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SWTOR: MMO Simulacrum
SurrealFieUp
Member UncommonPosts: 19
After many disappointing hours of game play during this weekend's SWTOR Beta, I expected to read a plethora of scathing reviews this morning. I was sadly disappointed. There is so much potential to create immersion of unparallelled proportion with this title. If this Beta build is indicative of the final product however, I can say that SWTOR will fall very far from that tree. BioWare has provided a game that panders to the almighty corporate bottom line, and has succumb to the ease of making a product that resembles many other existing products. They have not done nearly enough to tear the throne from under the ruling champion of the MMO world. Which is too bad, I was really looking forward to becoming a convert.
From a visual perspective, SWTOR does not leap out as a marvel of technical achievement. The texture and skins used to create the worlds were all very familiar. If anything they represented a step or two back in the world of gaming. The layout and architecture of building interiors repetitive to the extreme. The editing of story line cut sequences could have been better done by my fourth grader with her rudimentary knowledge of editing techniques. The list goes on and on. Apart from the ability to make overweight toons, a first from any game that I have ever seen, I give the Visual Design Department of SWTOR an R for Re-Roll.
Textures and skins are a blatant design flaw in SWTOR. Look at World of Tanks, their maps are not that large, but by applying some simple technique to the atmosphere and horizon they make the world appear to go on far beyond the limited game-play area. Through texturing both background and foreground the eye can be fooled into seeing depth to the point where one can almost feel the dimensions of the surroundings. There did not appear to be any attempt to do that in this Beta-build. I was flying the taxi over the city-scape of Nar Shaddaa. Everything seemed very flat. The creators tried to combine Los Angeles from Blade Runner and the insane vertical sprawl of New York as envisioned in The Fifth Element, only the visual feast never materializes because of the lack of depth or grunge. Under Nar Shaddaa City, plenty of tunnels and corridors beckon players to explore. My advice is to keep your finger on the M button though, you'll need the map often. Every hallway looks just like the other hallways. Didn't matter which side of the city map I was on, it felt like I was at the same place I had just left. There were a couple of piles of trash behind one dumpster, but not the mounds of garbage one might expect in the lower forgotten areas of the old city. There were no rusting pipes, no moldy moss hanging from the ceilings or slime coating the floors. Everything looked like the same generic tunnel over and over. Bah-humbug, since this is going to be a near X-Mas release, that seems like an appropriate expression for the game's lack of flavor.
There were towering sky-scrapers in Dromund Kaas, I could see they were tall, but they didn't feel tall. They didn't seem to stretch on into the stars. Which is really the point of making a building tall. Nor was there any reason for them to be tall. All of the quests were on the first floor. And even then, the offices had no windows to just look out and marvel at everything below. Pity that they didn't invent windows or elevators in that Galaxy Far Far Away.
Wow hey, look at that! It's another space port! Or is it? I mean really, how hard is it to change up the layout of a space-port. From the look of things, REALLY HARD. And also not a priority to the people at BioWare. The platform above the terminal did get an additional robot kiosk when I landed at Mos Eisley, but it was the same building as the previous three or four space-ports I'd landed in so I wasn't that impressed. Also, why isn't there a path available to go straight outside after I climb the first stair-way? Why must I run around this central wall every single time? Impediments to the flow of running to my objective really piss me off. And then once I got outside I had to stop and ask myself where I was. Mos Eisley didn't look anything like, MOS EISLEY. I mean really, really? Has no one at BioWare ever seen Episode IV? I know that the game's time-line happen centuries before Luke and all, but still, there weren't even geographical similarities to the city Obi-Wan points out from the ridge overlooking the city. C'est la vie, I guess.
