In one of this reviewer's positive statement about SWTOR, I think he completely summed up the primary reason why I wound up not liking SWTOR:
I'm no longer making my own fun by treating the world like a toybox. BioWare's story leads me back to the beginning, and I have no idea where it'll push me from there because I'm not driving the action.
That's exciting for an MMO. I've felt the same way in plenty of single-player games, but never online with others around.
The reviewer is basically saying that being led around by a story in an MMO is "exciting." To be honest, I didn't see this at all. It felt no different to me than an SPRPG, and in fact, was often inferior to a story driven SPRPG experience.
After all, in an SPRPG, the story gets delivered in a fairly consistent manner without much need for grinding or boring side quests unless you feel like it. But in SWTOR, you are FORCED to grind or do side quests in order to advance the story.
I honestly just do not see how this is better than an SPRPG.
The problem with SWTOR (IMO) is that it is a lackluster MMORPG and a lackluster SPRPG, and neither of these parts work together to make a better cohesive game.
Absolutely agree it's not better and forced grinding is just a sad antique tactic used by sub only games to force players to play longer and keep the subs coming. If grinding were removed people wouldn't be forced to login to progress they just might actually want to login to progress. There is a difference. The sooner the sub only model dies the better because on that day mmo gamers will rejoice everywhere because the quality of the game and not the popularity of the IP will be the driving force in the devs and managers concerns for the games success and companies will no longer be able to throw a piece of poo at the players and expect people not complain.
I think that's the first time I've seen a serious reviewer give a bad opinion, although he did hide it well. He basically goes on about his story at the start, then comes to the realisation that the story is going to end and then all he's got to do is grind flashpoints and warzones for the rest of his life.
Compared to every other themepark MMO where after you reach max level you do something else than grind heroic zones, raids and pvp zones?
Bah wait I stand corrected ....in EQ2 we can now farm tokens from player dungeons . Woopi !
Like a friend said "I tried to cure stupidity but got resisted" .
so because all the other MMOs are a boring gear grind at endgame it excuses this game? Sorry but I would expect a tiny bit more from big name devs with deep pickets... games should be pushing a genre forward especially ones with this sort of hype, they shouldn't strive for mediocrity which seems to be what everyone is saying was there PLAN all along
And that is what is laughable with most of the negative posts I have read . God knows that their a tradition in MMORPG.com to have longwinded threads about a newly released MMO with people defending and attacking a game . I have been a defender of many games in the past . But I don't think I have ever witnessed such lame attacks as those SWTOR is taking .
It becomes a grindfest ? No shit ! ..... You seriously wanna keep up with criticizing an MMO for being a grindfest. Seriously now . You don't want to think it over. You wanna keep coming at it .
Why would you cut away the story? That is the main selling point of the game. That reviewer got it right...the story is awesome, but when it ends, it ends. It needs to end to be a story.
I'd cut away the story to reveal the actual game. As much as the presentation of the story is nice and all, it's still just 'fluff'. You could replace it with text or with actual movies acted by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. At the end of the cutscenes however, you're back to playing the game and if the game isn't up to par then it doesn't really matter how good the story is.
It's like putting an amazing story into a game like Space Invaders, lots of aliens, heroes fighting back and fore, then that scene ends and you're back to moving left and right shooting at steadily advancing aliens. If story is the main selling point of the game then why even sell it as a game at all? Remove the game and just have an interactive story book.
If we apply this logic to Planescape Torment, it is an awful game.
lolwut?
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Yep, and it's time gamers learn to identify bling before the buy. It's a whole lot easier designing a game for box sales instead of longevity.
I actually think that is the primary goal (box sales), with the subscriptions just being some extra bonus. It doesn't seem many games are being designed to retain subsbers, imo.
Seems like they are back in reality....I mean they did give swtor in a review a rating of 9.0 - amazing game.
