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Star Wars on rails, why be excited?
Draccan
Member Posts: 1,050
I am wondering why people are so excited about this game?
If we forego the usual comments about how great (or not) is Bioware, if we forget that the Star Wars IP is huge (my personal favorite btw) and if we don't pay attention to the fact that Bioware will break even on box sales alone, and forget the swg vs. SWTOR and just focus on TOR and go down right to it, what is the attraction to this game?
Space is on rails, story is on rails, everyone will be having the same story, scripted for them and most of the content we have seen so far is either instances (flashpoints), single or group missions and not massive open world exploration.
What does this game have for dynamic content, crafting, player housing? Where is the open world dynamic events that would make this game next generation?
All Bioware is trying to sell this game on (as I see it) is scripted stories, so they created 16 novels worth of content, that is 16 novels worth of telling you how YOU and your character should be. The light / dark choices will be very limited and since it randomizes in groups it will prove to be little impacting to a character (or an uproar would happen). So what is so cool about being thrown into a scripted novel that will force you to play a game exactly on Bioware's terms?
Also the classes and progressions are created to mirror the usual triangle of healer, dps, tank (though mixed up), so there is no way to truly distinguish yourself. Even for the space on rails you have class spaceships that means every bounty hunter will look like the others. We don't know yet, but there is evidence to support that gear will be a big thing (wow carbon copy) and that players on similar levels will look similar. And of course the companion is also a scripted companion similar across the same class.
All in all it seems Bioware is strongly trying to control the mmo experience and to me it seems there is a true lack of freedom to create a character and develop it. No freedom to truly play the way YOU want to, no freedom to go about creating a story around your avatar that sets it apart from others of the same class. There is little to support evidence (except words) that the game offers any truly massive aspects. I think there are huge reasons to be concerned. It seems to me like 16 singleplayer games (the 16 novels mentioned) that can be played in succession. With some multiplayer aspects.
Bioware is missing out on a great chance with a huge budget to create a large open, breathing world of true adventure, choice and freedom and expend it on story on rails, glorified multiplayer - but really single player game.
Haven't we done the gear grind, raid thing to extinction? Haven't we had enough of small pvp battlegrounds and dungeons removed from the game world in little instances, haven't we seen the level progression and the EQ/WOW character development style etc. done for dozens of times.
So how will Bioware make SWTOR stand apart? So once gamers have burned through the scripted content after a month (and trust me they will!) - what is there to do then, but raid for gear?
Is there really no other model for creating massive games than this? Is this all that a huge game company have to offer for a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER WORLD?
And why the heck do they expect a 15$ a month to play it if they don't create something truly MULTIPLAYER and MASSIVE?
I for one am puzzled...
If we can drop the hate and the flames (on both sides) and concentrate on the game itself, what is it that truly attracts (or not) with this game?
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Comments
Ok, so, first you need to realize that rails =/= evil. Sometimes it's better to have a linear story than it is to have one that is completely open. It lets the developer control what you feel and when (which is especially good if they'rea good storyteller like bioware). This kind of experience als falls in more with the knights of the old republic games which this is going to be based. Also, "space ships on rails" if anything is a good things. Remember star fox 64? That was awesome. That was exactly what you're describing.
I don't have time to comment on the other stuff right now. I'll come back later.
Each game has to be judged by its own merrits, taking out the points you gave at the start of your post reducing the discussion to sandbox vs themepark is a compleet waiste of time.
its all those points and more that will make me buy this themepark and happely spent a sub on it.
Im very pro-sandbox but if a themepark is done right ( and Im seeing no wrongs in sw:tor) then I have nothing to say against it as it will entertain me for months if not years to come.
besites that, I think your fairly misinfomed about how open the worlds are. but eh im no expert so im just gona leave it here.
No better story unfolds in a MMO than the one the player community create themselves, just give them the sand and stand back.
I cba making point after point because I honestly care very little how it turns out. If its an above average game with just a few little new-ish tweaks and features, I'll play it. And watching the vids and news I'm sure it'll be just that.
Why? Because its Star Wars. I dont expect you to understand, if you did you wouldnt make this thread ofc =P Eve since I grew up watching the movies I've been a fan. And well, I like MMORPGs. Not many games are both =D
edit: ah I thought this was actually about what excites ppl about SWtor. But then I read "lets forget that bioware is making it, that its starwars" and everything else that is a huge excitement for ppl haha. So its actually a sandbox vs themepark thread? I dunno.