But back to city lay-outs. What a nightmare. New Kaas city was filled with traps, walls and barriers to the smooth flow of getting from one place to another. When you first run up the hill past the taxi station, turn right go down the stairs. There is this big building right in the way, same as the wall in the space-ports. WHY IS IT THERE!?! As you run around it, there aren't any quest givers along the way, there aren't any vendors along the way, there are no class trainers, or people walking their dogs, or statues to gawk at. The point to running down the stairs and around the building and a really long way to the other end of the city to pick up your first quest, which requires you to run to the other side of the city, only to complete something really stupid, then run back, is just as pointless and as obnoxious as this run-on sentence, only I designed this sentence this way to prove a point. Why did BioWare design their city that way? Who knows. Only historians of societies failed games will ever truly know. Why can't the taxi from the space-port run all the way to New Kaas City? Why is it necessary for my toon to have to stop short of the city every single time and need to run quite a ways to reach the location of the next taxi stand in the middle of the city? If it is designed to make me waste 40 extra minutes per city, which eventually adds up to an extra month's worth of subscription time, then I guess you have succeeded at your task. You earned that extra $15 but lost my appreciation for anything EA in the accomplishment.
There are other great examples of time wasters. One bounty hunter quest ends after you kill a guy in Nar Shaddaa, and when you turn it in, the next quest is to go back to Dromund Kaas. Take the taxi to almost Kaas City, run to the next taxi, and take that to the far end of the map, just to get a 15 second summation of your next quest which is on Hutta. And after you complete the Hutta quest, you have to go back to Droumund Kaas? All of that could have easily been accomplished via holo. But, they need that $15 don't forget, so prepare to jump through hoops all over the place so they can be sure to get it.
That brings me to the story line cut scenes. Holy-terrible-editing-Robin! The conversations held with all of the quest givers are run like mini movies. But in the sequences everything is a jump cut. This is because all of the NPC's are standing three feet from you. But let me digress, I'll get to the standing subject in just a tad. Where was I? Oh yeah, back and forth from close-up of an NPC to close-up of the winner of the social roll. I reached level 26 through the time allotted and every single time I had to accept a quest I cringed at the prospect of seeing another cut scene. They were all exactly the same. There was only one wide shot and perhaps two medium shots used in that entire time-span of four days. It gets monotonous having to snap back and forth, back and forth, from face to face, over and over again. There were no extended medium long shots where all of the characters and the quest giver were in frame for more than three seconds. Any film school can train your staff in the rudimentary basics of editing. Think about some wide shots showing the profiles of everyone involved. An over the shoulder shot of my toon at the NPC giving the quest. A bird's eye view of something off in the distance related to the story. A reaction to an incoming artillery barrage that is intercepted by the station's defenses. Hell there are any number of combinations, but mix it up FFS.
It would be nice if everyone wasn't always just standing around too. No one slouches, you cater to fat people by allowing them to make overweight toons, but not a hunchbacks? That's just bigoted. Why can't we see the toons turning in a quest, licking their wounds from the boss fight they have just managed to succeed at. Or fixing gear that was damaged in the chaos of being attacked by an army of inferiors. You'd think someone could add a scene where they were still rubbing out the sore spots, or tying a shoe lace, or typing in notes on their iPad because of short memory, perhaps just adjusting the scope on their blaster. But no, everyone standing around looking tough, that is much better for sales, somehow. Why are all of the quest-givers standing up? Heck, when I go into the bosses office he's usually reclined in his executive chair. Not standing in front of his desk, he's working and reading notes, or typing into the computer, he has functionality beyond just talking to me. Only one guy in the whole game seemed to have anything to do, I mad Sith scientist on Dromund Kaas, who was tapping away at some instruments when you arrive at his tent. But none of the NPC's were sitting in chairs! I got to the point where I liked seeing someone on the floor scrubbing some stain, that unfortunately wasn't there, but I imagined as blood. Too bad they were scrubbing floor parts of the floor that looked like all the rest of the floors, they still have lots of work to do.
It's the same with the NPC enemy mobs. I'm roving around in my speeder through Tatooine, and lo and behold there are robots and what not, just standing around in the middle of the desert. What the block are they just standing there for? If they are lying in wait for the enemy to come, shouldn't a few of them be in a prone position looking down their blaster barrel? Shouldn't some be up in the hills ready to snipe anything that passes there way? Ever played COD or Modern Warfare? See how everyone is kneeling in a bush, or crawling on all fours to avoid detection? Every other MMO out there has their enemy mobs just standing around, it's stupid to assume that our brains can't handle finding and fighting mobs that are dug in and hidden from view like a real Op-For would be. Personally, I find it offensive that game manufacturers won't allow games in general to evolve into more realistic simulations of combat scenarios.
