game and thus more exciting as you never know what will happen next.
Whether the additional loot obtained from quests is enough of an agenda will be seen.. usually these games are so easy and fast that you never really need that extra loot to progress and sometimes you're even better off without it. Again, "encouraging grouping" but if it doesn't mean much, it's hardly an agenda.
I"m not sure what you mean by agenda, so i'm going to take a shot at it. I may be wrong but i think what you mean is a reason to group. I don't think any of us know how easy or fast you will go through gear. But if you mean easy, all i can say is people found the mobs after level 8 quite a bit harder to beat by themselves. The person from Torocast even said that he tried to take on a set of mobs at corsucant and found that he couldn't at level 8 because they were too hard. So that may encourage grouping in and of itself.
Also the world quests (the ones about the story of the old republic) will have group oriented quests that you will want to complete.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Once you fight your way through to the captain you go into a interactive cinematic with that captain. Now if you are by yourself and your choice will be the only deciding factor of how the quest or dungeon plays out. In this instance the dungeon is quite predictable and you are always in complete control
However, if you group up with others in that flash point and you choose to kill the captain, that action may take place or it may not. If say 3 people kill the captain (what you choose) and the fourth says save the captain. That fourth party member could still win out and send the quest (flash point) in a different direction. Thus making the game play more chaotic and thus more interesting.
This really sounds like a downside to grouping honestly. I'm not in complete control = good? That's quite an upside-down way to think about it... I'd rather be in control than let people I don't know decide what's gonna happen. That would piss me off, and trivialize the whole "dialogue choices" concept.
Whether the additional loot obtained from quests is enough of an agenda will be seen.. usually these games are so easy and fast that you never really need that extra loot to progress and sometimes you're even better off without it. Again, "encouraging grouping" but if it doesn't mean much, it's hardly an agenda.
Well what really matters with your character progression will be your class quest. You will be 100% in control of dialogue choice regarless of playing solo or in a group. No one can trivialize your play in those types of quests.
But to me the group quests as in open world, epic story and flashpoints would be a good place to lose control. Those are world stories, not your personal story. So not being in complete control would be a good thing with those quests. Because it is a story that is not set. It is based on you and your group make-up. Different classes will have different options to change the quest. Also alignment will change what options you have that will also change the quest. So If I run the same flashpoint a number of times. It may change everytime in some way. I doubt it will be a change in reward, just the quest content and dialogue choice.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? R.A.Salvatore
The way i see it, if adding someone else can actually have an effect on how the dungoen/quest plays out thats incentive enough for me right there to group with others.
I'm getting bored with everytime i run a dungeon its the exact same way regardless of if i run it by myself or with others. the mobs are always in the same area, you always up against the same mobs in the same order against the same boss in the exact same way. The only thing that changes is how difficult it is.
I like the idea of when i add people into my party that the action can change at any time and i'm not always in control of which way the action goes. It feels more like how an action would go.
For instance the hero of the movie wants to save the bad guy (because thats what heroes do), however as hes going to save the bad guy, the partner just flat out kills him. That wasn't what the hero intended but because the partner hated that bad guy for what he did he took action where the hero would not have. Thus making the encounter spin in a direction (a twist) that you couldn't imagine happening. Now you have drama and the characters feel more alive then before.
Also you might remember that the devs said that what you did in the past will affect things in the future. If we use that same logic in group based encounters. The NPC might have been friendly to you and let you pass but seeing as the company you are now keeping, he is going to test if your in control. Again the quest played out differently then expected because of the people involved.
and yes in my opinion chaotic makes for far more interesting play throughs, and really does make replaying with different people more viable.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Games being unpredictable makes the content more interesting, it's like a movie if you can guess what happens then the movie loses some of its excitement. If however you don't know whats going to happen your excited because your trying to figure out what is going to happen next. Same thing here. If the quest always plays out the same way it becomes boring, however if you throw in the X factor of the quest not always playing out the same way, you get a more chaotic feel to the game and thus more exciting as you never know what will happen next.