Or is it a gw2 vs swtor in disguise? After all in GW2 its easy to forget about the universe as a selling point coz who honestly gives a damn about gw2 universe (whatever its called, even =P ). *paranoid*
One part of me is with you, though it's a very little part. I used to love SWG, how I made my way in the galaxy the way I wanted, however, after being away from it for so long and playing WoW I realized I'm just not into that kind of game any more. I'm a big BioWare fan, a big Star Wars fan and really want to see how all the things they've been talking about come into fruition to see just what is possible with those components. I've been aware that the game has been in production since the rumors in late 2005 and have been watching the stuff they produced since they actually came out with information for it.
There is yet to be anything I've seen that really puts me off the idea of playing and having fun. The companion characters are my only real miff, but I think it's easy for me to overcome this one little thing. So anyway, yeah, I just enjoy what I see/hear and look forward to playing pretty much.
@OP: if you don't like themepark MMO's, then sure, there is nothing to be excited about.
I mean, you could ask the same of themepark MMO's where questing is quided and battlegrounds, dungeons and raiding along with questing are the main attractions of the game.
For people who haven't built up a dislike for themepark features or themepark oriented gameplay, then I thinkthere's enough to be excited about:
- a world that is larger than most MMO's, certainly the themepark MMO's, and that is not empty, barren terrain but all handcrafted
- a different experience in quest leveling than in other MMO's, more immersive which means more entertaining questing
- features and content that's on par or even better than that of other AAA themepark MMO's
- leveling alts is far more entertaining than in other MMO's
- so far it looks that SWTOR will be as polished a gameplay experience at launch as Rift was and as WoW is
Once again, I can see why for people who have enough of themepark MMO's this isn't interesting, but then again, SWTOR isn't the game they should be looking for if it's a non-themepark, more sandboxy MMO that they're looking for.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
OP:
Even if you might be unable to enjoy a story you can't influence, the Star Wars movies have been enjoyed by quite a few people who didn't care that they weren't able to decide the outcome of the movie.
I think its biggest selling point of this game is the fact that it is Star Wars, which is arguably one of the most well known and well loved Sci Fi franchises in the world. It also dosn't hurt that it apperently has a massive budget and is being made by a compnay with quite a good track record in the single player RPG industry.
Sadly though, those three things could also be considered to be its greatest detractors as well. For a lot of older Star Wars fans George Lucas perverted the SW universe into something we can't stand. Depending on how much say Lucas Arts has on this game development process, we may see the same kind of "kidified pap" that we saw in the SW prequels. Massive budget sounds good, until you start to wonder about how much pull the money guys have on the creative process. And last but not least, Bioware, while in my book is an excellent company when it comes to single player RPGs, has yet to build the same track record with MMOS.
All of that aside, I don't think the lack of next gen features will have much impact on the fans of this game. Just being able to play a well made game set in the Star Wars universe should be a big selling point. While those MMO fans tired of this kind of game and wanting next gen sandbox play won't care for it, I'm sure there is about 20 Star Wars fans for every one of them.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
I think the storylines won't feel so linear at all: with all the branching, side quests and alignment choices to make.
And next to storylines there are still story based / Voice-overed but completely OPTIONAL heroic arcs and worlds quests spread out over the worlds. (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.)
You aren't so condemned to your personal story as you think:
We discovered a heroic quest that sent us deep within the bowels of Hutta to wipe out some unsavory characters and creatures in the sewers and found that our group cohesion was quite adequately tested. Crowd controlling enemies, target prioritization, etc., were all important for us to get through the encounter, which ultimately culminated with a fight against a robotic mini-boss who was guarding a glowing Datacron. Datacrons are scattered throughout the game world and offer unique permanent boosts to your statistics. This Datacron was actually part of a set, which when completed would offer even more significant bonuses according to BioWare’s Daniel Erickson (Bitton, mmorpg.com)
And:
We'd done something none of their internal testers have ever done: we focused on group content above and beyond anything else, wherever possible. While the first group-based content doesn't come along until right around level five, it's definitely there. Foregoing our class story missions until around level nine, we instead took on the 'heroic' content on the trash planet Hutta. It's stuff that you absolutely must form a group to tackle. It was actually a challenge. Though we struggled along the way we eventually did complete the heroic quests on Hutta. The reward was fantastic: a blue quality item and a lot of experience, not only from turning in the quests, but also from doing the content itself. We managed to outpace everyone else on levels, even while being grouped up doing group-based content, which has notoriously been slower than leveling by yourself in more recent MMOs
Also it seems you haven't really read up a lot about Swtor: player housing in Swtor means having your own spaceship from where you can navigate the galaxy, where you can relax, and where your companions have their own quarters and craft for you. Kind of a base of operations on whatever planet you go.
Crafting seems pretty novel (what we've seen so far) involving sending your companions out on missions to get rare crafting components, etc. Also your companions crafting crits are modified by how much they like you, etc. Crew skills info.