I was fighting a large spider boss in Hammer Station. It stood high off the ground on five long legs that supported its cylindrical body. My toon could have easily walked right under it, so it was at least five meters tall. As my Bounty Hunter shot at it, however, all of the shots, every single one of them, was aimed at the floor beneath the body of the boss. The shots weren't even aimed at one of the five legs. Boring. There was a Sith Assassin with us, wielding his mighty double ended light saber. Only when he swung the light-saber, the graphic was exactly the same every time, swipe right: high-hit; swing left: low hit. I know that no other game has more enthusiastic stances or swing hit graphics, but in SWTOR with bright light-sabers the repetitive nature of this attack will quickly grate even the most tranquil of nerves. Darth Maul, had his saber twirling and spinning, couldn't we see something like that every five moves or so? Add some intuitive graphic of the saber blade blocking incoming fire from time to time? Or is that just too much to ask?
I realize that this whole review is probably a bit much to ask at this late stage of development. And even then probably all moot. Maybe there is a chance that the brief glimpse over this weekend's playing was all just a condensed version of the final release. At this point I have grave doubts about that, but I will keep my fingers crossed in any case.
Comments
I have to admit that I had to google "Simulacrum"
Very good choice of words OP.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Thats one huge wall of text...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I've got to be honest I was absolutely 100% certain I would find no enjoyment in SWTOR. I finally got a beta key for this weekend and said what the hell. Within 10 minutes of playing I decided to purchase. To me it was that good. It's not that there's anything amazingly innovative about the game. It's simply the presentation of familiar elements in a superior fashion. The strongest example of this IMO is questing. The voice overs and cut scenes (which prior to playing I didn't give 2 shits about) actually made what is ordinarily an absolutely boring experience one that immediately grabbed and held my attention.
I also thought the graphics would be abyssmal but the game actually looked quite nice even on my laptop that's running a Nividia 9600M (maybe equivalent to the PC's 8800). So there you have it - 100% sure I was not going to buy this title - 5 minutes in game and I've done a 180.
*Just to clarify I did not preorder and do not plan to play at launch as I've grown to dislike MMO launches, but I will definitely be purchasing the title in the future. Also beta'ing the greatest game I've ever played Super Monday Night Combat is eating up all my time.
Steam: Neph
i agree with most of the review and mirrors most of my experience over the beta weekened.. but like I mentioned in my post about them making KOTOR 3 this game is set in the star wars universe. That fact alone means no matter how crappy it actual is it will be at least a success for a little while. It just depends on which direction they take the game that will determine if people with stick around for 6 month+. The story is only going to keep people for so long and the depth from what Iv'e seen is REALLY lacking.. well see i love star wars and hope it's a success but from what I played in the beta weekend im pretty dissapointed considering the budget they supposivley spent in making the game.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
So you're upset that not everyone hated the game as much as you? That's mature.
I tried to read your post. I really did. Break up those blocks of text into paragraphs and I'll give it another try. Thanks.
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he did for the most part..
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
I enjoy the chance to create constructive feedback for the Devs. This morning as I read through ppl's first impressions of the beta build, I was dissapointed that more people hadnt shared in this desire. I believe such discourse is necessary to better the gaming community. Sometimes criticism and harsh language is required to open eyes. This was one of those cases. Instead of being satisfied with any old thing that is rolled out, more people should shout their desires, and see to it that those grievances have been addressed before comitting any allegiance or loyalty. I am happy to hear that your level of sophistication nullifies the need for such an outlet. Remember that insanity is continuing to do the exact same thing again and again, while expecting different results.
This is a very good point with which I agree, and many professionals too.
Good OP writeup btw.
Yeah it must be that people's "level of sophistication" (ie their stupidity) caused them to not express their problems with the game. It couldn't be that they actually enjoyed it right? Because since you're so smart and sophisticated if someone doesn't share your opinion they must be wrong. Way to talk down to people and sound like a condescending ass.
Btw all the points in your OP have been made about 10,000x before and have already been debated to death long before First Impressions and the drop of the NDA. Raising complaints at this point isn't going to make a lick of difference anyway because the game ships 12/20/11. Not to mention the fact that Bioware has basically made it clear that they're going to make this game however they want regardless of feedback and who they might offend by disregarding it (ex: space on rails, no non-human playable aliens, etc.).
Steam: Neph
Basically, we should complain to get what we want? Sure we could do that, but why diminish something we enjoyed playing. I've been in beta for many months, it was clear what people were asking for, and a lot of it didn't come from unrealistic expectations, which I felt a number of your points were.
These are things that you wanted to see, not necessarily what others wanted. You mention MW3... yet MW3 is just the same old rehash of every war shooter known to man.
BioWare had a specific vision on what they wanted to create, my job as a tester was to provide feedback and bug reports on those features to get those features ready to ship. While my displeasure with things such as space combat was barely acknowledged and unchanged, little, modest tweaks were, all for the sake of getting the game in ship-ready condition.
You don't have to be satisfied with the game, you don't have to like it, or play it, but you'll be hurting yourself more than anyone else to have unrealistic expectations when playing ... well... any game. Wish for the stars, just don't expect them.
If you look at the TOR beta forums, MMORPG.com, or other websites its not just the problem that people don't agree with the OP.
Enjoyment is subjective, but if you look at most positive feedback the game is treated like it has no flaws at all, none. Which by definition can not be possible. There is no such thing as a perfect game.
The OP may be harsher on it than others but at least he is criticizing, not just gushing over the game.
As a dev I would take harsh, focused critique any day over 10/10 reviews and people who think the game is perfect. The devs themselves know that their game isn't perfect. The point of critique is to highlight the areas of critique.
You can enjoy a game but just giving feedback in "this is a great game, I enjoy it and plan on buying it!" isn't telling anyone anything of value. Its only shouting your opinion into the aether.
Sometimes I ponder why people even bother to write reviews without any critique in them.
If you had checked the beta forums you would see the developers focus test everything, and we get a number of good constructive critiques.
I do, however, agree that no game is perfect, though I disagree that a complete scathing review is better than something with a positive outlook. Its all a matter of perception.
What I will say is this though, BioWare built this game over years of feedback, and it IS unfortunate that the feedback was mostly positive. It shows that the reason the game was built how it was, is simply due to players liking what they played. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, people complain about nothing new or exciting happening in the genre, but its a mixed signal when you get a lot of positive feedback over features that the supposed "majority" doesn't want.
OP was an interesting read, thanks.
Not a bad read but I disagree with most of your WOT. And welcome to the site newcomer
So is there any problem in enjoying the game? It has some things to polish, not everything was made to suit my personnal taste also, but I had a lot of fun in beta... Does this mean I am not sophisticated or anything like that?
That's fine but there is (literally) a time and place for different types of critiques. The time to constructively criticize fundamental pre-alpha design choices (art style, basic landscape choices, etc.) is long past. We are 2+ weeks away from launch. There is no one on the Dev side that has any time at the moment to listen to even critiques like "There's somethig wrong with the last cut-scene in the Esseles: after the hyperjump, the Empire ship can still be seen through the window" (real bug, btw.) They are in server-load/stress debug mode at the moment.
Some time after launch they'll once again have time to start stamping-out bugs and some time after that they can start looking at improvements.
A wall'otext "review" as in this thread, at this particular point in time, serves little purpose to influence the game one way or the other. As such, the whole thing can be boiled down to "Meh, didn't like it. Won't play." Which is fine but don't tell us about the inherent superiority of negative criticism: some is just long-winded flatulence.
A "review" such as this one may be seen as a constructive message to the developers on what they can do to improve the game. But it could also be motivated by a desire to illustrate for us that the writer's taste is refined beyond that of the typical MMO unwashed and that he has command of the English language, or some other motive.
Personally I saw a lot of hyperbole and over-emphatic descriptions of game play insde confined spaces of over-developed worlds with a lot of right angles and maze-like corridors. I guess he didn't play on some of the wide open expanses of ruined worlds nor the multple story, multilevel places, complete with the elevators he couldn't find, that I also quested in.
The worlds I played in fit the SWTOR universe I expected just fine. And unlike the OP I don't want there to be some distant landscapes to provide the illusion of a deep large world and to be able to use those distant large buildings as well... I actually got a kick out of his complaints about the extra scenery not being there and then also being there but not playable.
Anyway...first post here ever by this particular OP giving "honest" feedback. I don't know about you but internet viral marketting being what it is, I tend to dismiss highly opinionated first posts by anyone until I know that they are not coming from someone with a stake on swaying the conversation one way or the other... I'm not saying that this is definitely a Blizzard employee using a pseudonym to trash a competitor since I don't know this for a fact
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
For some reason, ¨the haters¨ or people who didnt like swtor, is just the vocal minority, i wonder why?. Maybe the people who found just a lot of fun playing the game, i cant wait to play even more, like me, is just wrong.
So in essence, if we criticize the game before it comes out its:
"You didn't even play yet!!!"
If we criticize the game in beta:
"Its not done yet, but its pointless to criticize it for things that are already done!!!!"
If we criticize the game after release:
"Why do you play it if you don't like it!!!!????"
Is there really a "right time"?
Some people were there to criticize before alpha, some during alpha some in early beta and throughout beta. Everyone, their grandmother and their dog were just let in for a very late wekeend beta that was about stress testing and nothing more. If you were willing to do a 20 GB DL, you got to also get a first look at the game...bonus!
All I'm hearing is some weekend beta testers criticizing early design choices and some deeming that criticism useful feedback because it's negative and negative is better than positive.
I'm failing to see the useful or constructive part of criticizing ships that sailed long ago from a dev point of view.
If you agree with the OP well fine agree with him. Just don't try to educate us--as a dev, of course--on the superiority of negative criticism in a thread that is not about constructive criticism at all but rather about giving an overly-wordy, exagerated, overall negative impression of the whole enchilada... for some unknown reason.
And by the way, I said time AND place...the place would be over yonder on the beta forums. Better chance of influencing devs over there if that's your real intention, don't you think?
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I've found that this method of delivering criticism tends to close ears as quickly as it opens eyes.
Past that... The method of determining satisfaction in this product came about multiple times during your beta gameplay session as they asked regularly during quest arc completions and before you logged out.
One hopes you made them aware of your opinions on their shortcomings in that venue.
I, personally, do not share your opinions on the game in general as I don't require "hyper immersion" just a really good story. I do agree that there are some things needed to breathe life into the game that weren't present in the beta, but my own wishes rather echo many who have already postedon the subject.
I too was not sure that I would like the game. I am a fan of the movies and story. I do like space games (not too often). When I play an rpg it is always a fantasy rpg with wizards, etc. BUT the more I toyed with the game and then stuck with one class the more I felt a part of the world I was playing. The class storyline was well crafted and made me feel like I was helping to shape the world around me. I didn't rush through the individual story because in many mmos I tried to get to end game fast and hit only what was going to gear me to get there. The very fact that thousand apon thousands of hours must have been used to voice act EVERY quest (yes you do not have to read much at all in quest text) impressed me greatly. Instead of skipping through a quest story I enjoyed the story being acted out infront of me. Most mmos I click a bunch of texted quest boxes from npcs and open my map to see where I needed to go. Unless it was a main storyline quest i rarely read them.
I have to say I had an absolute blast playing this weekend and I'm really looking forward to launch, but the OP has some legitimate critisms there - the game does have room for improvement.
As much as I enjoyed it, I can see why people might be disappointed: sadly, it does fall short of awesome, and it really ought to be awesome.
I hope they keep the full development staff on for a good while yet, and don't go into ticking over mode straight after launch.
+1
agree 100%
Paragraphing is overrated.