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Star Wars: The Old Republic: Gamescom - A Massive Disappointment
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
A lot of fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic were primed and ready for exciting news from the development team during last week's Gamescom. But what a difference a week makes. In his latest SWTOR column, MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton talks about his disappointment with what eventually came out during Gamescom. Read on and then add your comments.
We learned practically nothing of note at Gamescom. The two major points were the unveiling of “Huttball,” the second Warzone to be featured in the game (and this Warzone has shaped up to be quite controversial thus far), and a live demo of some of the previously announced Eternity Vault Operation (raid) content. The latter is certainly appreciated, and expected, but as they say, "Where’s the beef?" Gamescom is the biggest gaming event of the year in Europe, and really only second to E3 overall. I feel like this sort of information could have easily been dropped on us in a Friday Update.
Read more of Mike Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic: Gamescom - A Massive Disappointment.
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Comments
For a moment there I thought he was disappointed with the game, lol.
Yeah im pretty much disappointed with the lack of new revelations, GIVE ME A LAUNCH DATE ALREADY.... But what the hell, as long as it comes this year fine by me. Although im still expecting a late November release
I was not thrilled with the information release at Gamescon either but then I found The Cynical Brit and his videos. He did a better job at hyping SWTOR and even GW2 then the publishers did. Check out his series (it is all sanctioned by Bioware and Arena net so no issue there). He had some OUTSTANDING videos of Alderan PVP and Some fantastic GW2 vids as wll from the show. It made the lack of official info from Bioware a lot easier to take in the sense there wa not enough of it.
You nailed it Mike B. People are so used to barely any information from Bioware that literally anything gets them so excited. I am shocked some people are paying 150$ for something that essentially is only selling because it is the Star Wars IP
Typically I never make that kind of move unless I have played it but the best Bioware can offer me is some open beta weekends in September or October maybe and these will probably just be for show and not actually tying to find bugs and help it release more polished.
Although I hate to agree GW2 a game maybe 8-10months out did give more information then a game 3-4 months out which is kind of crazy.
Yeah nothign new was revealed. I was really stoked but got nothing new ;(
We're getting pretty close to the "tipping point" between being excited about new reveals and just being pissed and screaming "GET ON WITH IT" and just release...
I'm getting less and less excited about new information reveals / demos / videos etc. and more and more impatient... I just want to freaking play I don't care about reveals and announcements anymore...
@MMORPGMom
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@MMORPGMom
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What?!?
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You're not a guy? WTF?!? Why did I think your name was Mike? This just throws my whole day off. Stupid dbag brain; reads only last name and assumes gender.
Anyway, I'd never heard of Gamescon until this year and Guild Wars. For the most part I wasn't even aware that there were game conventions that were news worthy. I wonder if they've pretty much given us all the useful information there is to know? The feature list is more or less complete and everything else will just be new locations and new raids.
** edit **
Ah. Mike B. SBFord. That must be it. Yeah, that's the ticket, yeah...
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
i don't think you are necessarliy wrong. i can completely understand being disappointed. but i am just not that suprised. not much came out of gamescom last year either. it was the space combat trailer and people got to play 15 mins of origin worlds. honestly most of the good stuff doesn't come from bioware's presentation at these conventions. it comes from the q&as(like at comic con) and the interviews done by sites like these and the fansites.
so far presentation wise, pax is looking to be very similar(if not the same) as gamescom. i think this is due in part because they may not want to be precieved as favoring one region over the other(well maybe not more than they already get on the forums XD). but from the article about SyndCon they teased reveals about companions coming at pax. my hope is that it has to do with the AI changes teased at SDCC. Also at gamescom, several times people were told open world pvp info coming at pax. personally i think the legacy system, assuming it makes into the game because technically they haven't said its definitely in, will be one of those things they may not say anything about before launch. they have said they don't want to talk about everything so there are still things to discover once in game. TOR gets a hour long panel presentation at pax unlike the 10minutes or so they got at gamesom so i expect more out of pax
personally i was fine with gamescom. it was first time i got to see pvp in action and it looked like a lot of fun and some good interviews so im good.
Couple things. First, you have to keep in mind.. eventhough YOU.... MikeB, got to play PvP in SWTOR and see the warzones first hand, a lot of players did not get that chance. Sure, they've had PvP events before, but it was always closed sessions, so for those who haven't PvP'd or seen videos of PvP, actually seeing a warzone was kind of a big deal.
The main difference between SWTOR and GW2 is that GW2 hasn't been releasing information steadily for 3 years. BioWare is DoT, GW2 is burst DPS. Thats part of why GW2 is as popular as it is.... you don't have people sitting and stewing over old information for years and years. Over the course of SWTORS development we've had a lot of information released. We don't have MMO developers do things the way BioWare decided to. On the one hand its good because theres more than enough information out there... on the other, well, you can't just throw everything out on the table because you need to save something for next week.
Its like MMORPG.com, if you have all of your columnists throw out articles on a monday, people could go through and read them all, but you won't have anythingto bring them back during the rest of the week. BioWare has had increasingly active forums for years, its clear that they are looking for those people who want to return often for that next bit of information.
Not to mention, gametesting is still very much in flux right now. More people are getting into testing, and at this point, changes will be made much more often then they had before in regards to balance, combat mechanics, quest objectives, etc. etc.
We're just a few months away from launch, so its the make or break session where they decide - are we committed to this feature? Or do we have to cut it? Its no doubt that there are things in beta that haven't been announced, and on the flip side, there is likely plenty of last minute items that have been announced that have yet been implemented in Beta (such as... say, the legacy system).
And sad to say it, but its unlikely PAX will get the results MMORPG and others are looking for. Yes theres still plenty they haven't released to the public yet, but the newsflash here too, is that not everything is going to be disclosed in regards to the feature list. Sometimes, people will just have to be surprised.
Liked the article.
Huttball... I seriously wonder at times what developers are doing. Drunk or stoned.. both?
Can you seriously see a bunch of Sith and Jedi.. "hey we'll fight over this ball.. and the winner gets the planet." or something like that.
You know I could go on and on just about Huttball and all the "pvp games" like it (capture the flag). As opposed to say DAoC with Fort Capture etc Or how perhaps the PvP "in" a game should actually match the lore of the IP its based on in some way. Or at least make some kind of sense in general... as to why its even going on besides some kind of gear grind.
I guess I'll just stop here and say once again.. liked the article.
I don't think the game is anywhere close to being ready for launch this year. All the signs are there... no launch date, no beta, no big reveals. And yet they opened pre-orders... it's more than weird. If they wouldn't be under EA's wing I'd almost be tempted to say they ran out of money.
I don't want to draw any conclusions, but there are many worrying signs.
Also, when talking about actual features, they better have some hidden cards in their hand, because right now SW:TOR looks like a 2008-2009 MMO.
http://titanfocus.info - news, predictions and place for discussions about Blizzard's upcoming next-gen MMO.
What features are you looking forward to that they haven't spoken about? Gametesting, and beta, has been going on for over a year.... What do you consider a "big reveal"? We've had many over the years SWTOR has been releasing information.
EA? Ran out of money? Bioware? Ran out of money?
LAWLLAWLWALWALLWLALLWALWLLALWLALWLALWLALWLWALLWALWALWLALAWL
Lets do some numbers:
E3 '11 (not open to the public):
Exhibitors: ~200
Visitors: 46.800 (this is Media & Industry only), its not even open to the public.
GamesCom:
Exhibitors: 557
Visitors: 5000 (Media & Industry)
275.000 (Public Visitors)
To be honest, its bigger then E3.
and just to add a bit, EA has said they are looking to give a hard ship date around september. the specualtion is that they want to see how the beta weekend stress test go to make sure their are no major glaring problems by a big influx of players that would need to delay the game.
http://darthhater.com/2011/07/26/electronic-arts-q1-2012-earnings-conference-call/
As we get into the bulk of the summer we're going to be ramping up our beta campaign and by the time we get to around September we'll be in a position to really call the ball give the hard ship date."
Most MMOs have been announced, in term of ship date, 4-8 weeks prior to introduction. That's fairly standard. "People have target quarters, but whether it's World of Warcraft, it was our last launch or Sony's last launch, 4-6 weeks is relatively typical. You usually want to have high-scale testing completed and under your belt before you open it up to the paying consumer because the paying consumer can be very harsh. They have high expectations: perfect performance. That's what we intend to provide at launch."
I honestly don't think Bioware/EA cares as much about Europe as Arenanet does.
Europe was one of GW's biggest markets, so they really make a huge deal of Gamescom.
I just don't get the impression that Bioware is so eager to impress the hell out of Germans. Maybe I'm wrong and they secretly love Europe super bad, and I just don't know that because I don't keep up on SW:TOR that much.
Nothing Earth shattering was revealed because from a marketing stand point they're not playing catch up with any other release as far as hype is concerned. If they do a big release they get press, if they don't do a big release they still get press.
EA/ Bioware clearly realizes the value of the scarcity principle.
Finally a voice of reason amidst all the other bloggers / press that obviously have similar feelings but are to afraid to voice them.
Reward creativity and innovation in games.
I think we do know a lot of things about the game, and maybe that's why we don't get a lot of new informations lately..
And about the space combat and the open pvp.. I have a feeling those two won't make it into the game for launch.. Something tells me they have bad feedbacks about those two in the beta (just speculation, I'm not in beta).. So unless they nail it right in the coming weeks, I won't hold my breath about those two..
I'm still disappointed that random people who've only just signed up on the website and haven't spent a dime are getting beta invites over those of us that have been there for years and have already handed over our money.
Agreed!
I dont think they have plans for world pvp, I dont think there need to be plans beyond just saying you can kill folks in the world. I think bioware is trying too hard to include rewards for every little thing instead of just making a game to play. I also feel like no matter what bioware does some people are gonna be mad at them, release too much info make people mad, see the whole same gender relationship debate, they gave too much information. dont release enough info you get this article and im sure others and there will be a couple thousand page thread complaining about the lack of information. bioware has become the new blizzard for the haters and most of the mmo populace.
I dont really think they need to release any more information personally, seems the hype puppies are frothing at the mouth anyway for the game, no real reason to hype it anymore. most people have made their mind up, I wont be getting it personally because im tired of wow and games like it with the whole gear grind and gear gating but im sure plenty of people are gonna buy it. i seriously doubt anybody is gonna be swayed to buy this game or not buy this game from a convention release. anybody that goes to these conventions have at least heard about this game, so no real reason to hype at a convention imo.
Looking at things right now its hard to see how they will make a 2011 launch date
"TTH: Can you talk a little bit about PvP objectives?
Emmanuel Lusinchi: A little bit. So, we have different kinds of PvP. The one you’re mentioning with objectives is the open-world PvP, I suppose.
The world PvP: you queue for it and we try to match a similar amount of players.
-We scale your power to a certain extent that we prefer to match players of the same levels.
-We also want people to play PvP rather than wait forever for a match that is never going to come.
-We have a system of match-making that can match you with people who are not your level, but everybody is kind of boosted to level 50 power.
-We try to minimize its impact, but it’s more about your skill rather than your level. Of course, the higher level the player, the more tools they have and they will have an advantage, but it won’t be overwhelming which is important.
PvP is very important for some players and is a valid way of playing the game. You’re spending time and are in the game. If we did not reward you in an equivalent manner if you were playing PvE, then you would be wasting your time. That would make it just so much harder for anyone to do PvP.
-So we give you experience, we give you credits, and we give you valor, which are unique skills that are administered in PvP and are not linked leveling in any way, but just how well you are doing in PvP. We give you tokens to let you buy various sets of PvP equipment at different levels.
It’s not every level, but there’s a great level 20 set and there’s a really great level 50 set. It’s a good way to play the game if that’s what you aim to.
-Of course, a player can just stay forever and only do that, but we think that there’ll be more balance than that. They’ll want to progress as a character through the story and do this as downtime, but it’ll be up to the player.
-Now, with open world PvP, we have objectives that can just happen naturally – you run into players of another faction and you can just attack them, especially on PvP servers.
-But we also have special places where there are objectives.
-Fulfilling the objectives will give you some tokens as well, which are different from the warzone tokens.
-They can be exchanged for each other, but not a favorable rate so that we encourage you to do both forms of PvP, but we don’t force you to do both forms of PvP.
-The reason why we have objectives in the open world for open world PvP is a) to focus the player as they know that there will players on the other side who is trying to do this objective, which is great.
-It’s a big universe, where do you fight otherwise? Not only does it let us focus them, it allows us to focus them in the right way, because if you put every player on the server onto one spot, it never works very well for many reasons: technical, gameplay, visual effects.
-It spreads them though the clever design of objectives and the clever design of what you need to do. It gives us control, but it’s also out of control because it’s open world."
Source: http://swtor.tentonhammer.com/featured-post/gamescom-interview-with-emmanuel-lusinchi/
from gamescom during a q&a with stephen reid:
One person asked if there was going to be Open World PvP. The answer again was “Yes,” but he added that next week (guessing PAX) there will be a big announcement about Open World PvP.
http://torwars.com/2011/08/20/exclusive-gamescom-report-bens-alderaan-pvp-impressions-trooper-origin-hands-on/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torwars+%28TORWars%29
also from an interview at gamesom:
Now, with open world PvP, we have objectives that can just happen naturally you run into players of another faction and you can just attack them, especially on PvP servers. But we also have special places where there are objectives. Fulfilling the objectives will give you some tokens as well, which are different from the warzone tokens. They can be exchanged for each other, but not a favorable rate so that we encourage you to do both forms of PvP, but we dont force you to do both forms of PvP. The reason why we have objectives in the open world for open world PvP is a) to focus the player as they know that there will players on the other side who is trying to do this objective, which is great. Its a big universe, where do you fight otherwise? Not only does it let us focus them, it allows us to focus them in the right way, because if you put every player on the server onto one spot, it never works very well for many reasons: technical, gameplay, visual effects. It spreads them though the clever design of objectives and the clever design of what you need to do. It gives us control, but its also out of control because its open world.
http://swtor.tentonhammer.com/featured-post/gamescom-interview-with-emmanuel-lusinchi/
so sounds to me like they are still planning for it to be in for launch. as for spcae combat, as of comic con they were still talking about. i just think that because it is considered a mini game, its not something they hype much. but i do agree with Mike that it would be a neat thing for them to allow playable at the conventions