Not sure why people are having a hard time believing that there could be 200+ hours of unique content per class. Try to remember what BW is trying to do to make this game unique. What they refer to as the fourth pillar - "STORY". In most MMO's they only count the time spent running around (killing rats/collecting tails lol) as time invested because most people to click through the written dialogue, and that is the big differance with SWTOR.
There are cutscenes throughout all of the quests which when included makes it easy to believe that it could go well over 200 hours. And with the amount of publicity they have put behind the amount of voice acting recorded I would have been surprised if if there was less content. This doesn't mean that you will be fighting mobs for that amount of time but that there will be that much time devoted to class quests. And seeing as how during the conversations you are given a choice as to how you respond it would still be considered gameplay.
Well personally the only kind of content I am interested in, is the kind that I will be actively participating in. While watching a four minute cutscene could be considered content, WATCHING a mini video in a game isn't exactly my idea of fun. If if during this mini movie I get to make "yes/no" choices a few times. So again, personally, I hope I will spend the brunt of those 200 hours fighting, crafting, puzzel solving, etc and not sitting in my chair in front of the monitor like a Hutt couch potato in front of the Twi'lek Slave Girl Home Shopping Network.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking Bioware's story driven game concept, I just hope they leave me plenty of opportunities to go out and interact with and explore things my damn self.
Well said. As time goes on and RPGs morph from being games to being outlets for frustrated directors and screenwriters, I find myself missing the older definition of the genre. I do not consider doing nothing gameplay. But increasingly, this is what developers are asking of me: sit there and do absolutely nothing for minutes at a time while we run cut scenes.
I'm not saying there isn't a place for these scenes; just that they should not be the predominant form of content. Otherwise it's not a game at all, is it? It's just a sometimes-interactive movie.
Given the choice, I would rather spend 200+ hours exploring, fighting, gathering, thinking, running, and poking walls for secret doors, than watching some occasionally interactive movie.
This is all well and dandy .... but tell me what is there to do endgame in ToR?
Are we just to chase the carrot on the stick and look for better gear?
I'm sorry but WoW done beat this horse to death pve/pvp bg/arena so I'm not wanting to play another game that's only endgame is chasing that damn carrot again
End Game is Lazy / bad game design progression, development and longevity is where games should be at sadly developers aren't capable anymore hich is a shame.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
I think as per the title , It means exactly what it says. Look up the definitions of ; Hours; Gameplay and UNique if you don't understand.
Hoursplural of hour (Noun)
1. A period of time equal to a twenty-fourth part of a day and night and divided into 60 minutes: "an extra hour of daylight".
Game·play
1. Gameplay includes all player experiences during the interaction with game systems, especially formal games. Proper use is coupled with reference to "what the player does".
Unique
unique/ju?ni?k/?
?adjective
1. Being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
(unique to) belonging or connected to (one particular person, place, or thing).
2. special or unusual.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
I thought that too but 200 unique hours means only available to that class, right? So 1600 unique + xxxx generic content hours per class.
Yeah but there are several sources contradicting that statement. And that statement really doesn't make much sense.
200 unique + x generic hours per class or 1600 + x generic hours total.
That's better
Originally posted by Warband
Originally posted by mmoguy43
I thought that too but 200 unique hours means only available to that class, right? So 1600 unique + xxxx generic content hours per class.
Yeah but that means your playing pretty much a single player game for 200 hours.
Are you sure its ALL singleplayer? I don't think it is.
It's not actual single player but it's equilvalent to it. The only people that will be progress with you while doing it are people in your class of similar level as it useless to anyone else outside of maybe XP and ideally a member of your class choosing the same options you. The best way to progress by far is simply to do it by yourself, hence more often than not you will be by yourself, like in gw1.
That's actually not true. There was a person who talked about his grouping experience, how he and his friends were benefitting from grouping up more than the other people who were soloing. He said they were getting better items and leveling faster than the soloers.
Yeah but like I said before it won't progress your class story, and is it known whether these advantages are better than world quests. As somethings gotta give. Either very few people will do world quests due to inferior leveling or very few do other peoples class quests.
You can help others with their personal quest, just as they can help you. The thing is that you or the other people you play with won't affect the outcome, you are in control of that aspect. I'm going to be going around doing everything I can, I'm sure there are other people who will be doing the same. From what I can see, there will be a number of people doing different things and playing differently. Can't really say what will be better or more efficient, but there isn't exactly a limitation on what you choose to do in terms of doing the different types of quests.
Of course there's no physical limitation but in the players mind there's likely to be one. Just like an extremely large amount of players most likely the majority choose to solo most of the open world quests in mmo's. It's perfectly possible to stay grouped the entire time but a very large amount choose to spend their time mostly solo.
Then that's the fault of the player, not the developer. A developer can design a game that incorporates both solo and grouping opportunities, would you have them force grouping? That wouldn't work very well. No, what they do is make it more rewarding to people who decide to group, which is the right decision.
There were 5 KOTOR games? Actually, Bioware said it was larger than all of thier rpgs combined (meaning to me DAO 1&2, ME 1&2, KOTOR 1 (maybe 2 as Obsidian did that), a the Baldur's Gate stuff.
They also said that the 200 per class was taken from the average current player going through chapter 1 in Beta and did not include group quests, PVP, Raids, Crafting, etc.
No, there's only Kotor 1+2 of course - But Bioware compared the size of SWTOR to 5 Kotor games, kinda like here:
Btw. I take it all back! Their statements aren't vague and manipulative - they're simply irrational, even back then:
"Hundreds of gameplay hours that is going to be unique to each class. Regardless of what class or side, we are never going to have the same questions and missions cross over. Like we’ve said, we’re not just making KOTOR 3, but KOTOR 3, 4, 5, and so on all together into one huge project."
There were 5 KOTOR games? Actually, Bioware said it was larger than all of thier rpgs combined (meaning to me DAO 1&2, ME 1&2, KOTOR 1 (maybe 2 as Obsidian did that), a the Baldur's Gate stuff.
They also said that the 200 per class was taken from the average current player going through chapter 1 in Beta and did not include group quests, PVP, Raids, Crafting, etc.
No, there's only Kotor 1+2 of course - But Bioware compared the size of SWTOR to 5 Kotor games, kinda like here:
Btw. I take it all back! Their statements aren't vague and manipulative - they're simply irrational, even back then:
"Hundreds of gameplay hours that is going to be unique to each class. Regardless of what class or side, we are never going to have the same questions and missions cross over. Like we’ve said, we’re not just making KOTOR 3, but KOTOR 3, 4, 5, and so on all together into one huge project."
for the personal class stories that will be true. sith warrior won't have the same class quests as an agent, BH, or inquistor. they will share world arcs and world quests and heroic(group) quests. will class quests send the classes to similar places? yes but it won't be for the same reasons. quests will not be shared between factions ever.
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
If we are talking about playthroughs of all the classes we're well into four digit hours but even one class is in the plural hundreds. Anything more specific is going to get me into trouble and honestly will just make me look silly when one guild makes it their all encompassing mission to beat the leveling game in a single marathon session then Photoshop their completion time onto a shocked looking picture of my face and spread it all over the interwebs.
and he doesn't mean that its just cut scene length:
the whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you'd have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together. Sneaking through the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers was just as much of Luke's story as talking about going and saving the princess. So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
I thought that too but 200 unique hours means only available to that class, right? So 1600 unique + xxxx generic content hours per class.
Yeah but there are several sources contradicting that statement. And that statement really doesn't make much sense.
200 unique + x generic hours per class or 1600 + x generic hours total.
That's better
Originally posted by Warband
Originally posted by mmoguy43
I thought that too but 200 unique hours means only available to that class, right? So 1600 unique + xxxx generic content hours per class.
Yeah but that means your playing pretty much a single player game for 200 hours.
Are you sure its ALL singleplayer? I don't think it is.
It's not actual single player but it's equilvalent to it. The only people that will be progress with you while doing it are people in your class of similar level as it useless to anyone else outside of maybe XP and ideally a member of your class choosing the same options you. The best way to progress by far is simply to do it by yourself, hence more often than not you will be by yourself, like in gw1.
That's actually not true. There was a person who talked about his grouping experience, how he and his friends were benefitting from grouping up more than the other people who were soloing. He said they were getting better items and leveling faster than the soloers.
Yeah but like I said before it won't progress your class story, and is it known whether these advantages are better than world quests. As somethings gotta give. Either very few people will do world quests due to inferior leveling or very few do other peoples class quests.
You can help others with their personal quest, just as they can help you. The thing is that you or the other people you play with won't affect the outcome, you are in control of that aspect. I'm going to be going around doing everything I can, I'm sure there are other people who will be doing the same. From what I can see, there will be a number of people doing different things and playing differently. Can't really say what will be better or more efficient, but there isn't exactly a limitation on what you choose to do in terms of doing the different types of quests.
Of course there's no physical limitation but in the players mind there's likely to be one. Just like an extremely large amount of players most likely the majority choose to solo most of the open world quests in mmo's. It's perfectly possible to stay grouped the entire time but a very large amount choose to spend their time mostly solo.
Then that's the fault of the player, not the developer. A developer can design a game that incorporates both solo and grouping opportunities, would you have them force grouping? That wouldn't work very well. No, what they do is make it more rewarding to people who decide to group, which is the right decision.
Your missing my point. While i'm sure everyone hates people soloing in open world in an mmo, I don't mind it. At least there's people around you making it feel like a world even if your soloing. Doing personal instances is not my idea of what an mmo should contain 200 hours of as going by player trends it's most likely it'll just end up solo instances with people not wanting to do them with you which I consider to be a bad idea. They should be focusing on making lots of interesting open world quests, not instanced class quests that have a good chance of you having to do them solo.
I thought that too but 200 unique hours means only available to that class, right? So 1600 unique + xxxx generic content hours per class.
Yeah but there are several sources contradicting that statement. And that statement really doesn't make much sense.
200 unique + x generic hours per class or 1600 + x generic hours total.
That's better
Originally posted by Warband
Originally posted by mmoguy43
I thought that too but 200 unique hours means only available to that class, right? So 1600 unique + xxxx generic content hours per class.
Yeah but that means your playing pretty much a single player game for 200 hours.
Are you sure its ALL singleplayer? I don't think it is.
It's not actual single player but it's equilvalent to it. The only people that will be progress with you while doing it are people in your class of similar level as it useless to anyone else outside of maybe XP and ideally a member of your class choosing the same options you. The best way to progress by far is simply to do it by yourself, hence more often than not you will be by yourself, like in gw1.
That's actually not true. There was a person who talked about his grouping experience, how he and his friends were benefitting from grouping up more than the other people who were soloing. He said they were getting better items and leveling faster than the soloers.
Yeah but like I said before it won't progress your class story, and is it known whether these advantages are better than world quests. As somethings gotta give. Either very few people will do world quests due to inferior leveling or very few do other peoples class quests.
You can help others with their personal quest, just as they can help you. The thing is that you or the other people you play with won't affect the outcome, you are in control of that aspect. I'm going to be going around doing everything I can, I'm sure there are other people who will be doing the same. From what I can see, there will be a number of people doing different things and playing differently. Can't really say what will be better or more efficient, but there isn't exactly a limitation on what you choose to do in terms of doing the different types of quests.
Of course there's no physical limitation but in the players mind there's likely to be one. Just like an extremely large amount of players most likely the majority choose to solo most of the open world quests in mmo's. It's perfectly possible to stay grouped the entire time but a very large amount choose to spend their time mostly solo.
Then that's the fault of the player, not the developer. A developer can design a game that incorporates both solo and grouping opportunities, would you have them force grouping? That wouldn't work very well. No, what they do is make it more rewarding to people who decide to group, which is the right decision.
Your missing my point. While i'm sure everyone hates people soloing in open world in an mmo, I don't mind it. At least there's people around you making it feel like a world even if your soloing. Doing personal instances is not my idea of what an mmo should contain 200 hours of as going by player trends it's most likely it'll just end up solo instances with people not wanting to do them with you which I consider to be a bad idea. They should be focusing on making lots of interesting open world quests, not instanced class quests that have a good chance of you having to do them solo.
I think this is where the misconception is, that most of the personal story is nistanced away. Actually the majority of the personal story appears to be mostly in the open world.
As such whch is par, you go into an instance to talk to a guy. He gives you the quest, You run out and do what he asks, collect 5 robot heads for example, run back to him, go into the instance give it to him, find out hes just using you, you kill him and take his necklace and go back out of the instance and send it to the imperial council via package through a special terminal.
Probably about say...160 of that 200 hours is probably going to be in out in the open world with say something around 40 hours of it being in an instance.
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.
Maybe you don't realize it, but you are bringine the SPG mentality to MMOS, which is the same as BW is doing with SWTOR.
As an example, it would be totally meaningless in classic EQ to count "gameplay hours". I think this only makes sense in SWTOR, which is an hybrid, and you made it very clear in this thread.
Have you been reading my post and understand the examples I gave? Because I don't think you did.
But maybe you don't care about themepark MMO's or the gameplay in it, so of course people like you who don't care about that, also don't care about your leveling experience, about questing, about how long it takes before you reach level cap. It'd be like trying to explain a football game to someone who cares nothing for football but likes biathlon games instead.
Originally posted by UrzaElent
I think, though I may be wrong here, that what the OP was getting at other than just how massive TOR may be is that unlike some MMOs, TOR should have more replay umph the longer you go. That is even after capping 2 or even 3 characters you'll still feel like you are playing a fresh game instead of just running down the same roads again and again just with different classes. If I am right that alone will have me hooked as that has always been the one thing that has killed most MMOs for me.
Every MMO is great the first time around, its after you've leveled one or two toons that they always seem to fall flat. It would be awesome if TOR was able to give out a new and fresh outlook with every new class you try and not just the same treadmill but with different class skills to spam to kill mobs with lol.
This is what I was trying to show in examples, yes, that in the time you'll be playing the game, there'll be more questing content available than you'll find in a lot of other MMORPG's, so that you'll not do the same content several times as you do in other MMORPG's when you level additional characters besides your first one. Of course, the questing content that you'll do with your first character will also be of a higher quality/entertainment value than the regular questing content you'll find in current MMO's.
I think that's a pretty important detail for players who'll be doing a lot of questing while leveling, whether that's with their first or additional characters.
Originally posted by Warband
It's not actual single player but it's equilvalent to it. The only people that will be progress with you while doing it are people in your class of similar level as it useless to anyone else outside of maybe XP and ideally a member of your class choosing the same options you. The best way to progress by far is simply to do it by yourself, hence more often than not you will be by yourself, like in gw1.
It's not different than in other MMO's: if you level by doing quests in LotrO, you'll face the exact same problem you describe. And just like in other themepark MMO's like LotrO, you'll be able to do your questing with others. In fact, SWTOR will be more inviting to level with others, since doing group questing will gain you xp faster and there's all kinds of convenient features that encourage doing things together with others.
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."
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
[...]
So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
Does "Chapter 1" and so on refer to the unique Class Quests only?
Because right in the next paragraph, he says that (non-unique?) world quests are NOT exluded here. The ~200h include all common story content "you're expected to do". Now, is it unique or is it not? Or am i missing something here?
Even that clarification is annoyingly vague and drawn out. Why not simply say:
"The playable area is 100 square miles, 5 times as big as Kotor. There are 20 times as many quests, 1000 total. 500 of those are class quests, 500 faction quests."
Bioware may or may not fail with SWTOR, but they sure fail to properly communicate basic facts about their game xP
Bioware may or may not fail with SWTOR, but they sure fail to properly communicate basic facts about their game xP
Sorry, but they're more specific and detailed in their statements than devs from other MMO's. For example, I didn't learn from the Rift devs or GW2 devs how long it'll take on average to level to level cap. I also didn't learn how large their worlds were, the indications were/are a lot more vague than what I learnt regarding SWTOR.
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."
Bioware may or may not fail with SWTOR, but they sure fail to properly communicate basic facts about their game xP
Sorry, but they're more specific and detailed in their statements than devs from other MMO's. For example, I didn't learn from the Rift devs or GW2 devs how long it'll take on average to level to level cap. I also didn't learn how large their worlds were, the indications were/are a lot more vague than what I learnt regarding SWTOR.
I think MMOs have two primary stigmas attached to them that non-MMO gamers hear and drives them away. The first one is the ‘grind’, the idea that you’re going to have to do a repetitive task over and over again… we wanted to eliminate that. Our levelling curve, for example, increases gradually until you reach about level 30 when it completely flattens out and takes about an hour and a half to progress through each level thereafter. So, to get from 30 to 31 is about an hour and a half, to get from 68 to 69 is about an hour and a half. We think that any longer and things start to feel a little ‘grindy’.
By my calculations, if leveling time increases linearly from 1 to 30 and then is 1.5 hours afterwards (it probably won't be linear but close enough), it would take 98.25 hours to reach level cap.
That being said, GW2 doesn't have endgame progression raiding like traditional MMOs, so it's not a race. They consider leveling just a way to gauge progress, that's all.
It also doesn't say anything about how many unique hours of gameplay would be available during leveling, only the speed at which levels might be obtained.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Sorry, but if it has levels and if it has content that's only available at higher levels and not at lower levels, then it'll still be a race. Even if you don't say so, to a lot of powerlevelers will see it differently.
As for the 98.5 hours, working with that number, that's still pretty fast, it'll mean that many people will reach level cap even faster than in Rift. Also, I still fail to see how the statements of BW devs are more vague and less detailed than the statements of other MMO companies, Rift, GW2, ArcheAge, LotrO, Aion, etc.
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."
Maybe you don't realize it, but you are bringine the SPG mentality to MMOS, which is the same as BW is doing with SWTOR.
As an example, it would be totally meaningless in classic EQ to count "gameplay hours". I think this only makes sense in SWTOR, which is an hybrid, and you made it very clear in this thread.
Have you been reading my post and understand the examples I gave? Because I don't think you did.
But maybe you don't care about themepark MMO's or the gameplay in it, so of course people like you who don't care about that, also don't care about your leveling experience, about questing, about how long it takes before you reach level cap. It'd be like trying to explain a football game to someone who cares nothing for football but likes biathlon games instead.