I"m not sure what you mean by agenda, so i'm going to take a shot at it. I may be wrong but i think what you mean is a reason to group. I don't think any of us know how easy or fast you will go through gear. But if you mean easy, all i can say is people found the mobs after level 8 quite a bit harder to beat by themselves. The person from Torocast even said that he tried to take on a set of mobs at corsucant and found that he couldn't at level 8 because they were too hard. So that may encourage grouping in and of itself.
Also the world quests (the ones about the story of the old republic) will have group oriented quests that you will want to complete.
Well, maybe it's just me, but I don't have a problem with unpredictable per se- I have a problem with the fact that someone else gets to decide the course of the story instead of myself. If it was truly random without anyone getting to decide there would be no problem. Although even still my choices are more important than random behaviour of the storyline, especially if I could decide what happens if I were alone and not together with someone else.
What I mean by agenda is that if the content is easy and you will blaze through levels in no time until higher levels, there is much less of a real reason to obtain better loot during the leveling process. You don't really need it, and the leveling advantage you get wouldn't be that large. Like, if it took an hour to level from 25 to 26, but with optimal gear it would take 50 minutes... I'll just play for the extra 10 minutes instead.. Since I don't socialize if I don't feel that I need to. It's a curse of living in a Western society really. Ironically when playing with Japanese (that have a very collective culture) they group up even without a proper agenda all the time. They definitely don't need the same kind of incentive that we do to play together. Most of them just group up by default, regardless of the benefits or who they group up with. We group if it's with friends etc. but how do you gain friends if you aren't given the agenda to socialize with strangers in the first place? That's a very common problem.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Just thought I would throw this quote from Daniel Erickson again for those that missed it last year. It talks about the quests types in general and the way grouping is encouraged by the content. Also better gear, but that is another story for another post.
This one can get confusing as there is a great deal of content in the game, all geared for slightly different experiences. So let's get to it, yes?
--There is no repeated content across factions. Easy enough.
--Every Class has a completely unique storyline with their own companion characters and quests that takes them from the very first level through the very last and leads them naturally into the end game content. We call these Class Quests.
Now the questions and ideas that can be harder to get your head around if you haven't yet been one of the few lucky ones to actually play the game.
--"Is all your faction specific content Class Quests?"
Absolutely not. It's a multiplayer game, built for multiplayer storytelling. Which means all classes in a faction will have access to all of the same content except the Class Quests.
--"What is the breakdown between Class Quests and multiplayer quests?"
On the Origin worlds it's about 60% Class Quests, dropping to about 40% on the Capital worlds and then even lower for the rest of the game. The whole idea is to get you into the game, teach you about your class and your story, then get you out there playing with other people. We need to meet Obi-Wan, get our lightsaber and learn about the rest of the galaxy, but then it's time to get the gang together and go to war. We're still going to take breaks and run off to Dagobah but that's now the minority of our story. So the game very purposefully starts with more single player content and then moves strongly towards content that can be played multiplayer.
--"What are all the different types of multiplayer quests?"
Whew, that one's a big list but I can hit the major stuff. 1) World Quests: One-offs or short chains built for easy pick up and play. Grab a PUG or your friends and have a short adventure together. 2) World Arcs: Epic quest arcs that go from four to ten quests or more and follow a storyline across an entire planet. Big decisions and branching questlines you may have to play multiple times (in different playthroughs, they're not repeatable) to see all the content. Built for long play sessions or a series of short sessions where you and your group want a huge adventure that may stretch over tens of hours. Also very PUGable as long as you're grabbing like minded folks. 3) Flashpoints: Instanced, heavily scripted major story and action pieces built for groups to go in and get the very best of BioWare's multiplayer storytelling. Built to be played in a single sitting.