But hey, ratings mean not much ....just look on mmorpg.com. City heroes have a higher rating than world of warcraft....lol
It's kind of ironic, it seems that a lot of times people are only saying that certain ratings don't mean much when they don't reflect those person's personal viewpoint, the whole 'only ratings and reviews that completely agree with my own opinion are right, all others are worthless' attitude.
Originally posted by Loekii
Originally posted by Zekiah
Yep, and it's time gamers learn to identify bling before the buy. It's a whole lot easier designing a game for box sales instead of longevity.
I actually think that is the primary goal (box sales), with the subscriptions just being some extra bonus. It doesn't seem many games are being designed to retain subsbers, imo.
I disagree, I think it's far too shortsighted. Of course MMO companies want MMO gamers to sub for their game, after all 3-4 months of subbing is the equivalent of selling 1 copy of the game and 2 months of subbing already equals the profit of selling 1 copy. But let's be realistic here: leveling to level cap in WoW is done within a week or 2, 3. Yet a lot of MMO gamers have stayed subbed to WoW for years. That's one hell of a retention, and WoW achieved that with only offering instanced battlegrounds, dungeons and raid content as main form of entertainment. So what are MMO developers to conclude about such results?
It isn't as if WoW was unique in this: look at other AAA themepark MMO's, and you'll see that they manage to keep a whole lot of players subbed for many months to years.
Sandbox fans and those who have become jaded might hate this and clamor for more features that they want and need to be able to enjoy MMO gameplay, but the facts over the years have been that AAA themepark MMO's have had a lot higher retention than some had hoped them to have, or pretended to ignore that successful retention.
So no, history has shown that the themepark design model has proven to be quite successful to retain subscribers, even if that model isn't what some MMO gamers prefer or like.
If they added a cinematic story to Space Invaders, you'd have a point. They didn't add a cinematic story to Space Invaders. They added a cinematic story to a theme park mmorpg set in the Star Wars universe.
Saying the game without the story is sub par makes no sense because the story is the game. What would the Star Wars movies be without the stories? Random action sequences with some special effects. The new movies would be random action sequences with much flashier special effects.
Star Wars movies are just that.. movies. TOR is first and foremost a game, and if the game fails in so many areas, then throwing $100 million of voice overs at it isn't going to help. You can't have the story as the game, you don't play a story, you watch it like a movie and make minor, mostly inconsequential, choices throughout. That's not a game. The themepark part of TOR is the game and that's the problem, the game is a mess.
A lot of the same people I saw bashing TOR for months, ended up buying and playing the game, perpetuating the cycle by giving the company what they wanted-your money. It was obvious from the devs descriptions of the game and all the beta info that the story was the only intersting thing about the game-that the rest was average to below average. So why not make a statement with your money and not buy it? I grew up loving Sw and had friends trying to get me to play, but I didnt think it would be something i liked-too single-playerish. So i didn't buy-waited to hear more about it, which turned out to be not so good. I know we get bored waiting for new games to launch, but if players want a different game to be developed they need to stop buying the type they don't like.
I've been having fun with the game, but I'm really starting to get tired of all the rookie maneuvers BioWare is pulling. Now the've got the servers shut down on a Friday night for godsakes. Perhaps not so bad, but I was also in the middle of one of the worst-designed quests I've ever experienced in my ten years of gaming. If all of my progress is lost because of this downtime, I'll be super p.o'd.
They're not building any confidence with me as I continue to play unfortunately.
So many of its defenders cry about the wonderful stories and voice overs, but cut that away and it's just another themepark MMO, and not a very good one at that.
Take away the best part or two of any game and you'll have that.
That is why, it is no better than any other of the failing mmo's
... or the succeeding ones. Or... video games in general.
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Comments
Absolutely agree it's not better and forced grinding is just a sad antique tactic used by sub only games to force players to play longer and keep the subs coming. If grinding were removed people wouldn't be forced to login to progress they just might actually want to login to progress. There is a difference. The sooner the sub only model dies the better because on that day mmo gamers will rejoice everywhere because the quality of the game and not the popularity of the IP will be the driving force in the devs and managers concerns for the games success and companies will no longer be able to throw a piece of poo at the players and expect people not complain.
And that is what is laughable with most of the negative posts I have read . God knows that their a tradition in MMORPG.com to have longwinded threads about a newly released MMO with people defending and attacking a game . I have been a defender of many games in the past . But I don't think I have ever witnessed such lame attacks as those SWTOR is taking .
It becomes a grindfest ? No shit ! ..... You seriously wanna keep up with criticizing an MMO for being a grindfest. Seriously now . You don't want to think it over. You wanna keep coming at it .
Keep up the entertainment guys .
If we apply this logic to Planescape Torment, it is an awful game.
lolwut?
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Didnt see this coming.
I actually think that is the primary goal (box sales), with the subscriptions just being some extra bonus. It doesn't seem many games are being designed to retain subsbers, imo.
Seems like they are back in reality....I mean they did give swtor in a review a rating of 9.0 - amazing game.
But hey, ratings mean not much ....just look on mmorpg.com. City heroes have a higher rating than world of warcraft....lol
It's kind of ironic, it seems that a lot of times people are only saying that certain ratings don't mean much when they don't reflect those person's personal viewpoint, the whole 'only ratings and reviews that completely agree with my own opinion are right, all others are worthless' attitude.I actually think that is the primary goal (box sales), with the subscriptions just being some extra bonus. It doesn't seem many games are being designed to retain subsbers, imo.
I disagree, I think it's far too shortsighted. Of course MMO companies want MMO gamers to sub for their game, after all 3-4 months of subbing is the equivalent of selling 1 copy of the game and 2 months of subbing already equals the profit of selling 1 copy. But let's be realistic here: leveling to level cap in WoW is done within a week or 2, 3. Yet a lot of MMO gamers have stayed subbed to WoW for years. That's one hell of a retention, and WoW achieved that with only offering instanced battlegrounds, dungeons and raid content as main form of entertainment. So what are MMO developers to conclude about such results?
It isn't as if WoW was unique in this: look at other AAA themepark MMO's, and you'll see that they manage to keep a whole lot of players subbed for many months to years.
Sandbox fans and those who have become jaded might hate this and clamor for more features that they want and need to be able to enjoy MMO gameplay, but the facts over the years have been that AAA themepark MMO's have had a lot higher retention than some had hoped them to have, or pretended to ignore that successful retention.
So no, history has shown that the themepark design model has proven to be quite successful to retain subscribers, even if that model isn't what some MMO gamers prefer or like.Star Wars movies are just that.. movies. TOR is first and foremost a game, and if the game fails in so many areas, then throwing $100 million of voice overs at it isn't going to help. You can't have the story as the game, you don't play a story, you watch it like a movie and make minor, mostly inconsequential, choices throughout. That's not a game. The themepark part of TOR is the game and that's the problem, the game is a mess.
A lot of the same people I saw bashing TOR for months, ended up buying and playing the game, perpetuating the cycle by giving the company what they wanted-your money. It was obvious from the devs descriptions of the game and all the beta info that the story was the only intersting thing about the game-that the rest was average to below average. So why not make a statement with your money and not buy it? I grew up loving Sw and had friends trying to get me to play, but I didnt think it would be something i liked-too single-playerish. So i didn't buy-waited to hear more about it, which turned out to be not so good. I know we get bored waiting for new games to launch, but if players want a different game to be developed they need to stop buying the type they don't like.
I've been having fun with the game, but I'm really starting to get tired of all the rookie maneuvers BioWare is pulling. Now the've got the servers shut down on a Friday night for godsakes. Perhaps not so bad, but I was also in the middle of one of the worst-designed quests I've ever experienced in my ten years of gaming. If all of my progress is lost because of this downtime, I'll be super p.o'd.
They're not building any confidence with me as I continue to play unfortunately.
... or the succeeding ones. Or... video games in general.
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