Next to all that there will be some kind of world pvp on which they haven't released any info on yet, the worlds are vast and open (some are 7/8 wow zones), you will have expensive player mounts to travel around in them (as well as a taxi system) and there is exploring content in the shape of datacrons spread out over the worlds.
Seems to me that beside personal story there is a lot of alternative and open content to enjoy in Swtor.
I see the personal storylines just as a means to level up in a much more interesting way compared to grinding and dull kill and collect quests like in other mmorpgs.
My brand new bloggity blog.
My short list of things. Granted we are not there yet in creating a truely massive world with completely evovling landscapes and there are some restrictions but i think they did a fair or even might i say good job of creating a world that you would want to share with others and even give rewards for different types of people.
Explorers get the holocrons
raiders get their raids
The RPer gets dialog and story
The PvPer gets contested pvp content, warzones, xp and rewards for doing PvP
Crafters have a indepth crafting systems which involve the companions as well as being able to sell their gear to even people who are doing top end raids.
As for why i'm excitied about this game.
Well first off i like any MMO, but i always felt the story part was missing which is what got me bored of it.
So someone focusing on a good story always seems cool to me. Plus the ability to mold that story (via the dialog system i outlined above) in a direction I want.
Plus i loved the kotor games and this seems like that on steroids with a massive world, where i'll experiencing that world with tons of other people at the same time.
Least wise thats why i'm interested.
Plus my secret like of the alignment systems in games which i have always loved in many games
In short if you look at any theme park game it's railroad. You can of course choose to not take that quest but if you want the experience you have to do that quest. GW2 has a good way of going about this and i'm interested in seeing how it's done. However ToR is attempting to take this a different route by keeping the questing system but beefing it up by giving multiple ways of going about it.
Plus you can just say forget the quest and go off explore or do some PvP, crafting or whatever else you normally do in MMOs.
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.
IMO this utter rubbish. Most MMO players are very unimaginative and their stories would be very dull.
Just couse you dont have any imagination dosent mean that every other MMO player lacks it to! So please dont drag us in to your little world where everyone needs to be handheald!
This is why TOR should be Buy to play, its far too much like a single player game than a real mmorpg. In a mmorpg I like to explore not have everything be instanced. From what I read so far I am kinda on the fence about buying the game, nevermind subbing after the free month, as the game sounds i'll be bored of it within a week, its bascally another copy of rift/wow with linear gameplay that does not belong in a mmorpg at all, it belongs in a single player game. Honestly who really cares about a story for each class, its a mmorpg, not a single player game. The quests will still end up being go fetch this, or go kill that where you don't even need to pay attention like most linear mmo's that are being puked out lately. You may say I am trolling here but its just facts, that some people can't seem to deal with.
For endgame I hope it has REAL raids, not this garbage crap WoW has and I think rift has the exact same stuff. I mean ONLY 40 man raids that cannot be pugged, and cannot be magically "saved" and stopped in the middle. I remember the glory days of raiding, when you had to do it in one shot or else you had to wait 3 days to a week, it kept the casual smacktards out of them.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
Except one of the very first things that was stated by the devs was that you could do quests or just grab your buddies and explore "the other side of the planet".
now, I don't exactly know how large the other side of the planet is but the problem here is that many of the things that players say they want have already been stated to be in game.
Except players don't seem to want to acknowlegge this.
Whether they are successful with their list of features is one thing. But we should at least acknowledge that they have already laid claim to typical mmo features.
many times.
many.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Alternatively you could read some of the replies which topple those misconceptions or do some actual research.
And wow has no endgame?
*slowly backs out of this post*
My brand new bloggity blog.
I'm not quite sure I would put it that way but there is some truth to what you say.
With the exception of some role players I've run across I've never EVER run across anyone making their own stories.
I've come across players who fell more in the category of "he came out and ganked us so we went back and got buffed up and then went and ganked him".
Now, there are some incredible events that seem to happen in eve but wouldn't call them "stories" per se. It's very notable and exciting that someone (usually) screws over their bretheren and essetnailly sells an alliance to the farm (I wonder if "the farm" is an alliance in EVE? If so then scratch that and instead insert "sells them out")
But those really aren't "stories'.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The rest i snipped out because it's a basic rant against theme parks and i don't feel that a conversation worth debating. People have likes and dislikes. some like story some don't. We shall see how much story is like in this game. Always try something new.
The part i did quote though i didn't snip because info actually contradicts this point.
First off exploration:
Quote: Exploration yields XP, as you can progress from Level 1 to Level 2 without completing a single quest - Darth Hater
Shows you get xp for exploration. Now most MMos do that so i understand if thats not enough so heres some more.