Now here's the fun part. Our multiplayer content has lines, choices and content that is specific to each class and content that is only there if you're in a group. Did the Jedi Consular really just convince the Sith boss to stand down and not fight us? Did the Bounty Hunter really just shake down the Moff for more money? Did the Smuggler just leave the group with that attractive quest giver? Um...are they coming back? It's fun to replay the game and see all the different content but it's also a blast to play with friends and be completely surprised by what they say. Often you'll find yourself saying "Okay, that clearly was not one of my dialogue options!"
Hope that helps!
I personally look at it as the class story being all about you (your character). What made you the character you are and why you have what you have. Then as you learn more about your character. You get a chance to take what you have learned and apply it to the overall story happening around you.
As DE talks about above. Luke had his own life, his own talents and abilities. He then met Obi-Wan and was drawn into a larger story. He still had to go off to Dagobah and learn from Yoda as his classs quest. But he began to do more and more grouping for the story. That is my interpretation anyway.
Taking abit from your post. So I could leave the entire group because I pulled ? thus leaving the group in peril ? hmmm sounds friggin awesome if that's true.
Games being unpredictable makes the content more interesting, it's like a movie if you can guess what happens then the movie loses some of its excitement. If however you don't know whats going to happen your excited because your trying to figure out what is going to happen next. Same thing here. If the quest always plays out the same way it becomes boring, however if you throw in the X factor of the quest not always playing out the same way, you get a more chaotic feel to the game and thus more exciting as you never know what will happen next.
I"m not sure what you mean by agenda, so i'm going to take a shot at it. I may be wrong but i think what you mean is a reason to group. I don't think any of us know how easy or fast you will go through gear. But if you mean easy, all i can say is people found the mobs after level 8 quite a bit harder to beat by themselves. The person from Torocast even said that he tried to take on a set of mobs at corsucant and found that he couldn't at level 8 because they were too hard. So that may encourage grouping in and of itself.
Also the world quests (the ones about the story of the old republic) will have group oriented quests that you will want to complete.
Well, maybe it's just me, but I don't have a problem with unpredictable per se- I have a problem with the fact that someone else gets to decide the course of the story instead of myself. If it was truly random without anyone getting to decide there would be no problem.
When a decision comes up that all 4 of you can interact in, like kill/save the captain. Then all four of you choose what you want to have happen. Then the game rolls a magic die and deals out a number to each person. I think it was quoted that the more people on a side the bigger bonus but it wasn't enough to guarantee that side would win.
Such as if 3 people decided to kill the captain and 1 decided to save him
Person 1 (kill) gets a 20
Person 2 (kill) gets a 5
Person 3 (kill) gets a 30
Person 4 (save) gets a 85
adding up the totals 20 + 5 + 30 gives us 55 plus a small bonus because the kill was the majority of 15 and that raises the kill total to 70, however, it still loses because the 4th person got an 85, thus the captain is still saved. Obviously he won because he got such a good roll but if the encounter was played again the exact same way.
Person 1 (kill) gets a 25
Person 2 (kill) gets a 15
Person 3 (kill) gets a 30
Person 4 (save) gets a 70
adding up the totals again kill got 70 which is the same as the save one got, however because of the small bonus of 15 for being the majority again that bumps kill up to 85, beating the save option, thus now the captain is dead in this encounter, even though everyone picked the same option.
This is my basic understand of how that works. If your alone it doesn't matter what you roll as your the only one rolling, thus the action goes the exact same way if you pick the exact same options. With people that may not always be the case, even if they pick the same option all the time.
Although even still my choices are more important than random behaviour of the storyline, especially if I could decide what happens if I were alone and not together with someone else.
I think this is more of a playstyle option. You like being in control (nothing wrong there), in a lot of cases you are in control, like when you do solo quests and when you do your class story. You are completely in control here. It's when you group with other people things get chaotic. Bad things can happen, thats what happens when you interact with other people.
What I mean by agenda is that if the content is easy and you will blaze through levels in no time until higher levels, there is much less of a real reason to obtain better loot during the leveling process. You don't really need it, and the leveling advantage you get wouldn't be that large. Like, if it took an hour to level from 25 to 26, but with optimal gear it would take 50 minutes... I'll just play for the extra 10 minutes instead.. Since I don't socialize if I don't feel that I need to. It's a curse of living in a Western society really. Ironically when playing with Japanese (that have a very collective culture) they group up even without a proper agenda all the time. They definitely don't need the same kind of incentive that we do to play together. Most of them just group up by default, regardless of the benefits or who they group up with. We group if it's with friends etc. but how do you gain friends if you aren't given the agenda to socialize with strangers in the first place? That's a very common problem.
I guess the incentive is to complete the group quests/raids to get better gear and so the story feels more like how a real story would play out instead, as in most stories everything doesn't always go as the main character plans it to. It spices up the encounter in my mind
Adding a little bit of uncertainty in how the quest you are about to embark on will plays out makes the quest all that much more interesting in my opinion. If it was always just go here and kill this guy, and then you went there and killed that guy it wouldn't be that interesting. However if along the way of going to kill that guy, you get stopped by someone on the way there because of something someone in your party did before that changes up the quest and gives depth to the characters your playing and makes them (in my opinion) far more like real characters rather then just a toon to get gear.
The story aspects itself isn't going to draw people together if they just want gear and loot. However if they're interested in a interactive story that may not play out the same way, they may seek these people out on purpose. It's down to a play style.
In the end this will be like how every MMO is. They give you incentives to group for gear and content. I just feel the addition of unpredictable story telling adds a nice flavor as you are not just bringing someone along for their skills but also for their character and background. Such as a Trooper may not act the same way in a given situation that a Jedi Knight will.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I see a lot of complaints about bioware focusing on the single player aspect of a story and how they focus to much on the voiceovers. Here's food for thought.
Age of Conan levels 1-24 Touted as one of the single best experiences in mmo leveling to date.
The majority of the complaints that I sall about AoC we're the rest of the game isn't more like Tortage.
Tortage featured:
Full voiceovers
Class Quests by yourself.
Streamlined areas to explore
SWTOR takes this a step further
The Whole Game is voiced over
Class quests you can do by yourself OR with other players
Streamlined areas to explore.
So it seems to me they took at least from AoC the parts people loved and expanded on them. I don't see how this can be a bad thing.
SonikFlash I totally agree with you. I have raised this identical point in multiple threads. I remember when I was playing AOC (though I didn't play it at release) how many of the threads were about how people will be shell-shocked once they leave tortage. I think they over-reacted as the rest of the game isn't that bad, but the story and voice overs won over the majority of those who played through tortage. People liked the single player personal story at night mixed with the more social aspects of the day quests.
In the TOR forums, we get the same individuals over and over again stating the same tired arguments regarding how they game is single player, linear, the voice overs will destroy the game, the story is getting in the way of my action, etc. There is nothing wrong with that opinion, but i think the fact that this game is tortage x10,000 with branching story lines will MORE then satisfy the millions of KOTOR fans as well as those who were fond of the AOC tortage experience which received VERY high marks from most of the professional reviewers.
Comments
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Well what really matters with your character progression will be your class quest. You will be 100% in control of dialogue choice regarless of playing solo or in a group. No one can trivialize your play in those types of quests.
But to me the group quests as in open world, epic story and flashpoints would be a good place to lose control. Those are world stories, not your personal story. So not being in complete control would be a good thing with those quests. Because it is a story that is not set. It is based on you and your group make-up. Different classes will have different options to change the quest. Also alignment will change what options you have that will also change the quest. So If I run the same flashpoint a number of times. It may change everytime in some way. I doubt it will be a change in reward, just the quest content and dialogue choice.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
The way i see it, if adding someone else can actually have an effect on how the dungoen/quest plays out thats incentive enough for me right there to group with others.
I'm getting bored with everytime i run a dungeon its the exact same way regardless of if i run it by myself or with others. the mobs are always in the same area, you always up against the same mobs in the same order against the same boss in the exact same way. The only thing that changes is how difficult it is.
I like the idea of when i add people into my party that the action can change at any time and i'm not always in control of which way the action goes. It feels more like how an action would go.
For instance the hero of the movie wants to save the bad guy (because thats what heroes do), however as hes going to save the bad guy, the partner just flat out kills him. That wasn't what the hero intended but because the partner hated that bad guy for what he did he took action where the hero would not have. Thus making the encounter spin in a direction (a twist) that you couldn't imagine happening. Now you have drama and the characters feel more alive then before.
Also you might remember that the devs said that what you did in the past will affect things in the future. If we use that same logic in group based encounters. The NPC might have been friendly to you and let you pass but seeing as the company you are now keeping, he is going to test if your in control. Again the quest played out differently then expected because of the people involved.
and yes in my opinion chaotic makes for far more interesting play throughs, and really does make replaying with different people more viable.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Well, maybe it's just me, but I don't have a problem with unpredictable per se- I have a problem with the fact that someone else gets to decide the course of the story instead of myself. If it was truly random without anyone getting to decide there would be no problem. Although even still my choices are more important than random behaviour of the storyline, especially if I could decide what happens if I were alone and not together with someone else.
What I mean by agenda is that if the content is easy and you will blaze through levels in no time until higher levels, there is much less of a real reason to obtain better loot during the leveling process. You don't really need it, and the leveling advantage you get wouldn't be that large. Like, if it took an hour to level from 25 to 26, but with optimal gear it would take 50 minutes... I'll just play for the extra 10 minutes instead.. Since I don't socialize if I don't feel that I need to. It's a curse of living in a Western society really. Ironically when playing with Japanese (that have a very collective culture) they group up even without a proper agenda all the time. They definitely don't need the same kind of incentive that we do to play together. Most of them just group up by default, regardless of the benefits or who they group up with. We group if it's with friends etc. but how do you gain friends if you aren't given the agenda to socialize with strangers in the first place? That's a very common problem.
Taking abit from your post. So I could leave the entire group because I pulled ? thus leaving the group in peril ? hmmm sounds friggin awesome if that's true.
"He's no good to me dead."
Adding a little bit of uncertainty in how the quest you are about to embark on will plays out makes the quest all that much more interesting in my opinion. If it was always just go here and kill this guy, and then you went there and killed that guy it wouldn't be that interesting. However if along the way of going to kill that guy, you get stopped by someone on the way there because of something someone in your party did before that changes up the quest and gives depth to the characters your playing and makes them (in my opinion) far more like real characters rather then just a toon to get gear.
The story aspects itself isn't going to draw people together if they just want gear and loot. However if they're interested in a interactive story that may not play out the same way, they may seek these people out on purpose. It's down to a play style.
In the end this will be like how every MMO is. They give you incentives to group for gear and content. I just feel the addition of unpredictable story telling adds a nice flavor as you are not just bringing someone along for their skills but also for their character and background. Such as a Trooper may not act the same way in a given situation that a Jedi Knight will.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
SonikFlash I totally agree with you. I have raised this identical point in multiple threads. I remember when I was playing AOC (though I didn't play it at release) how many of the threads were about how people will be shell-shocked once they leave tortage. I think they over-reacted as the rest of the game isn't that bad, but the story and voice overs won over the majority of those who played through tortage. People liked the single player personal story at night mixed with the more social aspects of the day quests.
In the TOR forums, we get the same individuals over and over again stating the same tired arguments regarding how they game is single player, linear, the voice overs will destroy the game, the story is getting in the way of my action, etc. There is nothing wrong with that opinion, but i think the fact that this game is tortage x10,000 with branching story lines will MORE then satisfy the millions of KOTOR fans as well as those who were fond of the AOC tortage experience which received VERY high marks from most of the professional reviewers.
There Is Always Hope!