Originally posted by UrzaElent
I think, though I may be wrong here, that what the OP was getting at other than just how massive TOR may be is that unlike some MMOs, TOR should have more replay umph the longer you go. That is even after capping 2 or even 3 characters you'll still feel like you are playing a fresh game instead of just running down the same roads again and again just with different classes. If I am right that alone will have me hooked as that has always been the one thing that has killed most MMOs for me.
Every MMO is great the first time around, its after you've leveled one or two toons that they always seem to fall flat. It would be awesome if TOR was able to give out a new and fresh outlook with every new class you try and not just the same treadmill but with different class skills to spam to kill mobs with lol.
This is what I was trying to show in examples, yes, that in the time you'll be playing the game, there'll be more questing content available than you'll find in a lot of other MMORPG's, so that you'll not do the same content several times as you do in other MMORPG's when you level additional characters besides your first one. Of course, the questing content that you'll do with your first character will also be of a higher quality/entertainment value than the regular questing content you'll find in current MMO's.
I think that's a pretty important detail for players who'll be doing a lot of questing while leveling, whether that's with their first or additional characters.
Originally posted by Warband
It's not actual single player but it's equilvalent to it. The only people that will be progress with you while doing it are people in your class of similar level as it useless to anyone else outside of maybe XP and ideally a member of your class choosing the same options you. The best way to progress by far is simply to do it by yourself, hence more often than not you will be by yourself, like in gw1.
It's not different than in other MMO's: if you level by doing quests in LotrO, you'll face the exact same problem you describe. And just like in other themepark MMO's like LotrO, you'll be able to do your questing with others. In fact, SWTOR will be more inviting to level with others, since doing group questing will gain you xp faster and there's all kinds of convenient features that encourage doing things together with others.
OMG, Maverick actually read and qouted one of my post!!!!! My life is now complete, yay! Ok, now that I got that out of my system. Getting to what Mav pointed out and I was also getting at is this. I personally have always thought that how long the road was to cap, endgame, whatever, etc, was never that important as how well paved it was. Being that I wouldnt mind a longer, shorter road as long as the journey itself was enjoyable. The more quest content and In my own thinking the more varied the content the fresher the game will seem in the long run since I love to try as many of the classes as I have time for. As a vet MMO gamer the "bring me this so I can tell you to go get that" and "kill 20 rats, which for some reason, its always rats or bats," got old about a decade ago, lol. So the idea of every class having their own "class quest" on top of everything else sounds just peachy to me.
Sorry, but if it has levels and if it has content that's only available at higher levels and not at lower levels, then it'll still be a race. Even if you don't say so, to a lot of powerlevelers will see it differently.
As for the 98.5 hours, working with that number, that's still pretty fast, it'll mean that many people will reach level cap even faster than in Rift. Also, I still fail to see how the statements of BW devs are more vague and less detailed than the statements of other MMO companies, Rift, GW2, ArcheAge, LotrO, Aion, etc.
How successful they are will remain to be seen, but I think that ArenaNet is trying to make GW2 a different experience than other MMOs. One way they're doing it is by deemphasizing the endgame. There's no progression raiding. It will probably be very easy to get the best statistical gear, with dungeons, crafting, and voluntary vanity grinds to get more elaborate skins.
I'm sure there will be people powerleveling just because, but I think the goal is to make a game that is fun to play at all levels. In other games, I want to be max level because that's where my friends are, or that's where the good gear is, or that's where the real game starts, or because my guild needs me to play a different class. None of those things apply in GW2. With the way the game automatically scales you down for dynamic events, the entire world's content is open to you at max level. Or you can sidekick up to be with someone else, or level up while doing PVP. Not to mention that any 5 classes can do a dungeon. You won't be leveling a toon unless you want to.
With the personal storyline, I could see people completing that and immediately starting another toon, either to see the difference between origins, or see the completely different challenges each race faces.
I think ArenaNet wants people to play the way they want to play, and if that means powerleveling, then by all means have at it. I'm at least going to try to retrain myself to stop and smell the roses. Considering I'm about as hardcore a min/maxer as has ever lived, this will be a new experience for me I'm sure.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Personally I am looking forward to the STORY aspect of this game more than anything. This game seems to be better than a book (I love to read), because I am making decisions in it and "living" it. Plus, when I get to the end, I don't have to be finished with it. Instead I can go back and try to find the things I missed or just explore. Then there is the endgame content, which seems to have a nice start so far. Best of all though is the fact that every so often there will be content added to the game to make it even better.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Bioware may or may not fail with SWTOR, but they sure fail to properly communicate basic facts about their game xP
Sorry, but they're more specific and detailed in their statements than devs from other MMO's. For example, I didn't learn from the Rift devs or GW2 devs how long it'll take on average to level to level cap. I also didn't learn how large their worlds were, the indications were/are a lot more vague than what I learnt regarding SWTOR.
I think MMOs have two primary stigmas attached to them that non-MMO gamers hear and drives them away. The first one is the ‘grind’, the idea that you’re going to have to do a repetitive task over and over again… we wanted to eliminate that. Our levelling curve, for example, increases gradually until you reach about level 30 when it completely flattens out and takes about an hour and a half to progress through each level thereafter. So, to get from 30 to 31 is about an hour and a half, to get from 68 to 69 is about an hour and a half. We think that any longer and things start to feel a little ‘grindy’.
By my calculations, if leveling time increases linearly from 1 to 30 and then is 1.5 hours afterwards (it probably won't be linear but close enough), it would take 98.25 hours to reach level cap.
That being said, GW2 doesn't have endgame progression raiding like traditional MMOs, so it's not a race. They consider leveling just a way to gauge progress, that's all.
It also doesn't say anything about how many unique hours of gameplay would be available during leveling, only the speed at which levels might be obtained.
Yeah that seems pretty likely right. to be right, although could be slightly parabolic in either direction which would give a higher or lower answer depending on what degree. Still depends on whether this leveling system remains the same on release as it's pretty easy to alter, same with swtor but with gw2 it's more likely to change due to A-Net's iterative nature.
Anyway keep in mind that when comparing gw2 to swtor that the value of open world content is different between the two. In swtor once you reach max level almost all of the open world content is useless to you whereas with gw2 thanks to sidekicking, pretty much all events are playable and also replayable. Depending on what advantages A-Net gives to completing a large variety of events the amount of content possible per character increases a large amount outside of it's time taken to level.
Before this turns into another 'GW2 vs SWTOR' thread or GW2 worshiping thread by GW2 fans, let's turn it back to where it started to derail, namely the remark by VowofSilence that BW devs are 'annoyingly vague' in their remarksor that they fail to properly communicate basic facts about their game, which simply isn't the case, especially when you compare what BW devs have given in detailed information about SWTOR to what other devs gave about their MMORPG.
As for comparing available questing content, people have played themepark MMORPG's, they have a general impression about their leveling route to level cap and how it was for a second character or third character. Although it'll be different for everyone, you can compose some average figures, and it stands to reason that an MMORPG where it takes 125 hours on average to level cap will take a lot of people less time and months to reach level cap than in an MMORPG where the average gameplay time to reach level cap is 250 hours. One could even assume that it'd probably take something like double the time and months on average to reach level cap in that second MMORPG.
It's also relatively easy to make a general estimation in the current MMO's how much different questing/leveling content when someone levels a 2nd character in those MMO's, based on the alternate areas to level your character in for all the level ranges. Those (rough) estimations can then be laid next to SWTOR's questing/leveling and see how it compares, see the OP.
The BW devs have given enough information to make such estimations possible, of course only after release will it be clear where to estimations need to be adjusted, the same with worldsizes of the upcoming MMORPG'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."
Maybe you don't realize it, but you are bringine the SPG mentality to MMOS, which is the same as BW is doing with SWTOR.
As an example, it would be totally meaningless in classic EQ to count "gameplay hours". I think this only makes sense in SWTOR, which is an hybrid, and you made it very clear in this thread.
Have you been reading my post and understand the examples I gave? Because I don't think you did.
But maybe you don't care about themepark MMO's or the gameplay in it, so of course people like you who don't care about that, also don't care about your leveling experience, about questing, about how long it takes before you reach level cap. It'd be like trying to explain a football game to someone who cares nothing for football but likes biathlon games instead.
Well I'm hoping even a themepark MMO can be something more than leveling experience and how long it takes to reach level cap. That's your concept of a thempark MMO, but there are others, you don't hold The Truth of thempark MMOs.
Well I'm hoping even a themepark MMO can be something more than leveling experience and how long it takes to reach level cap. That's your concept of a thempark MMO, but there are others, you don't hold The Truth of thempark MMOs.
Dude, you've stated many times that you can't find any enjoyment in the current MMO genre anymore and don't see or feel the fun in as good as all of the current AAA themepark MMORPG's, I mean every single one of them, so I'm very doubtful that YOU hold the Truth of themepark MMO's, for the simple fact and reason that you are incapable of enjoying even a single one of them .
There's more to themepark MMO's than only the leveling part, but there's also more to themepark MMO's than purely the endgame or level cap part, even more for a lot of people the journey (leveling) is more important than the destination (endgame content) and that happens to be the part of themepark gameplay that I was talking about in this thread.
So, if there is more content available of that 'journey' or leveling part, then I as an MMO gamer who can actually really enjoy themepark MMO's including current ones, would definitely be interested in knowing that there's lots of it in an MMO I intend to play or in finding out if there isn't.
I'm pretty sure that for those people who played DCUO it made a hell of a difference to learn that they'd blow through the content up to level cap within 40-50 hours. Most might not care for the average number of hours it takes to reach level cap, but they certainly cared when they discovered it took so little time to be done with the questing/leveling content.
And MMO gamers who have no aversion to themepark MMO's or quest based leveling might certainly care if, these figures translated into ingame entertainment experiences, it means that an MMORPG like SWTOR not only has a higher quality of quests but also that it'll enable them to enjoy it several times longer in months and several times the amount of varied leveling/questing content than other AAA MMORPG'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."
Maybe you don't realize it, but you are bringine the SPG mentality to MMOS, which is the same as BW is doing with SWTOR.
As an example, it would be totally meaningless in classic EQ to count "gameplay hours". I think this only makes sense in SWTOR, which is an hybrid, and you made it very clear in this thread.
Have you been reading my post and understand the examples I gave? Because I don't think you did.
But maybe you don't care about themepark MMO's or the gameplay in it, so of course people like you who don't care about that, also don't care about your leveling experience, about questing, about how long it takes before you reach level cap. It'd be like trying to explain a football game to someone who cares nothing for football but likes biathlon games instead.
Well I'm hoping even a themepark MMO can be something more than leveling experience and how long it takes to reach level cap. That's your concept of a thempark MMO, but there are others, you don't hold The Truth of thempark MMOs.
I hope so to, i don't want it to just be about level cap and how fast you reach it. So the 200 hour comment means little to me as i'll probably take a lot longer then that.
As for the gameplay itself. You have factions you can join in game, exploration, the obvious story mechanic, crafting, and the indepth companion characters so there is at the very least some diversity and more will most likely come down the road as they have more time.
I think this is just an attempt to put a number on how long it would take for a player to reach 1 to max level if they just did everything they could to get xp. This doesn't include all the stuff that is outside of it which appears to be quite a bit.
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 think this is just an attempt to put a number on how long it would take for a player to reach 1 to max level if they just did everything they could to get xp. This doesn't include all the stuff that is outside of it which appears to be quite a bit.
My thread was purely to take a closer look at the quests in SWTOR and the amount of them, compared to other MMORPG's.
That's why I left all the rest out that you'll do as well when playing MMORPG's.
People often say there's ' a lot' of questing content and a 'large world' in SWTOR, but what most don't realize is how vast the amount of content or worldsize of SWTOR will be compared to other MMORPG's.
It becomes a lot clearer how large when instead of saying 'SWTOR's world will be larger than Rift', you're saying 'SWTOR in overall worldsize will be easily 10 times larger than Rift and each of its 13 normal planets is already close to the size of Rift's entire world'.
Or when you say instead of 'SWTOR will have more questing and leveling content than Rift or LotrO', that 'the time you enjoy leveling a character in SWTOR will be twice the amount of months that you did in Rift' or 'in Aion or LotrO when you level your 2nd and 3rd character, you'll have seen most of the content before while you quest and level, no avoiding it, but not so in SWTOR, when you level a 2nd and 3rd or 4th character it can still be as new and different and not-seen-before as if you just started your 1st character'.
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."
I think this is just an attempt to put a number on how long it would take for a player to reach 1 to max level if they just did everything they could to get xp. This doesn't include all the stuff that is outside of it which appears to be quite a bit.
My thread was purely to take a closer look at the quests in SWTOR and the amount of them, compared to other MMORPG's.
That's why I left all the rest out that you'll do as well when playing MMORPG's.
People often say there's ' a lot' of questing content and a 'large world' in SWTOR, but what most don't realize is how vast the amount of content or worldsize of SWTOR will be compared to other MMORPG's.
It becomes a lot clearer how large when instead of saying 'SWTOR's world will be larger than Rift', you're saying 'SWTOR in overall worldsize will be easily 10 times larger than Rift and each of its 13 normal planets is already close to the size of Rift's entire world'.
Or when you say instead of 'SWTOR will have more questing and leveling content than Rift or LotrO', that 'the time you enjoy leveling a character in SWTOR will be twice the amount of months that you did in Rift' or 'in Aion or LotrO when you level your 2nd and 3rd character, you'll have seen most of the content before while you quest and level, no avoiding it, but not so in SWTOR, when you level a 2nd and 3rd or 4th character it can still be as new and different and not-seen-before as if you just started your 1st character'.
The problem is your basing it off of a very vague marketing statement. We don't know precisely how this breaks down or even what it truly means. It could mean 100 hours between lightside and dark side, it could mean 200 hours for both. It may count some content that isn't entirely unique but only partially unique etc. Saying it's X times bigger than Rift etc is completely and totally worthless unless we get hard unbiased facts. And serves no purpose what so ever. You compare hardcore features ideally features you've seen in action, you don't compare vague clearly marketting influenced statements that you really have no idea about. Your taking something and running with it when you don't even know what your actually taking. You should take them as vague indicator, don't try to spin them infacts, to compare facts known about other games.
I'm not here to bash SWTOR. I do think it's healthy to be a little skeptical though when a game, as someone said on page 3, could possibly be considered to have 60 single player RPGs worth of content.
I'm leery of using hours of gameplay to level as a measurement of anything because it's so easy to manipulate. Suppose a game has 100 hours of gameplay to level and the entire game is all Kill Ten Rats quests. Change all those quests to Kill Twenty Rats and you've got 200 hours of gameplay.
Not saying the game is like that, the game looks huge, Bioware has a great track record, blah blah blah, just saying be a little skeptical.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Comments
Well said. As time goes on and RPGs morph from being games to being outlets for frustrated directors and screenwriters, I find myself missing the older definition of the genre. I do not consider doing nothing gameplay. But increasingly, this is what developers are asking of me: sit there and do absolutely nothing for minutes at a time while we run cut scenes.
I'm not saying there isn't a place for these scenes; just that they should not be the predominant form of content. Otherwise it's not a game at all, is it? It's just a sometimes-interactive movie.
Given the choice, I would rather spend 200+ hours exploring, fighting, gathering, thinking, running, and poking walls for secret doors, than watching some occasionally interactive movie.
End Game is Lazy / bad game design progression, development and longevity is where games should be at sadly developers aren't capable anymore hich is a shame.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
I think as per the title , It means exactly what it says. Look up the definitions of ; Hours; Gameplay and UNique if you don't understand.
Hoursplural of hour (Noun)
1. A period of time equal to a twenty-fourth part of a day and night and divided into 60 minutes: "an extra hour of daylight".
Game·play
1. Gameplay includes all player experiences during the interaction with game systems, especially formal games. Proper use is coupled with reference to "what the player does".
unique/ju?ni?k/?Unique
?adjective
1. Being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
(unique to) belonging or connected to (one particular person, place, or thing).
2. special or unusual.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Then that's the fault of the player, not the developer. A developer can design a game that incorporates both solo and grouping opportunities, would you have them force grouping? That wouldn't work very well. No, what they do is make it more rewarding to people who decide to group, which is the right decision.
It really must be nice to "KNOW" that the devs are lying and that it's not 200 hours.
No, there's only Kotor 1+2 of course - But Bioware compared the size of SWTOR to 5 Kotor games, kinda like here:
http://www.starwarsmmo.net/news/star-wars-the-old-republic-interview/
Btw. I take it all back! Their statements aren't vague and manipulative - they're simply irrational, even back then:
"Hundreds of gameplay hours that is going to be unique to each class. Regardless of what class or side, we are never going to have the same questions and missions cross over. Like we’ve said, we’re not just making KOTOR 3, but KOTOR 3, 4, 5, and so on all together into one huge project."
Hype train -> Reality
for the personal class stories that will be true. sith warrior won't have the same class quests as an agent, BH, or inquistor. they will share world arcs and world quests and heroic(group) quests. will class quests send the classes to similar places? yes but it won't be for the same reasons. quests will not be shared between factions ever.
and as for the size of personal class stories:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6297786#post6297786
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
If we are talking about playthroughs of all the classes we're well into four digit hours but even one class is in the plural hundreds. Anything more specific is going to get me into trouble and honestly will just make me look silly when one guild makes it their all encompassing mission to beat the leveling game in a single marathon session then Photoshop their completion time onto a shocked looking picture of my face and spread it all over the interwebs.
and he doesn't mean that its just cut scene length:
the whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you'd have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together. Sneaking through the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers was just as much of Luke's story as talking about going and saving the princess. So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
Your missing my point. While i'm sure everyone hates people soloing in open world in an mmo, I don't mind it. At least there's people around you making it feel like a world even if your soloing. Doing personal instances is not my idea of what an mmo should contain 200 hours of as going by player trends it's most likely it'll just end up solo instances with people not wanting to do them with you which I consider to be a bad idea. They should be focusing on making lots of interesting open world quests, not instanced class quests that have a good chance of you having to do them solo.
I think this is where the misconception is, that most of the personal story is nistanced away. Actually the majority of the personal story appears to be mostly in the open world.
As such whch is par, you go into an instance to talk to a guy. He gives you the quest, You run out and do what he asks, collect 5 robot heads for example, run back to him, go into the instance give it to him, find out hes just using you, you kill him and take his necklace and go back out of the instance and send it to the imperial council via package through a special terminal.
Probably about say...160 of that 200 hours is probably going to be in out in the open world with say something around 40 hours of it being in an instance.
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.
Have you been reading my post and understand the examples I gave? Because I don't think you did.
But maybe you don't care about themepark MMO's or the gameplay in it, so of course people like you who don't care about that, also don't care about your leveling experience, about questing, about how long it takes before you reach level cap. It'd be like trying to explain a football game to someone who cares nothing for football but likes biathlon games instead.
This is what I was trying to show in examples, yes, that in the time you'll be playing the game, there'll be more questing content available than you'll find in a lot of other MMORPG's, so that you'll not do the same content several times as you do in other MMORPG's when you level additional characters besides your first one. Of course, the questing content that you'll do with your first character will also be of a higher quality/entertainment value than the regular questing content you'll find in current MMO's.
I think that's a pretty important detail for players who'll be doing a lot of questing while leveling, whether that's with their first or additional characters.
It's not different than in other MMO's: if you level by doing quests in LotrO, you'll face the exact same problem you describe. And just like in other themepark MMO's like LotrO, you'll be able to do your questing with others. In fact, SWTOR will be more inviting to level with others, since doing group questing will gain you xp faster and there's all kinds of convenient features that encourage doing things together with others.
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."
Does "Chapter 1" and so on refer to the unique Class Quests only?
Because right in the next paragraph, he says that (non-unique?) world quests are NOT exluded here. The ~200h include all common story content "you're expected to do". Now, is it unique or is it not? Or am i missing something here?
Even that clarification is annoyingly vague and drawn out. Why not simply say:
"The playable area is 100 square miles, 5 times as big as Kotor. There are 20 times as many quests, 1000 total. 500 of those are class quests, 500 faction quests."
Bioware may or may not fail with SWTOR, but they sure fail to properly communicate basic facts about their game xP
Hype train -> Reality
Sorry, but they're more specific and detailed in their statements than devs from other MMO's. For example, I didn't learn from the Rift devs or GW2 devs how long it'll take on average to level to level cap. I also didn't learn how large their worlds were, the indications were/are a lot more vague than what I learnt regarding SWTOR.
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."
http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/340/interview-designing-guild-wars-2---part-2
I think MMOs have two primary stigmas attached to them that non-MMO gamers hear and drives them away. The first one is the ‘grind’, the idea that you’re going to have to do a repetitive task over and over again… we wanted to eliminate that. Our levelling curve, for example, increases gradually until you reach about level 30 when it completely flattens out and takes about an hour and a half to progress through each level thereafter. So, to get from 30 to 31 is about an hour and a half, to get from 68 to 69 is about an hour and a half. We think that any longer and things start to feel a little ‘grindy’.
By my calculations, if leveling time increases linearly from 1 to 30 and then is 1.5 hours afterwards (it probably won't be linear but close enough), it would take 98.25 hours to reach level cap.
That being said, GW2 doesn't have endgame progression raiding like traditional MMOs, so it's not a race. They consider leveling just a way to gauge progress, that's all.
It also doesn't say anything about how many unique hours of gameplay would be available during leveling, only the speed at which levels might be obtained.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Sorry, but if it has levels and if it has content that's only available at higher levels and not at lower levels, then it'll still be a race. Even if you don't say so, to a lot of powerlevelers will see it differently.
As for the 98.5 hours, working with that number, that's still pretty fast, it'll mean that many people will reach level cap even faster than in Rift. Also, I still fail to see how the statements of BW devs are more vague and less detailed than the statements of other MMO companies, Rift, GW2, ArcheAge, LotrO, Aion, etc.
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."
OMG, Maverick actually read and qouted one of my post!!!!! My life is now complete, yay! Ok, now that I got that out of my system. Getting to what Mav pointed out and I was also getting at is this. I personally have always thought that how long the road was to cap, endgame, whatever, etc, was never that important as how well paved it was. Being that I wouldnt mind a longer, shorter road as long as the journey itself was enjoyable. The more quest content and In my own thinking the more varied the content the fresher the game will seem in the long run since I love to try as many of the classes as I have time for. As a vet MMO gamer the "bring me this so I can tell you to go get that" and "kill 20 rats, which for some reason, its always rats or bats," got old about a decade ago, lol. So the idea of every class having their own "class quest" on top of everything else sounds just peachy to me.
How successful they are will remain to be seen, but I think that ArenaNet is trying to make GW2 a different experience than other MMOs. One way they're doing it is by deemphasizing the endgame. There's no progression raiding. It will probably be very easy to get the best statistical gear, with dungeons, crafting, and voluntary vanity grinds to get more elaborate skins.
I'm sure there will be people powerleveling just because, but I think the goal is to make a game that is fun to play at all levels. In other games, I want to be max level because that's where my friends are, or that's where the good gear is, or that's where the real game starts, or because my guild needs me to play a different class. None of those things apply in GW2. With the way the game automatically scales you down for dynamic events, the entire world's content is open to you at max level. Or you can sidekick up to be with someone else, or level up while doing PVP. Not to mention that any 5 classes can do a dungeon. You won't be leveling a toon unless you want to.
With the personal storyline, I could see people completing that and immediately starting another toon, either to see the difference between origins, or see the completely different challenges each race faces.
I think ArenaNet wants people to play the way they want to play, and if that means powerleveling, then by all means have at it. I'm at least going to try to retrain myself to stop and smell the roses. Considering I'm about as hardcore a min/maxer as has ever lived, this will be a new experience for me I'm sure.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Personally I am looking forward to the STORY aspect of this game more than anything. This game seems to be better than a book (I love to read), because I am making decisions in it and "living" it. Plus, when I get to the end, I don't have to be finished with it. Instead I can go back and try to find the things I missed or just explore. Then there is the endgame content, which seems to have a nice start so far. Best of all though is the fact that every so often there will be content added to the game to make it even better.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Yeah that seems pretty likely right. to be right, although could be slightly parabolic in either direction which would give a higher or lower answer depending on what degree. Still depends on whether this leveling system remains the same on release as it's pretty easy to alter, same with swtor but with gw2 it's more likely to change due to A-Net's iterative nature.
Anyway keep in mind that when comparing gw2 to swtor that the value of open world content is different between the two. In swtor once you reach max level almost all of the open world content is useless to you whereas with gw2 thanks to sidekicking, pretty much all events are playable and also replayable. Depending on what advantages A-Net gives to completing a large variety of events the amount of content possible per character increases a large amount outside of it's time taken to level.
Before this turns into another 'GW2 vs SWTOR' thread or GW2 worshiping thread by GW2 fans, let's turn it back to where it started to derail, namely the remark by VowofSilence that BW devs are 'annoyingly vague' in their remarksor that they fail to properly communicate basic facts about their game, which simply isn't the case, especially when you compare what BW devs have given in detailed information about SWTOR to what other devs gave about their MMORPG.
As for comparing available questing content, people have played themepark MMORPG's, they have a general impression about their leveling route to level cap and how it was for a second character or third character. Although it'll be different for everyone, you can compose some average figures, and it stands to reason that an MMORPG where it takes 125 hours on average to level cap will take a lot of people less time and months to reach level cap than in an MMORPG where the average gameplay time to reach level cap is 250 hours. One could even assume that it'd probably take something like double the time and months on average to reach level cap in that second MMORPG.
It's also relatively easy to make a general estimation in the current MMO's how much different questing/leveling content when someone levels a 2nd character in those MMO's, based on the alternate areas to level your character in for all the level ranges. Those (rough) estimations can then be laid next to SWTOR's questing/leveling and see how it compares, see the OP.
The BW devs have given enough information to make such estimations possible, of course only after release will it be clear where to estimations need to be adjusted, the same with worldsizes of the upcoming MMORPG's.
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."
Well I'm hoping even a themepark MMO can be something more than leveling experience and how long it takes to reach level cap. That's your concept of a thempark MMO, but there are others, you don't hold The Truth of thempark MMOs.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Dude, you've stated many times that you can't find any enjoyment in the current MMO genre anymore and don't see or feel the fun in as good as all of the current AAA themepark MMORPG's, I mean every single one of them, so I'm very doubtful that YOU hold the Truth of themepark MMO's, for the simple fact and reason that you are incapable of enjoying even a single one of them
.
There's more to themepark MMO's than only the leveling part, but there's also more to themepark MMO's than purely the endgame or level cap part, even more for a lot of people the journey (leveling) is more important than the destination (endgame content) and that happens to be the part of themepark gameplay that I was talking about in this thread.
So, if there is more content available of that 'journey' or leveling part, then I as an MMO gamer who can actually really enjoy themepark MMO's including current ones, would definitely be interested in knowing that there's lots of it in an MMO I intend to play or in finding out if there isn't.
I'm pretty sure that for those people who played DCUO it made a hell of a difference to learn that they'd blow through the content up to level cap within 40-50 hours. Most might not care for the average number of hours it takes to reach level cap, but they certainly cared when they discovered it took so little time to be done with the questing/leveling content.
And MMO gamers who have no aversion to themepark MMO's or quest based leveling might certainly care if, these figures translated into ingame entertainment experiences, it means that an MMORPG like SWTOR not only has a higher quality of quests but also that it'll enable them to enjoy it several times longer in months and several times the amount of varied leveling/questing content than other AAA MMORPG's.
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."
I hope so to, i don't want it to just be about level cap and how fast you reach it. So the 200 hour comment means little to me as i'll probably take a lot longer then that.
As for the gameplay itself. You have factions you can join in game, exploration, the obvious story mechanic, crafting, and the indepth companion characters so there is at the very least some diversity and more will most likely come down the road as they have more time.
I think this is just an attempt to put a number on how long it would take for a player to reach 1 to max level if they just did everything they could to get xp. This doesn't include all the stuff that is outside of it which appears to be quite a bit.
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.
My thread was purely to take a closer look at the quests in SWTOR and the amount of them, compared to other MMORPG's.
That's why I left all the rest out that you'll do as well when playing MMORPG's.
People often say there's ' a lot' of questing content and a 'large world' in SWTOR, but what most don't realize is how vast the amount of content or worldsize of SWTOR will be compared to other MMORPG's.
It becomes a lot clearer how large when instead of saying 'SWTOR's world will be larger than Rift', you're saying 'SWTOR in overall worldsize will be easily 10 times larger than Rift and each of its 13 normal planets is already close to the size of Rift's entire world'.
Or when you say instead of 'SWTOR will have more questing and leveling content than Rift or LotrO', that 'the time you enjoy leveling a character in SWTOR will be twice the amount of months that you did in Rift' or 'in Aion or LotrO when you level your 2nd and 3rd character, you'll have seen most of the content before while you quest and level, no avoiding it, but not so in SWTOR, when you level a 2nd and 3rd or 4th character it can still be as new and different and not-seen-before as if you just started your 1st character'.
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."
The problem is your basing it off of a very vague marketing statement. We don't know precisely how this breaks down or even what it truly means. It could mean 100 hours between lightside and dark side, it could mean 200 hours for both. It may count some content that isn't entirely unique but only partially unique etc. Saying it's X times bigger than Rift etc is completely and totally worthless unless we get hard unbiased facts. And serves no purpose what so ever. You compare hardcore features ideally features you've seen in action, you don't compare vague clearly marketting influenced statements that you really have no idea about. Your taking something and running with it when you don't even know what your actually taking. You should take them as vague indicator, don't try to spin them infacts, to compare facts known about other games.
I'm not here to bash SWTOR. I do think it's healthy to be a little skeptical though when a game, as someone said on page 3, could possibly be considered to have 60 single player RPGs worth of content.
I'm leery of using hours of gameplay to level as a measurement of anything because it's so easy to manipulate. Suppose a game has 100 hours of gameplay to level and the entire game is all Kill Ten Rats quests. Change all those quests to Kill Twenty Rats and you've got 200 hours of gameplay.
Not saying the game is like that, the game looks huge, Bioware has a great track record, blah blah blah, just saying be a little skeptical.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007