If your an explorer you may find Datacrons which are an exploration reward. These give permanent stat boosts like +1 cunning - Bioware
Second reason why'd you want to purposely go off the beaten path to find these things. or even happen to come across while your exploring.
Not enough heres more goodies especially if your a lore type person
Without exploring the world and stumbling on unique treasures, hidden quests, codex entries, the occasional world boss or encampment of rebels, you will be missing out not only on equipment rewards, XP, chances to further affection with your companion or build your alignment - Bioware
So you can get hidden treasure, permanent stat boosts, xp, chances to further your companions affection to you, build your alignment, in addition to seeing cool sights.
As for the everything is instanced.
Quote: For the average planet, I'd say that 85+% of space is located in open, non phased areas - Bioware
I think you can get from that what you awnt. but it seems to me that 85% of the world is in areas where you can run into other people.
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.
He has a point. Most of the 'story' created by players is certainly not of the level that you could sell a book of it, with their quality of story or plotlines. Heck, the story of most of those players looked at clinically often doesn't even reach the quality of storylines provided by the devs.
In this player stories are often as entertaining to others as the answer to the question: 'so, what did you do today with your life?'
Sure, there are some people who can sell books with talking about their experiences in life, but in most cases the day-to-day life and stories it brings is maybe interesting to someone him or herself, but dull for others, not worth sharing. Heck, even for people themselves there are lots of day-to-day experiences or 'stories' that are boring and dull to them.
So, to go back with this to 'player stories' in an MMO, no those stories are often only interesting to that person himself and many times it isn't even that interesting to themselves, those 'stories' that is: the only added value that they offer is the immersion because of personal value they sometimes (and certainly not always, 100% of the time) bring, not the quality of the 'stories' themselves.
Well, when it comes to immersion, that can be triggered via different ways, that can be because of a sandbox feature provided experience ('story') or dev provided content.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
cuz..it's Star Wars and there are lightsabers lol
I like the option to choose form questing or not questing, but I have serious doubts it will hold up to the standards they think. Usually people quest in these games because the quests give them exp and items that surpass anything else they can obtain through general exploration. If you want to be able to stay competative, you need to do the same quests as everyone else... then we start the Themepark ride.
If TOR made questing no more rewarding than exploring other than being able to participate in a story line, then it could work. So far though, none of us know what to expect.
Would love to see how imaginative you really are. I have played every sandbox title on the market and it is a big snorefest. No players and yes even you can not match Bioware and its storytelling.
This isn't a sandbox. This isn't SWG 2.0.
People like you, OP, are expecting things of this game that were never meant to be a part of it. Go play EVE if you want a sandbox in space.
Not meaning to sound aggressive here, but the points made in this thread has been brought to light many times before, and are getting rather stale from the sandbox people.
Now, before I say what I want to say, don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed some MMO's that have rails.
With that said, I honestly can't see the point of having a story driven MMO with hard rails. The concept just seems utterly pointless. Okay, we have our game on rails... now what? I mean, they're MMO's for a reason aren't they? We're playing with eff loads of other people... not in 'game rooms' that happen to have a public chat. I say 'game rooms' not literally, but figuratively.
It's just like I don't see the point of solo in these rail based MMO's, but that's a different topic entirely.
I honestly believe that Rail based games belong as either Singleplayer games, or as CORPG's (or MORPG's... or whichever genre they happen to be for).
Sooner or later you run out of things to do. I mean, I remember the days of Ragnarok Online. Now, for a looong time, no one could say that game was on rails. You ran around, you did what you want, you had fun. Why force people in to big un-necessary stories created by the developers? I mean, they can only come up with so much content when they're wasting their time working on quests and other things for you to do as part of the story and world.
I can see why people constantly cry for sandbox games. Granted, pure sandbox doesn't appeal to many people, but even a hybrid (a bit like I'm considering GW2 as) would be best...
Now granted we all have our own opinions, and this is mine... I just... don't see the point of rail games outside of SP and CORPG/MORPG/Whatever.
MMO's played: Ragnarok Online (For years), WoW (for a few weeks only), Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Eve, Allods, Shattered Galaxy, 9 Dragons, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Star Trek Online (Got someone ELSE to pay for it), Champions Online (Someone else paid), Dofus, Dragonica, LOTRO, DDO and more... A LOT more. I've played good AND bad. The bad didn't last long. :P
exactly, especially the first part I highlighted.
I mostly write music but I do have to "write" story in what I'm dong (book/libretto) and though I an NOT the end all and be all of writers by any stretch of the imagination I can safely say that I see very little "story" from players. Great
The second part I highlighted is a great way of putting it.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo